From foxmoth at qnet.com Sat Apr 1 00:21:11 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 00:21:11 -0000 Subject: Snape as infidel was Re: Kant and Snape and Ethics and Everything In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150337 Nora: I get the suspicion that if Snape is to live, he's going to have to have some kind of concession scene. Pippin: Oh dear, supercessionism. Let's just say that I don't think you have to agree 100% with Dumbledore's philosophy to prefer it in every respect to Lord Voldemort's. Likewise Dumbledore need not demand 100% agreement with his precepts in order to trust that his followers are not Voldemortists. In any case the most excellent moral philosophy does not guarantee the morality of the person who espouses it. There's that little problem of living up to our beliefs which most of us have. > > Betsy Hp: > > This... It bothers me a bit. I think part of it is the idea that > > the Gryffindors are somehow *better* than the other houses. That > > they've got the best ideals. Also, it seems to go against the > > healing of the rift concept. If the houses need to come together, > > shouldn't they all be morally equal? Pippin: If you've chosen your religion, or your moral philosophy, or your House, you probably do think it's better than the others. Otherwise you'd have chosen something else. A philosophy of tolerance must take this into account, or it's useless for the real world, IMO. But the excellence of a religion or a philosophy or a House tells us nothing about the virtues of the individuals who belong to it, or even of the group as a whole, which may be under the influence of the worst of its members. The Gryffindors have no grounds to assume their superiority over anybody just because they're Gryffindors. Nobody is guilty or innocent by association. Nora: > > The whole "I hoped Professor Snape would be able to get over..." > speech at the end of OotP seemed to me, at least, to be a hope not > only for the specific actions (that Snape would come to see Harry as > a person in and of himself and maybe even love him like Dumbledore > obviously does), but that those actions would actually be a deep > change in Snape's perspective on life. Pippin: But Dumbledore blames Snape's lack of recovery on Snape's wounds not on his choices and there is no hint that he considers it a moral failure of Snape's. Harry thinks that Snape's hatred sabotaged the occlumency lesson, drove Sirius to the Ministry and made him kill Dumbledore, but there is ample canon for disputing this and for seeing Harry as having scapegoated Snape as infidels have always been scapegoated. Indeed in HBP we learned that their roots of the tragedy overtaking the wizarding world go back centuries, far beyond Voldemort. And though the series is about choices, if our choices are important it is because they can affect the course of the future and others besides ourselves. But that means that the choices of the past and of other people can affect us too. Pippin From Sherry at PebTech.net Sat Apr 1 00:21:53 2006 From: Sherry at PebTech.net (Sherry) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 00:21:53 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore MAY be alive.... and his name may be Godric Gryffindor In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150338 Amontillada: There seems to be some confusion about one particular point here. First, the excerpt from the original theory by Glykonix: >>>"How could Dumbledore have made Harry go to Gryffindor when he had not even spoken to the kid you'll say. By sending Hagrid, that's how." > Mike: > > > Next your theory on why Hagrid fetched Harry, well that is very > > easy. One, the person needn't blend in with the muggles since the > > Dursleys went to someplace secluded.... > > Geoff: > I don't follow your arguments here.... > > The Dursleys are not in a secluded place. They are in a small suburban development; the > road which is used in the "media which dare not speak its name" is very typical of housing > developments on the periphery of many towns and cities in the UK. Also, the meeting > between Dumbledore, McGonagall and Hagrid occurs in the dark. > .... > > The fact that Hagrid is a daunting character had no bearing on the arrival of Harry at Privet > Drive; this particular talent wasn't needed until he came to the Hut-on-the-Rock ten years > later. > Amontillada: It may be my (limited) powers of perception, but it seems to me that there's some confusion over WHICH of Hagrid's assignments to get Harry is being discussed. As I read this section of Glyconix' post, she's referring to Hagrid's errand on Harry's eleventh birthday. The Dursleys live in a typical suburban house, but they had retreated to the Hut-on-the-Rock when Hagrid arrived at their door on that occasion. I think Dumbledore sent Hagrid then precisely because the Dursleys had gone to such great lengths to keep Harry from receiving his Hogwarts letter. If he had gotten the letter and replied, in the usual magical family fashion, Dumbledore wouldn't have dispatched Hagrid. As to why he chose Hagrid, he had learned from McGonagall's observation that Vernon Dursley, in particular, would be convinced most readily by someone BIG and forceful. As I said, this is my impression of which event Glyconix was citing. If I misread your theory, Glyconix, please correct me! Amontillada From celizwh at intergate.com Sat Apr 1 01:16:40 2006 From: celizwh at intergate.com (houyhnhnm102) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 01:16:40 -0000 Subject: Severus's memories and schoolyard curses (Was: Huge overreactions .. . .) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150339 Carol: > > Does anyone *really* think that he sang > > that countercurse to stop James's bleeding or that the bleeding > could > > have been stopped in any other way if it really was Sectum > > Sempra--"cut *always*"?) Ceridwen: > I've been thinking about the meaning of Sectum Sempra. 'Cut > always'. I don't see that as meaning that the cut, or its scar, > remains always, as Bill's werewolf scars apparently will. I see it > as a guarantee that Sectum Sempra will always cut, without fail. It > certainly worked for Harry the very first time! houyhnhnm: I took it to mean that the curse continues to cut, which would go along with the copious bleeding, not that it leaves a permanent scar or that it means cut without fail. Compare to Rictus Sempra, a curse that leaves its receivers unable to stop laughing. Too bad we don't know the name of the curse on the book that its victim couldn't stop reading. From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 01:27:03 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 01:27:03 -0000 Subject: Snape as infidel was Re: Kant and Snape and Ethics and Everything In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150340 > >>Pippin: > If you've chosen your religion, or your moral philosophy, or your > House, you probably do think it's better than the others. Otherwise > you'd have chosen something else. A philosophy of tolerance must > take this into account, or it's useless for the real world, IMO. > But the excellence of a religion or a philosophy or a House > tells us nothing about the virtues of the individuals who belong > to it, or even of the group as a whole, which may be under the > influence of the worst of its members. The Gryffindors have no > grounds to assume their superiority over anybody just because > they're Gryffindors. Nobody is guilty or innocent by association. Betsy Hp: Okay. I think I see Hogwarts as a bit more organic. I mean, yes, there are different priorities given to each house, different strengths. And I think there needs to be a recognition that each strength is important, is vital for a truly strong and complete whole (including Slytherin). But, Slytherin's the rub, isn't it? Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, they get along fine, as far as we've seen. Students were already associating across house bounderies there. But Slytherin has been designated "outsider", and that needs to change. And I feel like it'll take a bit more than tolerance to do so. I think there needs to be the sort of unification that would be impossible with the world's religions. (Or even the various sects of Christianity, for that matter.) Perhaps the various creatures in the WW would better represent tolerance. (Though again, I'd hate to try and assign a specific religion to each creature. There's still that "lesser than" aspect that worries me.) > >>Pippin: > > Harry thinks that Snape's hatred sabotaged the occlumency lesson, > drove Sirius to the Ministry and made him kill Dumbledore, but > there is ample canon for disputing this and for seeing Harry as > having scapegoated Snape as infidels have always been > scapegoated. > Indeed in HBP we learned that their roots of the tragedy > overtaking the wizarding world go back centuries, far beyond > Voldemort. Betsy Hp: Oh, I so agree that Snape has been set up as the scapegoat. Gosh, Harry even admits as such a couple of different times when he acknowledged the lack of reason behind his hatred. I just don't think JKR will leave Snape in that state. For Harry's sake as much as anything. Slytherin is the WW scapegoat, and Voldemort took advantage of that fact. (As Hitler took advantage of Germany being scapegoated by Europe.) But I don't think JKR will leave Slytherin in that state either. And it's not that Slytherin will become Gryffindor and Snape will become Dumbledore (or die in the attempt). It's that Hogwarts will realize that Slytherin is not "other", Slytherin is them. As Harry will realize that Snape isn't this infidel, this other, either. In many ways I think Snape is Harry. And I think Harry needs to see that. > >>Pippin: > And though the series is about choices, if our choices are > important it is because they can affect the course of the future > and others besides ourselves. But that means that the choices of > the past and of other people can affect us too. Betsy Hp: Hmm, in the end though, you can only make your own choice. You cannot force another person. That's what Voldemort tries to do, and it's what Dumbledore is too noble to do. And that might be why Dumbledore got so frustrated with both Harry and Snape and their inability to work together. Because yes, Snape was adversely affected by James Potter, and Harry was adversely affected by Snape, but they both chose to hold onto their hurts. I think Dumbledore had reached a point (or perhaps has always been gifted with the ability) to not take things personally. (Luna seems to have this gift as well. I think young!Dumbledore was probably a bit like her, though perhaps a bit more sporty.) Both Harry and Snape have a hard time letting things go. They both like to pile blame on some convenient "other". It's made Snape bitter and it's cost him. Harry is still a bit young, but he's heading in that direction. Betsy Hp From iam.kemper at gmail.com Sat Apr 1 01:54:49 2006 From: iam.kemper at gmail.com (Kemper) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 17:54:49 -0800 Subject: Expanding on Curses was Re: Young Snape's cutting curse Message-ID: <700201d40603311754k37f22733j32f00f981f25b74e@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150341 Carol wrote: > > > But Black does not say that eleven-year-old Severus came to school > > knowing more *Dark* curses than half (and, yes, it is half) the > > seventh years. He only says that he knew more "curses" than half the > > seventh years. JKR is a bit inconsistent in distinguishing curses > > from hexes and jinxes (and hexes and jinxes from each other; IMO, > > throughout OoP she uses "jinxes" for "hexes," but that's another > > post. I agree that these so-called curses were schoolyard variety > > hexes and jinxes, some of them perhaps of his own invention (like > > the toenail jinx he later invented). > > Valky responded: > I have given this some pondering myself since we last spoke about it, > Carol, and I think I have a good theory about the difference between > curses and hexes/jinxes. Just going on the Bat Bogey Hex and the Eat > Slugs examples, it seems that Hexes and Jinxes are temporary in > nature, once cast they will eventually wear off after some discomfort > so they are in esscence basically innocuous, inconvenient and > uncofortable rather than dangerous. Curses, OTOH, it seems to me > always need to be professionally countered by some expert in healing > arts, they seem more permanent and by extension of that hence rather > more a danger than hexes or jinxes. > ------------------------------ > .. . Kemper now: To clarify, a curse is a spell or an item. But I like your idea on curses and would like to expand it a bit. A curse either requires an advanced/powerful counter (Sectumsempra/Opal Necklace), or it requires the curse caster to release the curse (Cruciatus/Imperius), or it has no counter (Killing/BurnYourEyesOut Book/Can'tStopReading Book). So, did young Severus know the curses on an academic level (I bet he devoured any book he could get his hands on with regards to magic prior to Hogwarts, kind of like Hermione would had she a magical parent)? Or did young Severus know the curses on a practical level? And if this little odd ball was up to his neck in the Dark Arts, do we think Severus knew any counters? Based on who Snape (adult) seems, I would guess Severus (student) knew, or strove to learn the counters or the Light to the curses and Dark he knew, regardless of what level he 'knew' the curses. That said, did he also know more Light Arts than half the seventh years? If he did, I'm not sure how much he would want others to know especially based on what I perceive as the culture of Slytherin at the time Severus was a student. Kemper [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From foxmoth at qnet.com Sat Apr 1 02:14:35 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:14:35 -0000 Subject: Snape less comic? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150342 Nora: > I'd still love an answer to my general contention that Snape has > actually become *less* comic in many ways as the series has > progressed. At least that's my impression; the further we go along > and see how deep his grudges go, the less they seem to inhabit the > world of comedy (the nasty teacher figure) and the more they become > pathological, more than a little bit scary. Neidisch, with a > surprisingly deep level of obsession on certain topics. After all, > the progression has been to steadily darken Snape's character, > revealing more and more negative things (along with pulling in some > positive highlights and other complexities). Pippin: You're going to have to take that up with someone who sees that progression because I don't see it at all, except in Harry's biased interpretation. Snape's wrath at Sirius and Lupin peaks in the Shrieking Shack and diminishes ever after -- the only person who goes capslock in the confrontation at Grimmauld Place is Harry. He sees Snape and Sirius about to kill each other; I see two powerful warriors, both frustrated at being forced to act behind the scenes, taking out their frustrations on each other and being as sheepish as schoolboys when they are caught. Snape's grudges are seen to have some real foundation and I expect that to continue. They are deep and scary, but that is not necessarily his fault. Remember, I see him as the unrecognized victim of an attempted murder that has to be brought to light in order for the fabric of society to be mended. A job for a hero, probably named Harry. Nora: > (Structurally in comedy, it tends to be the hero who removes the > senex/mentor from the scene in order to surpass him and reintegrate > the fabric of society in time for the wedding scene at the end. Pippin: Well, that would fit right in with Dumbledore having been poisoned by Harry, wouldn't it? Nora: > And to grant the fundamental dignity of another human being is not > necessarily to approve of all of what they do: if you take some > models, there is a responsibility to help someone change and realize > the error of their ways. Pippin: DDM!Snape is not a child or a criminal. He has the right to decide for himself whether he wants to change or not. Pippin From kjones at telus.net Sat Apr 1 02:38:37 2006 From: kjones at telus.net (Kathryn Jones) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 18:38:37 -0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Why wasnt Harry sent to either a lightsided wizarding family or a muggle fam In-Reply-To: <20060331191301.10307.qmail@web37004.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060331191301.10307.qmail@web37004.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <442DE7AD.5090602@telus.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150343 catherine higgins wrote: > This has probably been duscussed...but how on earth does Dumbledore know that > Lily sacrificed her life? How does he know that she was given a choice to live, > but rather chose to die for her son? > > Catherine (wondering why I wasn't puzzled by this before...) KJ writes: This is one of the reasons why I am convinced that Snape was also present at Godric's Hollow. Who else would have told DD what had happened? Peter was trying to evade the Order and Sirius directly after GH. I am not a great believer in portraits in a house under the Fidelius charm. There is also the scene in the PS/SS DVD showing a man wearing black robes with a thin line of white at the wrist, exactly like Snape's, which JKR allowed to remain in the movie. It is definitely a teaser. KJ From nrenka at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 04:03:21 2006 From: nrenka at yahoo.com (nrenka) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 04:03:21 -0000 Subject: Snape as infidel was Re: Kant and Snape and Ethics and Everything In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150345 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" wrote: > Betsy Hp: > So, you're okay with a popular childrens series classifying any > religion that isn't Christianity as less moral? Because *that's* > what I was talking about in the above statement. I'm uncomfortable > with Gryffindor specifically standing for Christianity while the > other Houses take on the role of infidels. It starts down an ugly > path, to my mind. Honestly--no, I don't care, I'm fine with it. I have nothing invested in that interpretation, and it's not anywhere as obnoxious and overt as either Lewis's Christianity or Pullmann's anti- Christianity. > Betsy Hp: > Okay, I think I see where you're coming from here. With regards to > magic, I've found this series in particular to be incredibly weak > in differentiating between good magic and bad. I mean, sure, > desecrating a grave is bad, but how is a sword cutting curse dark > but a face branding curse not dark? Possibly it's a distinction between necessary and sufficient, but YMMV. > Hee! And see, I think the "good guys" display bad sportsmanship > all the time. The twins *always* fight with the odds on their side. On the other hand, their aim is not malicious--it's not the same kind of benefiting from the misfortunes of others. And that's why JKR is totally okay with the Gryffindors and their actions which seem 'the same' as the Slytherins, who take the textual knocks for it. That's why she loves Ginny for her feistiness and makes Draco the punching bag. See above about the worldview of the series. > I don't think Dumbledore has been gently waiting for Snape to > develop a moral sense. For one, how do you trust > someone "completely" who has no moral sense? You know their nature, which makes them at least somewhat predictable, even if it's not a good moral sense which is guiding them. > However, by entangling Snape in the Tower killing, Dumbledore is > hardly being benign. That is, of course, dependent on an interpretation that thinks Dumbledore has somehow entangled Snape in this killing. Try out another perspective which doesn't assume that and see where it gets you. It's interesting. -Nora spends an evening with le petit Nicolas From nrenka at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 04:13:16 2006 From: nrenka at yahoo.com (nrenka) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 04:13:16 -0000 Subject: Snape less comic? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150346 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" wrote: > Snape's grudges are seen to have some real foundation and I expect > that to continue. They are deep and scary, but that is not > necessarily his fault. Remember, I see him as the unrecognized > victim of an attempted murder that has to be brought to light in > order for the fabric of society to be mended. A job for a hero, > probably named Harry. I've seen your argument before, but being as I don't buy ESE!Lupin, it's hard for me to buy the rest of your interpretation which hinges upon that. But there is an objective way in which Snape has been shown as less comic through the series: the depth of his involvement with the DEs. Think about how differently PoA and GoF read when you know the revelation at the end of GoF (or even some of the earlier books); we've known it for so long that his past affiliations have become almost passe. And then in OotP we get intimations of some sneaky activities, and then in HBP we get a Harry-POV-free look into Snape in his spying business or something like it, and we find out how deep his involvement went. Even if he's atoning for his role in James and Lily's death, not exactly comic, is it? > DDM!Snape is not a child or a criminal. He has the right to decide > for himself whether he wants to change or not. And then society and every individual person has the right to decide, if he has decided not to change, whether he is going to be an accepted member, someone who you would want to associate with, or shunned as someone unwilling to work within the social contract. It cuts both ways. -Nora is not even going to pull Hobbes into the discussion, after all From mrs_weasley2004 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 02:33:01 2006 From: mrs_weasley2004 at yahoo.com (mrs_weasley2004) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 02:33:01 -0000 Subject: Give Credit Where Credit is due In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150347 > > Julie: > > I agree that these kids (teenagers) are able to perform on the > > same level as adults. Where I would qualify that is whether they > > perform with the same *understanding* as adults. > > Jekatiska: > Children are capable of unbelievable cruelty, as can be seen from > for example child soldiers, or the brutal killings committed by > children and teenagers you sometimes hear of in the media. Children > make very good soldiers: they don't care, because they don't > understand. > After all, his father is a Death Eater, they have all sorts of dark > stuff at home, and he's been brought up in a DE environment > ("Auntie Bellatrix taught you Occlumency?"). And yet he could not > bring himself to kill Dumbledore, . This, I find, is a sign > of a kind of maturity. But then, this lot are now of age, or like > Harry, very nearly, so you would expect some maturity by now. Can > we treat them as kids? I wasn't trying to go into the realm of rationalizing what the youth do. I was just trying to point out that they are capable of it. You don't have to just point to bad stuff either. Look at the little kids who save lives by calling 911 or are super smart etc. I just think we as adults tend to lump them all into the same heap so to speak. I am sure kids can get reformed, perhaps that is what we should think about Snape? But Voldemort has an advantage if he can get them on his side as children/young adults. I think the fact that so many of his Death Eaters signed up in school tends to support this idea. Michelle From tonks_op at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 05:13:15 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 05:13:15 -0000 Subject: Where did he learn it all? (was Re: Severus's memories and schoolyard curses) In-Reply-To: <001001c654ff$ae90b2b0$b301010a@ConsolidatedTelephone.local> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150348 > > Carol: > So while I don't deny an early interest in the Dark Arts on Severus's part, rather odd on the part of a half-blood with a Muggle father if that father had any part in his upbringing, (Snip) > > > kchuplis: > Snape up to his eyebrows in dark arts has to indicate that Snape had some kind of Dark Art knowledge beyond what most students had. I just can't interpret that any other way. Since they don't teach it at Hogwarts, I have to believe he learned it elsewhere. That is canon. > Tonks: I am starting to wonder where Snape learned these dark arts that he is said to know at age 12. Before HBP I assumed him to be a pure- blood and from a family of dark wizards. But now we find that his father was a Muggle. That begs some questions to ponder. Was his mother involved in the dark arts? Was she the battered woman we think she was, or not? What sort of family were the Princes? Did Snape know Bella as a child? Why do Snape and Bella have such a tense relationship? Does this go back to before DE days? Questions, questions, questions. Answers anyone?? Tonks_op From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 05:22:06 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 05:22:06 -0000 Subject: Snape as infidel was Re: Kant and Snape and Ethics and Everything In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150349 > >>Betsy Hp: > > So, you're okay with a popular childrens series classifying any > > religion that isn't Christianity as less moral? > > > >>Nora: > Honestly--no, I don't care, I'm fine with it. I have nothing > invested in that interpretation, and it's not anywhere as > obnoxious and overt as either Lewis's Christianity or Pullmann's > anti-Christianity. Betsy Hp: I can't be as laissez-faire, I'm afraid. If JKR came out and said, "Yes the Slytherins are the Jews and I'm trying to show that the Christian Gryffindors have the better morality," that would kill the series for me. However, I don't think this is what JKR is doing. > >>Betsy Hp: > > With regards to magic, I've found this series in particular to > > be incredibly weak in differentiating between good magic and > > bad. > >>Nora: > Possibly it's a distinction between necessary and sufficient, but > YMMV. Betsy Hp: I think everyone has a different theory on what makes one spell dark and another okay. That's why it strikes me as unclear. > >>Betsy Hp: > > Hee! And see, I think the "good guys" display bad sportsmanship > > all the time. The twins *always* fight with the odds on their > > side. > >>Nora: > On the other hand, their aim is not malicious--it's not the same > kind of benefiting from the misfortunes of others. > Betsy Hp: Right. The twins would *never* nearly kill someone in order to protect Gryffindors' house points. And gosh, they'd *never* test products on little children with an eye towards future earnings. That would be wrong. > >>Nora: > And that's why JKR is totally okay with the Gryffindors and their > actions which seem 'the same' as the Slytherins, who take the > textual knocks for it. Betsy Hp: How do you know JKR is okay with it? The fact that the twins nearly killing Montague was the first step on a path that lead to their brother being mauled suggests that JKR isn't all that okay with their actions. Plus, she does highlight that Montague nearly died. > >>Nora: > That's why she loves Ginny for her feistiness and makes Draco the > punching bag. See above about the worldview of the series. Betsy Hp: Because Ginny's a shiny Christian and Draco's a dirty infidel? No, I think it's more that Ginny is a filler character, Harry's end of the series prize. Draco has more meat to him. And meaty characters suffer in JKR's world. > >>Betsy Hp: > > However, by entangling Snape in the Tower killing, Dumbledore is > > hardly being benign. > >>Nora: > That is, of course, dependent on an interpretation that thinks > Dumbledore has somehow entangled Snape in this killing. Try out > another perspective which doesn't assume that and see where it > gets you. It's interesting. Betsy Hp: Oh, yeah, I'm pretty much talking about DDM!Snape whenever I talk about Snape. Rather than interesting the other flavors are too illogical, leading to the same dead-end. Betsy Hp From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 06:21:35 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 06:21:35 -0000 Subject: Where did he learn it all? (was Re: Severus's memories and schoolyard curses) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150350 zgirnius: Good questions, Tonks, I don't think we really know the answers...so I shall speculate! > Tonks: > I am starting to wonder where Snape learned these dark arts that he > is said to know at age 12. Before HBP I assumed him to be a pure- > blood and from a family of dark wizards. But now we find that his > father was a Muggle. That begs some questions to ponder. Was his > mother involved in the dark arts? Was she the battered woman we > think she was, or not? zgirnius: I think the marriage was not happy, anyway. To me 'cowering' (assuming the man and woman were Eileen and Tobias, of course!) suggests more than a simple fight between spouses. And the stories of Merope Riddle and Nymphadora Tonks in HBP do raise the possibility that even if Eileen was a witch with some knowledge of the Dark Arts, she could still have been vulnerable to her Muggle husband if she was sufficiently emotionally affected by her situation. > Tonks: > What sort of family were the Princes? zgirnius: Again, speculating...I think they were purebloods, and biased about it, but less hung up on it than the Blacks. The marriage announcement for Eileen and Tobias, after all, suggests they were less obsessed than the Blacks. Walburga Black would have never mentioned a daughter who married a Muggle again... Why I think they were still pureblood supremacists is actually my take on the HBP nickname of Snape's. To me it came across as a sort of 'I'll show them all!' private nickname, which would make sense if the wizards in his family did care, in a negative way, that he was a half-blood. (Also, it would make Snape THE half-blood Prince, as in the only one...) I also speculate that they belonged to a different social class in the WW. No manor, no fancy town-house with ancient tapestries on the wall. Working class-I can see Grandpa Prince holding a job in some shady (Dark Arts connected) enterprise in Knockturn Alley, and Grandma Prince cooking up potions at home in her kitchen to supplement the household income. I get the working class vibe from details like Snape apparently using used textbooks. I think if the Princes were wealthy, and reacted to the marriage well enough for there to be a marriage announcement and birth announcement for Severus, then they would, upon learning their half-blood grandson was sufficeintly magical to enter Hogwarts, have provided him with school necessities if his parents were not able to. Tonks: > Did > Snape know Bella as a child? Why do Snape and Bella have such a > tense relationship? Does this go back to before DE days? zgirnius: I don't think Snape and Bella knew each other before Snape started school, since I am guessing that the Princes and Blacks would not have mixed socially, and also because of the age difference, looking like 7 years. I think Bella and Snape have a conflict of personalities. Bella is a very fanatical follower of Voldemort, and very open about her beliefs. Just as Sirius declares (completely sincerely) he would die for his friends, Bella declares (with equal sincerity) that she would go to Azkaban for her leader. The whole double-agent thing is very much not her cup of tea. She does not respect Snape or trust him because his behavior is so alien to her. And on Snape's side, the situation is not helped by Bella's physical resemblance to Sirius, and the ways in which her personality is also similar to his. From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Sat Apr 1 11:26:21 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 06:26:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Severus's memories and schoolyard curses (Was: Huge overreactions .. . .) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060401112622.33041.qmail@web37006.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150351 houyhnhnm: I Too bad we don't know the name of the curse on the book that its victim couldn't stop reading. Catherine: I think it's called the Harry Potter curse ;-) (Sorry list elves, but I couldn't help myself...) --------------------------------- Make Yahoo! Canada your Homepage Yahoo! Canada Homepage [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From amiabledorsai at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 12:00:19 2006 From: amiabledorsai at yahoo.com (amiabledorsai) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 12:00:19 -0000 Subject: Why wasnt Harry sent to either a lightsided wizarding family or a muggle fam In-Reply-To: <442DE7AD.5090602@telus.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150352 > catherine higgins wrote: >...but how on earth does Dumbledore know that >Lily sacrificed her life? How does he know that she was given a > choice to live, but rather chose to die for her son? KJ writes: > This is one of the reasons why I am convinced that Snape was also > present at Godric's Hollow. Amiable Dorsai: This seems like the easiest explanation. One problem with it is that it also seems likely that Pettigrew was there, as well--how else would Voldemort have recovered his wand? Any Snape at Godric's Hollow scenario has to account for Snape's ignorance of Peter's betrayal, or accept that he knew Sirius was not the traitor. It dovetails nicely into another speculation: the idea that Voldemort promised Snape he would not harm Lily--perhaps that Snape could *have* Lily--and that this broken promise led Snape to swear to Dumbledore that he, Snape, would help kill Voldemort, should Voldemort ever return. This would explain why Dumbledore was so sure of Snape's motives--vengeance is one of Snape's favorite hobbies. Amiable Dorsai From amiabledorsai at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 13:00:13 2006 From: amiabledorsai at yahoo.com (amiabledorsai) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 13:00:13 -0000 Subject: Blood & predjudice...or what makes for strange bedfellows? (Long....) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150353 sugaranddixie1 wrote: > > Starting with LV- the head of the organization. Acceptable to his > followers because he renounced his father? Seems ironic to think of > Lucius Malfoy in a organization headed by a half-muggle.... > So my point is this- How can the Malfoys profess to be so obsessed > with people's bloodlines & still do the things they do? The > ultimate irony? The irrationality of prejudice? So few pure-bloods > left that they'd be sitting home alone if they didn't bend the > rules a bit? > Any thoughts? Riddle's parentage was unknown when he reached Hogwarts. I doubt that he advertised it once he figured it out. Besides, the pure-blood thing seems to be as much about culture and appearances as about reality. A half-blood who "walks the walk", like Snape, seems to be more acceptable to the bigots than a pure-blood like Arthur Weasley, who does not. If there's anything Riddle is good at, it's manipulating appearances. As to Snape, and others like him--imagine the pressures on a young half-blood trying to pass as a pure-blood. The desire to appear "purer than pure" could explain the attraction of a group like the Death Eaters to a half-blood. Lucius Malfoy might welcome someone like Snape, believing that he could manipulate Snape all the more easily by playing on his desire for acceptance by pure-bloods. Amiable Dorsai From nrenka at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 13:49:49 2006 From: nrenka at yahoo.com (nrenka) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 13:49:49 -0000 Subject: Snape as infidel was Re: Kant and Snape and Ethics and Everything In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150354 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" wrote: > Betsy Hp: > I think everyone has a different theory on what makes one spell > dark and another okay. That's why it strikes me as unclear. It's a case where the author may have a clear theory that we haven't pieced together yet, or it may be far more ad hoc. > Right. The twins would *never* nearly kill someone in order to > protect Gryffindors' house points. And gosh, they'd *never* test > products on little children with an eye towards future earnings. > That would be wrong. But there's no *malice* in their actions, no deliberate intention to cause harm--or at least that's the impression that I get from their continued portrayal, and her comments about them. Seems at least somewhat different in intention and manner than the Slytherin gloating, for instance. > How do you know JKR is okay with it? The fact that the twins nearly > killing Montague was the first step on a path that lead to their > brother being mauled suggests that JKR isn't all that okay with > their actions. Plus, she does highlight that Montague nearly died. She does, but on the other hand, it's presented as an ironic situation, one which results from connections that they *never* could have foreseen because so much of the chain of actions was out of their hands. Quite different than some other situations of culpability elswhere in the series. > Because Ginny's a shiny Christian and Draco's a dirty infidel? No, > I think it's more that Ginny is a filler character, Harry's end of > the series prize. Draco has more meat to him. And meaty > characters suffer in JKR's world. I think it's because she's interested in presenting Ginny as a far more likeable character, although you can never control fans' reactions to anything (you can just whack them with the actual realizations of hints until they bleed). > Oh, yeah, I'm pretty much talking about DDM!Snape whenever I talk > about Snape. Rather than interesting the other flavors are too > illogical, leading to the same dead-end. But note that your holding fast to DDM! generates some interesting problems, such as you mentioned--that not being a very nice thing for Dumbledore to do. Now, that could be actually what's going on, and what is problematic is real and will probably generate some further textual exegesis; but if you find it hard enough to reconcile, it could also be a signal that you're running into difficulties which are trying to tell you something. -Nora will only echo that 'illogical' and 'interesting' are such delightfully subjective functions in fantasy literature... From kchuplis at alltel.net Sat Apr 1 15:12:07 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 09:12:07 -0600 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Blood & predjudice...or what makes for strange bedfellows? (Long....) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150355 On Apr 1, 2006, at 7:00 AM, amiabledorsai wrote: > The desire to appear "purer > than pure" could explain the attraction of a group like the Death > Eaters to a half-blood. Lucius Malfoy might welcome someone like > Snape, believing that he could manipulate Snape all the more easily by > playing on his desire for acceptance by pure-bloods. kchuplis: I have wondered since OoTP how many DEs really knew LV was a half- blood since Bella gets sooooooooo enraged when Harry says "did he ever tell you he was a dirty half-blood". (sic - sorry, no book nearby - quel horreur) I seriously think she thought Harry was lying and defaming. I mean, he really did believe for a long time his father must have been some really important wizard (until he could never find the name anywhere). Who knows what lies he told everyone else. From foxmoth at qnet.com Sat Apr 1 15:50:06 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 15:50:06 -0000 Subject: Snape less comic? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150356 Nora: > > But there is an objective way in which Snape has been shown as less > comic through the series: the depth of his involvement with the DEs. > Think about how differently PoA and GoF read when you know the > revelation at the end of GoF (or even some of the earlier books); > we've known it for so long that his past affiliations have become > almost passe. Pippin: Er, they didn't read differently for me, because ever since PoA told us that Dumbledore had had a number of useful spies, I had been expecting to find out that Snape was one of them. And of course I'm not the only one who sniffed out a redemptive story line. I agree that Snape's venture into DEhood and his return are not the stuff of comedy, but the point for me is that he did return. Dumbledore's eyes do twinkle as Snape stalks off in a huff at the end of PoA. I don't think that Dumbledore was laughing at Snape's rage, but I think he did find it amusing that Snape's over-the-top accusations of Harry were doing more to make Harry (and Hermione and Dumbledore) look innocent than anything Snape could have said in their favor. Pippin: > > DDM!Snape is not a child or a criminal. He has the right to decide > > for himself whether he wants to change or not. Nora: > And then society and every individual person has the right to decide, > if he has decided not to change, whether he is going to be an > accepted member, someone who you would want to associate with, or > shunned as someone unwilling to work within the social contract. > > It cuts both ways. Pippin: There we differ. Let him have due process and be sent to Azkaban if he has broken wizarding law. But if he cannot proved guilty, no individual has the right to place him outside the social contract. No one has to like him, but they can't treat him as a pariah either. Pippin From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 15:49:11 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 07:49:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: Snape less comic? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060401154911.27888.qmail@web61321.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150357 Pippin: DDM!Snape is not a child or a criminal. He has the right to decide for himself whether he wants to change or not. Joe: I fully agree that he has the right to decide but he is still probably a criminal. Dumbledore got him out of trouble with the Ministry by saying he has "returned to the Light" or however you want to put it. That said wouldn't he have had to do things that needed Dumbledore to in effect cover for him? Thus would that not make him a criminal? Granted a criminal that cut a deal but still a criminal. Joe From stevejjen at earthlink.net Sat Apr 1 16:14:36 2006 From: stevejjen at earthlink.net (Jen Reese) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 16:14:36 -0000 Subject: Blood & predjudice...or what makes for strange bedfellows? (Long....) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150358 > kchuplis: > > I have wondered since OoTP how many DEs really knew LV was a half- > blood since Bella gets sooooooooo enraged when Harry says "did he > ever tell you he was a dirty half-blood". (sic - sorry, no book > nearby - quel horreur) I seriously think she thought Harry was lying > and defaming. I mean, he really did believe for a long time his > father must have been some really important wizard (until he could > never find the name anywhere). Who knows what lies he told everyone > else. Jen: Once he discovered the Slytherin connection, Riddle just promoted that and dropped the rest of his heritage. And not just dropping it or denying it, but literally ending his Muggle line. But then he talks about his Muggle father to Harry and Wormtail in the graveyard, and mentions his father's grave in his speech to the DE's. Not exactly trying to hide his heritage, eh? I don't understand who knows within the DE's. Wormtail definitely, and you'd think a couple of other DE's would have figured out in the graveyard if they didn't know already. Voldemort gave Lucius the diary bought at a Muggle store and Lucius knows his original name and could likely trace his heritage if interested. So I didn't completely understand Bella's outrage unless she's one of the last to know! That wouldn't surprise me, nor that she just denies it to keep her zealousness alive. Sometimes I wonder if those hints were dropped because it's going to be important for the ending. Jen R. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 16:15:01 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 16:15:01 -0000 Subject: Snape less comic? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150359 > Pippin: > > > DDM!Snape is not a child or a criminal. He has the right to decide > > > for himself whether he wants to change or not. > > Nora: > > And then society and every individual person has the right to decide, > > if he has decided not to change, whether he is going to be an > > accepted member, someone who you would want to associate with, or > > shunned as someone unwilling to work within the social contract. > > > > It cuts both ways. > > Pippin: > There we differ. Let him have due process and be sent to Azkaban > if he has broken wizarding law. But if he cannot proved guilty, no > individual has the right to place him outside the social contract. > No one has to like him, but they can't treat him as a pariah either. Alla: Are you saying, Pippin that if Snape loyalties will turn out to belong to the Light, but he will remain his nasty, horrible self, other individuals should be forced to deal with him? Just asking to clarify, because when I summarise other's arguments I do summarise incorrectly sometimes. I definitely agree with Nora ( surprise :)) - if it is Snape right not to change, then IMO it is everybody's right to refuse to deal with him, period. It is everybody's individual choice, isn't it? For example - to take loose RL parallel. Say if I was the principal in the school and I had the misfortune to hire the teacher like Snape ( again, not the strict teacher, but the one who would be taking personal vendettas against my students, because he did not like such students' parents). Are you saying that it is not my right to fire Snape ASAP? (If allowed by law of course :)) To go back to books - are you saying that it is not Harry's right at the end of the books for example if he and Snape both survive to tell Snape that he never ever wants to see him again? I happen to love the saying ( paraphrase) that one individual's liberty to do and say things ends where such right infirnges upon liberty of another person ( literally and metaphorically) IMO, if Snape survives (DD!M Snape) and wants to stay in the Society, he has to change, in ACTIONS if not in his thoughts, but if he makes a choice not to, well, I think others are perfectly free to treat him as a pariah. Alla. From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 16:17:33 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 08:17:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Snape less comic? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060401161733.52359.qmail@web61323.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150360 Pippin: There we differ. Let him have due process and be sent to Azkaban if he has broken wizarding law. But if he cannot proved guilty, no individual has the right to place him outside the social contract. No one has to like him, but they can't treat him as a pariah either. Joe: Sorry but I have to disagree. Thay can treat him however they wish. That is the very nature of freedom. If the entire wizarding world decided to treat him like a pariah it would be well with in their rights. Maybe not a nice thing to do but certainly their right to do so. From foxmoth at qnet.com Sat Apr 1 16:34:49 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 16:34:49 -0000 Subject: Snape less comic? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150361 > Alla: > > Are you saying, Pippin that if Snape loyalties will turn out to > belong to the Light, but he will remain his nasty, horrible self, > other individuals should be forced to deal with him? Just asking to > clarify, because when I summarise other's arguments I do summarise > incorrectly sometimes. Pippin: As individuals, no. In their public capacities, yes. It's perfectly okay with me if Harry doesn't want to see Snape socially, but if, for example, Harry and Snape both end up working for the Auror Office, then they will have to cooperate for the sake of duty. It would not be okay with me if Harry tried to get Snape sacked for being a horrible person -- that's for the Auror Office to decide, not Harry. Pippin From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 16:56:57 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 16:56:57 -0000 Subject: How other people can treat Snape? WAS: Re: Snape less comic? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150362 > > Alla: > > > > Are you saying, Pippin that if Snape loyalties will turn out to > > belong to the Light, but he will remain his nasty, horrible self, > > other individuals should be forced to deal with him? Just asking to > > clarify, because when I summarise other's arguments I do summarise > > incorrectly sometimes. > > Pippin: > As individuals, no. In their public capacities, yes. It's perfectly > okay with me if Harry doesn't want to see Snape socially, but if, > for example, Harry and Snape both end up working for the Auror > Office, then they will have to cooperate for the sake of duty. > It would not be okay with me if Harry tried to get Snape sacked > for being a horrible person -- that's for the Auror Office to decide, > not Harry. Alla: Thanks for clarifying. At least good to know that you don't think that people should be forced to deal with Snape on the social level (Alla shudders at the thought of ever dealing with somebody like Snape on the social level - I me) But I don't quite agree with you about public level either. Now, of course only people who have the authority to fire Snape should do so. But if the situation like you describe arises, I definitely do not expect Harry to subject himself to dealing with Snape on the everyday level, duty or not. He cannot fire Snape without authority, true, but can he quit because he cannot stomach working with Snape? IMO, yes and if his bosses will decided that they would rather keep him than Snape, I'd say that would be rather valid reason to fire Snape and moreover , I would think Snape brought it all upon himself by making sure that Harry cannot stomach dealing with him on the everyday level. People do get fired for the reasons that have nothing to do with their job performance, as we know. Let me give you absolutely real example. At my last job they once hired a guy, who was a brilliant lawyer ( or so I was told), BUT he kept trying to make STRANGE, really strange conversations with people in the office, his workplace was an asbolute mess, people started to literally trying to escape talking with him, he looked as if he was sleeping in his clothes and then coming back to work in the same clothes. As you could imagine, he was fired after a while and he indeed was very good because he won a lot of arbitration hearings for the company. So, as far as I am concerned nobody wanted to deal with him - duty or not and I think that was an absolute right of the "minisociety" of our office. Right, back to Snape. I think people have a right to deal with him as they wish, but besides that being their right, I think it is mainly self protection thing. Why should Neville subject himself to one DAY more of what he endured from Snape? Why should Harry do so? Why should Lupin be forced to deal with Snape? ( Not evil one, mind you :)) Why should new Headmistress of Hogwarts be forced to deal with Snape if the only reason she would prefer to not have Snape there is because she would look at him and all that she would see is Dumbledore's killer. I think it would be Minerva's absolute right to protect herself and never ever take Snape back to Hogwarts, if he survives of course. JMO, Alla From stevejjen at earthlink.net Sat Apr 1 16:58:08 2006 From: stevejjen at earthlink.net (Jen Reese) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 16:58:08 -0000 Subject: Snape less comic? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150363 > Pippin: > As individuals, no. In their public capacities, yes. It's perfectly > okay with me if Harry doesn't want to see Snape socially, but if, > for example, Harry and Snape both end up working for the Auror > Office, then they will have to cooperate for the sake of duty. > It would not be okay with me if Harry tried to get Snape sacked > for being a horrible person -- that's for the Auror Office to decide, > not Harry. Jen: Hold on a little minute, not thinking about the rest of your thoughts here, but the Snape-as-an Auror.....that one's an April Fool's right? ; ) Jen, imagining Snape swooping around the MOM, hexing people in corridors just because they annoy him...oh wait, that's James, and Harry in HBP (Filch's tongue glued to the roof of his mouth anyone?) From nrenka at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 16:58:44 2006 From: nrenka at yahoo.com (nrenka) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 16:58:44 -0000 Subject: Snape less comic? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150364 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" wrote: > Pippin: > As individuals, no. In their public capacities, yes. It's perfectly > okay with me if Harry doesn't want to see Snape socially, but if, > for example, Harry and Snape both end up working for the Auror > Office, then they will have to cooperate for the sake of duty. > It would not be okay with me if Harry tried to get Snape sacked > for being a horrible person -- that's for the Auror Office to > decide, not Harry. I'm not completely in agreement with the idea that personal traits have absolutely nothing to do with duty and work. For instance, let's assume that this Auror team requires a level of personal trust and cameraderie between the members, who are often together in high- risk and high-pressure situations. If the other members of the team think that one of them is a horrible person who they don't like personally, it could certainly impair their working situation. I'm not in the military, I've never been in a situation like that, but I can certainly imagine a commander then stepping in--specifically due to the complaints of other workers--and sacking (or at least reassigning) the offending person because his presence was detrimental to the team. Or what if Harry *is* the head of the Auror Office, and he's choosing his staff? As it goes under law, Pippin has some right to say that there's a level of equal treatment mandated (although the WW doesn't seem to care much about modern ideas of human rights and equal protection) and some kinds of discrimination are illegal. The social contract and society at large involve a lot of things which don't fall into categories governable by law. You can't mandate personal reactions to other people, and in that field, when someone makes himself unpleasant in ways which people find offensive, they tend to avoid said person. I could provide any number of RL analogues, but they'd probably tend to the inflammatory. I'm sure we can all think of types of people we studiously avoid and want to have nothing to do with. Sometimes that is the consequence of choosing and sticking to a manner of behavior. -Nora has seen what tends to happen with certain arrangements of students and teachers and that operative principle From willsonkmom at msn.com Sat Apr 1 17:29:04 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 17:29:04 -0000 Subject: Sectumsempra in the pensieve / or not In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150365 Potioncat: How could I not be a part of a post that had Carol, Alla and Valky all at the same time? Hi Valky, glad to see you posting again! I wrote a very good, but quick post before work yesterday and YahooMort ate it! And I was late to work too! I've read the other comments and tried to look at the similar thread, but I'm using this post as the link. snipping the portion where Carol and Alla debate whether Severus invented Sectumsempra in 5th year and used it in the Pensieve scene VRS he invented it after the Prank as revenge/protection. Valky replied: > > Of course you know I agree with Alla on this one, especially on the > point - Snape inventing Dark curses WAS one of the reasons of his > rivalry with James, who always hated Dark Arts - I'd be so bold as to > call this canon, myself, by virtue of Lupin in OOtP saying > > "- Snape was just this little oddball who was up to his eyes in the > Dark Arts and James -- whatever else he may have appeared to you, > Harry -- always hated the Dark Arts." Potioncat: Can you please give the location of this quote. Not to quibble...OK, to quibble... my copy of OoP has Sirius saying that quote in chapter 29. The only thing Remus really says is that after James quit hexing people, "Snape was a special case. I mean he never lost an opportunity to curse James, so you couldn't really expect James to take that lying down, could you?" And where is the quote (I know it exists, and it's been mentioned lately) where someone says Snape arrived knowing more curses than most 7th years...is that in GoF? Back to the issue at hand: When I first read of Sectumsempra, I assumed it was the same cutting curse in OoP. I also assumed that Severus had controlled it better than Harry had. We've seen examples where lack or control or at least, very strong emotions can cause a spell to be more powerful. However, I'm not too sure Severus could have so much control in that situation. Also, the cut happens, there is blood...and not much else. No horrified gasps, no frantic wiping away, no comments. It's just gone. It seems to have the same impact a bloody nose has in a fist fight. So, whatever that spell was, I don't think it was considered Dark. But, afterwards, Severus could have adapted it. My stand is Sectumsempra, the Dark version, was invented later. >Valky: > I won't say James didn't have any prejudices, he did of course, but I > would draw the line before accusing him of prejudging Sevvie based on > unknown factors. IMO its only logical to assume that James pegged > Snapey for Dark Arts Baby on something he personally observed, IMO > that would be the only way to really get on James bad side, he'd have > to *see* for himself that you do wrong by his standards or are bad by > his standards, I think his three friends are testimony to that. Potioncat: One more bit of canon, Sirius, in OoP ch 29 says, just before the oddball quote, "Look Harry, James and Snape hated each other from the moment they set eyes on each other, it was just one of those things, you can understand that can't you? I think James was everything Snape wanted to be---" Sirius says the two boys hated each other from the moment they set eyes on each other. Why? Were they standing at the platform, one with a sign that said,"Spoiled Rich Kid" and the other "Dark Arts Oddball"? Or did they each come with a reputation? And if so, who spread the reputation? Valky: > You see, if Peter fooled James for over a decade that he was such a > nice guy, and Sirius had the worst family reputation of any kid in > Hogwarts, and Lupin came out of nowhere and had a very dark secret, > well it stands to reason James didn't judge people on things he hadn't > seen for himself, right? Potioncat: Peter was a toady. That relationship doesn't reflect well on James. James knew Remus for quite a while before he found out about the furry problem. By then he knew and liked the boy. Werewolves are dark creatures. Would James have bothered to get to know him if he had known he was a werewolf? We know about Sirius's family, but did James know before hand? Looking at the Black Tree from outside, there are a fair number of blood traitors. One thing that I go back to, is that James hated the Dark Arts/Severus was up to his eyeballs. Why did James know so much about Dark Arts to hate them? Was Dorea Black Potter involved? Was someone in his family hurt by them? How was Severus so informed about them? Was his Muggle father a shady character who encouraged the use of Dark Magic for his own purposes? Did Severus seem them as way to protect himself? And why has no one mentioned the Remus quote from HBP saying that young Severus hadn't been as bad as he was made to look? Can anyone find that one? Potioncat. From foxmoth at qnet.com Sat Apr 1 17:41:19 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 17:41:19 -0000 Subject: Snape as infidel was Re: Kant and Snape and Ethics and Everything In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150366 > Betsy Hp: > Okay. I think I see Hogwarts as a bit more organic. I mean, yes, > there are different priorities given to each house, different > strengths. And I think there needs to be a recognition that each > strength is important, is vital for a truly strong and complete > whole (including Slytherin). > > But, Slytherin's the rub, isn't it? Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, they > get along fine, as far as we've seen. Students were already > associating across house bounderies there. But Slytherin has been > designated "outsider", and that needs to change. And I feel like > it'll take a bit more than tolerance to do so. I think there needs > to be the sort of unification that would be impossible with the > world's religions. (Or even the various sects of Christianity, for > that matter.) Pippin: I think it's dangerous to confuse Harry's inner Slytherin with Slytherin House (though Harry himself does this all the time.) Harry's inner Slytherin needs to be assimilated. But the Slytherins themselves have just as much right to be psychologically complex as Harry -- they can't be reduced to the qualities Harry sees as Slytherin in himself. I don't think what JKR has in mind is as simple as Gryffindors= Christians and Slytherins=Jews. I'm seeing more of Tolkien's applicability than Lewisian allegory. Tolkien's Rohirrim aren't Ango-Saxons, except in a general way due to their circumstances: a younger immigrant people in contact with an older established civilization. But Tolkien did create those circumstances with Anglo-Saxons (and possibly Americans) in mind. What I see JKR asking herself is how a people which feels that it does have superior moral values can integrate itself into a society where all are supposed to be treated equally. So the Gryffindors can be stand-ins for Christians to Christian readers, but they could stand for another group in similar circumstances just as well. I see the attractiveness of assimilating the Slytherins, but I wonder if this isn't how the rift began, with each of the Founders seeking power in order to make theirs the dominant culture, fearing that otherwise what they regarded as unique and valuable would be cast aside. I think the answer is not in assimilation, in the houses becoming more alike. I think it's in seeing that what unites them is more important than what divides them. And part of that will be admitting that they have scapegoated Slytherin, and that some Slytherins have embraced the part. Pippin From irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com Sat Apr 1 18:10:08 2006 From: irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com (IreneMikhlin) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 19:10:08 +0100 Subject: [HPforGrownups] How other people can treat Snape? WAS: Re: Snape less comic? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <442EC200.4020400@btopenworld.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150367 dumbledore11214 wrote: > Why should Lupin be forced to deal with Snape? ( Not evil one, mind > you :)) > Gee, why indeed. I mean, Snape does not make this very useful potion for Lupin anymore, so why Lupin should be forced to deal with this unpleasant and odd man, right? I'm not a great fan of passive-aggressive characters, but even I would never think Lupin capable of playing Antonio to Snape's Shylock to the level that you suggest. Irene > From irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com Sat Apr 1 19:17:13 2006 From: irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com (IreneMikhlin) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 20:17:13 +0100 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Snape as infidel was Re: Kant and Snape and Ethics and Everything In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <442ED1B9.2090602@btopenworld.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150368 pippin_999 wrote: > > I don't think what JKR has in mind is as simple as Gryffindors= > Christians and Slytherins=Jews. I'm seeing more of > Tolkien's applicability than Lewisian allegory. > I hope not, because some analogies are quite scary. Since someone mentioned Shylock, I can't get it out of my mind. The Gryffindors are written as brave, merry, cheerful. They would do anything for a friend, just like Antonio and Bassanio. Red and gold all around. And here we have Snape, the oddball, all in black. Miserable, never laughs, keeps grudges, vindictive. Would not it together with the Order members. So far it's all in the books. But the readers' reaction is suggestive as well. First, it can't be coincidence that so many people refuse to accept that James and Sirius teenage bullying episode shows anything meaningful about their characters. After all, it was just Snape. They must have had a good reason. All the decent people seem to love James, all the witnesses *that matter* never had a bad word against him. Look, Antonio is universally beloved with the citizens of Venice. So what if he calls an unpleasant person "a dog" and spits at him? The other popular reaction, even scarier for me than the first one, is the insistence that the only way for Snape character to achieve satisfactory closure is to have some public humiliation scene. And as a result, he must acknowledge that Gryffindor ways are the correct ones. I really hope Rowling is not taking it there. Irene From bboyminn at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 20:42:03 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 20:42:03 -0000 Subject: Blood & predjudice... Reason or Excuse? You be the Judge. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150369 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "amiabledorsai" wrote: > > sugaranddixie1 wrote: > > > > Starting with LV- .... Acceptable to his followers because he > > renounced his father? Seems ironic to think of Lucius Malfoy > > in a organization headed by a half-muggle.... > > > > > So my point is this- How can the Malfoys profess to be so > > obsessed with people's bloodlines & still do the things they > > do? The ultimate irony? The irrationality of prejudice? So > > few pure-bloods left that they'd be sitting home alone if > > they didn't bend the rules a bit? > > > Any thoughts? > Amiable Dorsai: > > Riddle's parentage was unknown when he reached Hogwarts. I doubt > that he advertised it once he figured it out. > > Besides, the pure-blood thing seems to be as much about culture > and appearances as about reality. A half-blood who "walks the > walk", like Snape, seems to be more acceptable to the bigots > than a pure-blood like Arthur Weasley, who does not. > > ... > > As to Snape, and others like him--imagine the pressures on a > young half-blood trying to pass as a pure-blood. The desire to > appear "purer than pure" could explain the attraction of .. Death > Eaters to a half-blood. Lucius Malfoy might welcome someone like > Snape, believing that he could manipulate Snape all the more > easily by playing on his desire for acceptance by pure-bloods. > > Amiable Dorsai > bboyminn: The son of a King and a Commoner will alway be the son of a King. It is a fact that will dominate his life. The point is that some aspects of bloodlines hold more sway than others. In the Wizard world, even though Merlin in known to them, they seem to put a great deal of stock in the four founders of Hogwarts. These are their most prominent and revered historical citizens. To be related to one of them is a fact that, much like being decended from Kings and Queens, can't help but dominate your life. Further, while purity of blood is emphasized, I think /purifying/ of blood is the key to understanding what is happening. There are few pureblood families left now, and maintaining absolutely 'pure' blood is extremely difficult, though not completely impossible. So, to some extent, I think Voldemort's philosophy is that his own half-blood status is a afront to the good name of Slytherin. Voldemort himself can not help or change the circumstances of his birth, but he can do his best to make sure that the contamination that has crept into the blood of the great wizarding families is erased in subsequent generations. This is the /purifying/ of the blood aspect. So, Voldemort gives great worth to the noble pureblood wizarding families, and his propaganda is that they should reverse this trend, purify the blood, and put the great noble wizard families back in control of the world; put them back into the noble status they were born to. With this slight shift in philosophy from purity of blood to purifying of blood, Voldemort is able to justify his own existance, and can now allow any 'repentant' half-blood/part-blood wizard into the fold. So, we have a two-fold approach. One, that the status of your birth is not your fault. The Blood Contamination is something that was forced on you by the corruption and betrayal of your immediate ancestors. Yet, secondly, it is a problem that can be corrected by reconstructing the wizard world into a pureblood Utopia where the rightfull noble wizard families can rule, and blood can be purified. While Voldemort, in his own sick deranged way, does believe in the nobility of wizard blood, it is both illusion and delusion. Much like the extreme fanatical Muslims, Voldemort's extreme pureblood philosophy is not the reason but the /excuse/ for his actions. Ever tyrant needs a scapegoat. For Hitler is was the Jews. Despite many of the living in poverty, the Jew controlled all the money and dominated the business world. Of course, we must overlook their hard work and dedication. For the Fanatical Muslims, America is the cause of every problem from the well going dry to the corns on a Muslims feet. For Voldemort, it is the muggles, muggle-borns, and mixed blood wizards. They are the cause of every problem in the world, because conviniently, if they are the cause, then the poor innocent victimized purebloods can't be blamed. So, there is a framework in which noble half-bloods could rise to power. Yet, that same framework could still be used to justify all the actions being taken regardless of how irrational those actions are. It's pretty much standard tyrant fair. Just a thought. Steve/bboyminn From glykonix at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 10:45:39 2006 From: glykonix at yahoo.com (Adriana) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 10:45:39 -0000 Subject: Where did he learn it all? (was Re: Severus's memories and schoolyard curses) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150370 Glykonix: I'm sorry zgirnius to shatter your idyllic image of Grandpa Prince holding a job in some shady (Dark Arts connected) enterprise in Knockturn Alley, and Grandma Prince cooking up potions at home in her kitchen to supplement the household income. But Eileen herself was a half-blood. That's why Hermione initially suspects she was the owner of the book (and at some time she was). I suspect she was the one to teach young Severus all those curses. I agree that that was not a simple fight between spouses, but I don't think it was because being emotionally affected by her situation she was vulnerable to her Muggle husband. (There is a fanfiction "Eileen and Tobias" by white mouse, that does a wonderful job at explaining the whole thing.) Tonks: > Did Snape know Bella as a child? Why do Snape and Bella have such > a tense relationship? Does this go back to before DE days? I highly doubt considering Snape is a half blood, with a half blood mother. Bellatrix or the blacks would not have anything in contact with that. As a matter of fact i highly doubt many people know snape is a half-blood, even among the death eaters. And I think their relation is such a tense one because they are DE's. They are two of the smartest. Bellatrix is very frustrated that Snape who has lived a comfortable life in Hogarts all those years that she was going mad in Azkaban is now going to take her place as Voldemorts most trusted servant. The age difference between them also points towards this, since there wouldn't have been much going between a teenage girl and a little boy. But between 2 young adults who are both servants of the dark lord, the competition would have been fierce. Once he joined the DE's the age difference does not count any more especially since he strived to have a high place amongst the death eaters. Glykonix From chrissilein at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 10:45:00 2006 From: chrissilein at yahoo.com (chrissilein) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 10:45:00 -0000 Subject: Ron nad the Chess in book 7 Snape the White Queen? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150371 Hi fellows, I found at this link http://katholika.tripod.com/ronandchess/ a great Ron, Chess and Snape theory for book 7. Is Snape the White Queen? Please check it out! Thanks "chrissilein" From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 1 17:25:50 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 09:25:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: Snape less comic? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060401172550.6830.qmail@web61318.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150372 nrenka wrote: >> I'm not completely in agreement with the idea that personal traits have absolutely nothing to do with duty and work. For instance, let's assume that this Auror team requires a level of personal trust and cameraderie between the members, who are often together in high- risk and high-pressure situations. If the other members of the team think that one of them is a horrible person who they don't like personally, it could certainly impair their working situation. I'm not in the military, I've never been in a situation like that, but I can certainly imagine a commander then stepping in--specifically due to the complaints of other workers--and sacking (or at least reassigning) the offending person because his presence was detrimental to the team. Or what if Harry *is* the head of the Auror Office, and he's choosing his staff? << Joe: You are absolutely right. As a former U.S. Marine I can vouch for that. Anyone acting like Snape or indeed anyone being so unpleasant as to make working with them detrimental to the efforts of the platoon would find themselves at the end of applied corrective discipline. Not offical mind you but used by the other members of the platoon. In bootcamp it might be a blanket party. Which for those of you who might not know is where the target is held down by a blanket and every member of the platoon hit them once in the abdomen with a sock containing a bar of soap. Sound harsh? Yeah it is, though there is almost no chance of lasting damage merely sorenes. The point is clearly brought home though, be a team player or face the consequences. If you can't trust the guys in your unit to focus on the unit you are as good as dead. Joe From willsonkmom at msn.com Sun Apr 2 00:40:25 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 00:40:25 -0000 Subject: Where did he learn it all? (was Re: Severus's memories and schoolyard curses) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150373 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Adriana" wrote: > > Glykonix: > > I'm sorry zgirnius to shatter your idyllic image of Grandpa Prince > holding a job in some shady (Dark Arts connected) enterprise in > Knockturn Alley, and Grandma Prince cooking up potions at home in > her kitchen to supplement the household income. > But Eileen herself was a half-blood. Potioncat: Well, that's an interesting idea. Can you provide the canon? For all we know, Eileen was Muggle-born. Heck, let's make her Muggle- born and Tobias the squib son of a very Dark Magic family. I'm not being sarcastic, I just don't think we have any canon that says she was Half-blood or Pure-blood. I think we know she was good at gobstones and she must have loved books, never to have sold hers. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 00:55:51 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 00:55:51 -0000 Subject: How other people can treat Snape? WAS: Re: Snape less comic? In-Reply-To: <442EC200.4020400@btopenworld.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150375 > dumbledore11214 wrote: > > > Why should Lupin be forced to deal with Snape? ( Not evil one, mind > > you :)) > > Irene: > Gee, why indeed. I mean, Snape does not make this very useful potion for > Lupin anymore, so why Lupin should be forced to deal with this > unpleasant and odd man, right? > > I'm not a great fan of passive-aggressive characters, but even I would > never think Lupin capable of playing Antonio to Snape's Shylock to the > level that you suggest. Alla: Yes, indeed why should Lupin be forced to deal with the man who to quote JKR "did irreparable damage to his prospects for a career in teaching". ( the full quote to avoid further inquiries is that Lupin's exposure as werewolf did it, but we all know who did the exposure, so I don't think I am misquoting). That is a good question indeed. What level Lupin would be operating on though? The only level I suggested was that people have a right to ignore Snape both on social and professional level if and only if he refuses to change and continues to mistreat people around him as he does. If Snape is to be given a free reign to treat people around him as he does, I absolutely maintain that people around him have an absolute right to protect themseves from Snape. Oh, and I heard Snape as Shylock analogy in the past, but never ever bought it. Shylock is discriminated against by virtue of him being a jew only, Snape is NOT discriminated against as former DE, Dumbledore makes sure of it, deservingly or not. I cried for Shylock, understandingly having a great sympathy for his plight and was ready to strangle both Portia and Antonyo together. I never saw Snape that way. Having said all that, I don't think you should worry about Remus doing what I think he has an absolute right to do at any given time if he and Snape both survive of course. His self - hypnotising in HBP of "I neither like nor dislike Severus" convinced me that poor Remus will continue to do his absolute best to get along with the man who had a hand in cutting him off his livelihood. JMO, Alla From Aisbelmon at hotmail.com Sun Apr 2 02:17:59 2006 From: Aisbelmon at hotmail.com (M.Clifford) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 02:17:59 -0000 Subject: Sectumsempra in the pensieve / or not In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150376 Hi Potioncat, thanks it's good to be back. > Valky: > > > > > Of course you know I agree with Alla on this one, especially on > > the point - Snape inventing Dark curses WAS one of the reasons of > > his rivalry with James, who always hated Dark Arts - I'd be so > > bold as to call this canon, myself, by virtue of Lupin in OOtP > > saying "- Snape was just this little oddball who was up to his > > eyes in the Dark Arts and James -- whatever else he may have > > appeared to you, Harry -- always hated the Dark Arts." > > Potioncat: > Can you please give the location of this quote. Not to quibble...OK, > to quibble... my copy of OoP has Sirius saying that quote in chapter > 29. The only thing Remus really says is that after James quit hexing > people, "Snape was a special case. I mean he never lost an > opportunity to curse James, so you couldn't really expect James to > take that lying down, could you?" Valky: Doh! the Lexicon page tricked me! I was shortcutting to the quote using Google and when I found it on this page - http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/lupinsez.htm Well I am sure you can guess the rest. :S Ooops, sorry Carol you were right I did misattribute it, silly me. > Potioncat: > And where is the quote (I know it exists, and it's been mentioned > lately) where someone says Snape arrived knowing more curses than > most 7th years...is that in GoF? Valky: Yes its in GOF, I am pretty sure of that, in the cave meeting when they talk about Karkaroff, Bertha and Florence as well, if memory serves me correctly. > Potioncat: > Back to the issue at hand: > When I first read of Sectumsempra, I assumed it was the same cutting > curse in OoP. I also assumed that Severus had controlled it better > than Harry had. We've seen examples where lack or control or at > least, very strong emotions can cause a spell to be more powerful. > However, I'm not too sure Severus could have so much control in that > situation. Also, the cut happens, there is blood...and not much > else. > No horrified gasps, no frantic wiping away, no comments. It's just > gone. It seems to have the same impact a bloody nose has in a fist > fight. So, whatever that spell was, I don't think it was considered > Dark. But, afterwards, Severus could have adapted it. My stand is > Sectumsempra, the Dark version, was invented later. > > > >Valky: > > I won't say James didn't have any prejudices, he did of course, > > but I would draw the line before accusing him of prejudging > > Sevvie based on unknown factors. IMO its only logical to assume > > that James pegged Snapey for Dark Arts Baby on something he > > personally observed, IMO that would be the only way to really get > > on James bad side, he'd have to *see* for himself that you do > > wrong by his standards or are bad by his standards, I think his > > three friends are testimony to that. > Potioncat: > One more bit of canon, Sirius, in OoP ch 29 says, just before the > oddball quote, "Look Harry, James and Snape hated each other from > the moment they set eyes on each other, it was just one of those > things, you can understand that can't you? I think James was > everything Snape wanted to be---" > > Sirius says the two boys hated each other from the moment they set > eyes on each other. Why? Were they standing at the platform, one > with a sign that said,"Spoiled Rich Kid" and the other "Dark Arts > Oddball"? Or did they each come with a reputation? And if so, who > spread the reputation? Valky: I admit I am kind of skimming over this point in my contention, mostly because for me it seems like an unreliable observation. How does Sirius know what Snape is thinking in the first moment he claps eyes on James or vice versa. And what exactly is the first moment they set eyes on each other anyway? when and where is that moment in their lives? Are they three or eleven? Are they in Hogwarts or Diagon Alley, there are so many unknowns just in that part, and then we have to guess why Sirius knew they hate each other on sight, I mean did they draw wands on the Hogwarts platform and begin staring each other down before they even knew each others names? Now from Ron's point of view maybe he could also think that Draco and Harry hated each other on sight. It might certainly seem that way from the observers perspective, while in truth Harry and Draco had before this 'first sight' met in Madam Malkins and not hated each other at all, it wasn't until Draco had revealed his contempt for Hagrid's 'kind' that Harry developed reservations about Draco and then when he had done the same to Ron that Harry confirmed in himself that he didn't like Draco at all. While Draco all the while was trying to be friendly with Harry too. But now looking back on it, it would be easy to just throw out the comment that they hated each other on sight, it would be partially true (they clearly were not going to like each other in any case, given their polar differences), but overly general IMO, and I suspect the same is true of James and Snape. Mostly because it just seems so completely out of the small glimpse of James character we have, for James to have maligned Severus on the basis of reputation, but more even than that because noone outside of James and Snape can really claim to know what occurred between them on sight, Sirius can't possibly have an authoritative witness to share on it, its impossible, IMO. > > Valky: > > You see, if Peter fooled James for over a decade that he was such > > a nice guy, and Sirius had the worst family reputation of any kid > > in Hogwarts, and Lupin came out of nowhere and had a very dark > > secret,well it stands to reason James didn't judge people on > > things he hadn't seen for himself, right? > > Potioncat: > Peter was a toady. That relationship doesn't reflect well on James. > Valky: I agree it doesn't, he was clearly a sucker for flattery, a vain and concieted boy, no doubt. But there is also an strong element of benevolence in James relationship with Peter evident in James' trust in him and caring for him right through their adult years together. Peter was known as weak and stupid, he was basically so repugnant that it was an obvious disadvantage, and James may well have befriended Peter long before he became the object of his Hero Worship, there's no reason to assume that the way they behaved in fifth year was how they started out or that it reflects the original intentions of James in making a friend of Peter, the brown-nosing element could simply have just developed over the course of a few years, perhaps with Peter really working away at those weaknesses in his friend deliberately manipulating him that way. We know that this is the kind of person Peter was. Potioncat: > James knew Remus for quite a while before he found out about the > furry problem. By then he knew and liked the boy. Werewolves are > dark creatures. Would James have bothered to get to know him if he > had known he was a werewolf? Valky: It's only my opinion, but I do think he would have done. When I put together canon James I come up with a boy who didn't indulge in fears. That is why I contend so vehemently that Snape must have been a dangerous boy. James' strongest character quality that we know was that he was extraordinarily brave, it makes no sense that someone so concieted and so brave at the same time (and concieted about his bravery to compound it all) would allow himself to be seen locked in eternal battle with an easy target. With the crowd cheering him on and him being conscious of the girls by the lake watching him, it is clear to me that he thought he was at the height of his pride in himself. We have proofs by contradiction that he would never be proud of picking on something weaker or unfairly maligned, those proofs are his friends. Including Lupin, who was everything that many Snapeoholics are arguing was the one and only crime evident in Snape in the Pensieve. Lupin was always as shabby and unkempt as Snape, he was always as strange and quiet and staring at a book as Snape, Lupin was the wierd unusual gawky boy who had no friends in first year, that James befriended him is the absolute antithesis of a James who picked on Snape for nothing. Lupin is the proof by contradiction that James = empty headed Bully who picked on Snape for no reason - does not exist IMHO. And as you know I go further that Lupin being a werewolf (and the rest of the reckelssly brave James list) is proof to me that James engaging Snape's wand against him = Snape was extremely dangerous. By you can take or leave that as you wish. ;) > Potioncat: > We know about Sirius's family, but did James know before hand? > Looking at the Black Tree from outside, there are a fair number of > blood traitors. Valky: Okay thats a fair thing to say. Though the way everyone in the WW quickly assumed that Sirius was a DE is very telling IMO, regardless of the blood traitorship in his family the stigma was always there for everyone else, even Lupin, who, even after knowing Sirius all through his school years still couldn't get past the Dark Arts family stigma to know that Sirus was a true friend, OTOH James continued to trust Sirius so much that he followed Sirius' secret Keeper plan through to the end, he trusted Sirius with the knowledge that weak and vulnerable Peter was the true secret keeper and made him Harry's Godfather as well. James was different to the rest of the WW when it came to Sirius. The person he distrusted in the end, Lupin, was the one who was like Snape in some very particular ways. Interesting, No? > Potioncat: > > One thing that I go back to, is that James hated the Dark > Arts/Severus was up to his eyeballs. > > Why did James know so much about Dark Arts to hate them? Was Dorea > Black Potter involved? Was someone in his family hurt by them? Valky: Personally, I think it might have been because the WW was being so hurt by Dark Arts at the time, I understand how a lot of people disagree that James and Sirius could be so political at such a young age, but I think they were ontological kids, thinking and moralising was part of how they expressed themselves I don't think that they were too young for it at all. I don't think James really did know much about the Dark Arts, he was too prejudiced against them, is my guess, and gave them a really wide berth. While OTOH I believe its possible that Snape was very like James in his own way, brave in his own way in delving into the Dark Arts to understand them, going where angels fear to tread, I think Severus was a political boy too. Most of my pondering leads me to a place where James and Snapes hatred was based on misunderstanding of each other, neither able or willing to conceded their likenesses so they concentrated most defiantly on their differences instead. > And why has no one mentioned the Remus quote from HBP saying that > young Severus hadn't been as bad as he was made to look? Can anyone > find that one? > > Potioncat. > Valky: Oh please find this one someone :) I actually do agree with it. From donnawonna at worldnet.att.net Sun Apr 2 02:23:14 2006 From: donnawonna at worldnet.att.net (Donna) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 21:23:14 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time) Subject: Ron's Eat Slugs hex/jinx References: Message-ID: <442F3592.000001.04016@D33LDD51> No: HPFGUIDX 150377 I've seen reference to Ron jinxing Draco with "Eat Slugs" and decided to look it up. (All references are to the US Edition of Chamber of Secrets). In chap. 6, page 97, Draco has just made the comment to Harry about getting your head cut does not make you special. "Crabbe and Goyle were sniggering stupidly. "Eat slugs, Malfoy," said Ron angrily. Crabbe stopped laughing and started rubbing his knuckles in a menacing way." No wands, just the words, "Eat slugs, Malfoy." Nothing happened regarding slugs. In chap. 7, page 112, Draco has called Hermione a "filthy little Mudblood". ".....and Ron plunged his hand into his robes, pulled out his wand, yelling, "You'll pay for that one, Malfoy!" and pointed it furiously under Flint's arm at Malfoy's face. A loud bang echoed around the stadium and a jet of green light shot out of the wrong end of Ron's wand, hitting him in the stomach and sending him reeling backward onto the grass." A wand was pulled but no voiced curse/jinx/hex was uttered. Ron started belching slugs. As I see it, one of three things happened: 1 - Voiced jinx/hex from page 97 was carried over to page 112. 2 - Ron did a nonverbal jinx/hex (Intentional nonverbals have not been learned yet). 3 - Something is left out of my edition. Did Ron actually try to jinx/hex Draco with a nonverbal that backfired? At this point in time, I don't believe they had learned or were trying nonverbals. Comments? Corrections? Donna -------Original Message------- From: justcarol67 Date: 03/31/06 14:27:41 To: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com Subject: [HPforGrownups] Severus's memories and schoolyard curses (Was: Huge overreactions .. . .) > kchuplis: > > Someone posted it. I guess interviews are considered canon (although, I"m not sure I agree with that. Once something leaves an artist, part of it's life is it's own two feet). However, I still think everything was portrayed exactly, but I cannot say that seeing an incident in isolation is not bias in itself. We still think of it without connection to anything else. I still wonder if there isn't a memory somewhere of Snape bullying a first year with something really evil and James coming across it and stopping him, for instance, which makes the pensieve scene look completely different. I can actually see even another level where Snape, who is pretty brilliant, and obviously an unhappy child (ok, there are only two scenes supporting this but still, I would guess that makes it pretty canon or JKR would have given us a look see at least at ONE happy Snape memory); crying as his parents fought and alone in a room shooting flies out of the air (which, sorry but to me that is not real far off from pulling wings off butterflies just because of the description - he was bored, not being annoyed by them), and maybe he caused nasty things to people he didn't like even without trying or meaning to (ala Tom Riddle minus the intention) and James caught him at it or was the recipient of it. That's, IMO, a type of bias when you see a pensieve scene. Carol responds: Yes and no. The Pensieve scene itself is an objective recreation of the incident in which Harry can walk around and see and hear more than Severus himself did. But, yes, we're seeing only one memory out of many, evidently the one that the adult Snape finds most painful. Still, that memory is complete in itself, and the point of it appears to be that Severus did nothing to instigate that particular attack. It was two on one, unprovoked, for the entertainment of Bored!Sirius. I would say that the third memory, of the unknown girl laughing at the boy Severus (who at a guess is about eleven years old) riding what appears to be a hexed broomstick is not indicative of a happy childhood, either. I object to the comparison of the magical equivalent of swatting flies to pulling the wings off butterflies, however. One is done out of boredom (flies are annoying pests that even Muggles kill without a thought), the other out of sheer cruelty. I'm guessing that he's stunning the flies (IIRC, Harry does something similar to a wasp in Trelawney's class), not AKing them. Or maybe the WW has a bug-killing curse that's not illegal. Surely they don't let flies settle on their food or buzz annoyingly around their heads any more than Muggles do. And it's James, not Severus, whom Lily pointedly accuses of hexing people in corridors when they annoy him or just because he can. On a sidenote about James and Sirius, we keep hearing (from Lupin) that they kept him company on full moon nights out of friendship, but we also hear from Black that "the risk would have made it fun." Sirius himself wishes it were a full moon night, to which Remus grimly replies that he doesn't. Sirius, IMO, wants adventure and is completely indifferent to the suffering he undergoes during his transformations, and the guilt he feels at all the near-misses. And note that he arrogantly refuses to help Remus study Transfiguration, stating that *he* already knows that stuff.James's joking about the werewolf question, in a voice loud enough to cause Remus concern, and his dismissal of Remus's lycanthropy as "your furry little problem" do not connote compassion in my view. So while I don't deny an early interest in the Dark Arts on Severus's part, rather odd on the part of a half-blood with a Muggle father if that father had any part in his upbringing, I see the memories as objective indicators that Severus was unhappy, that he hated James with good reason, and that James and Sirius really were arrogant, thoughtless little berks with no consideration even for the friend they ran with on full moon nights. And again, there's no indication that the curses Severus came to school knowing are any darker than, say, the Leg Locker curse or Ron's "Eat slugs!" But knowing those hexes, being placed in Slytherin, and having the attention of the older Slytherin gang members may have added up to "an interest in the Dark Arts" from age eleven. We know that he excelled in *Defense Against* the Dark Arts, but the only really Dark curse that we know he invented is Sectum Sempra, and he invented (or discovered) a thoroughly unDark countercurse to that. (I still think, for reasons posted earlier, that the cutting curse in the Pensieve scene, which does *not* cause James to bleed unstoppably, is only a precursor of Sectum Sempra, which was invented for use against "enemies," IMO because those "enemies" had tried to murder him--at least in his view, an opinion no doubt helped by the fact that Sirius Black remained unrepentant for the rest of his life. Only Severus knew the countercurse to Sectum Sempra. Does anyone *really* think that he sang that countercurse to stop James's bleeding or that the bleeding could have been stopped in any other way if it really was Sectum Sempra--"cut *always*"?) Carol, agreeing that we're seeing only snippets of Severus's past but noting that he seems more unhappy than evil whereas James and Sirius look like inconsiderate, self-centered, arrogant bullies--perhaps, as you indicate, only one side of their otherwise charming personalities Before posting to any list, you MUST read the group's Admin File! http://groups.yahoo com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin_Files/HBF_Text__MUST_READ Please use accurate subject headings and snip unnecessary material from posts to which you're replying! SPONSORED LINKS Adult education Culture club Organizational culture YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "HPforGrownups" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: HPforGrownups-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 02:55:27 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 02:55:27 -0000 Subject: Where did he learn it all? (was Re: Severus's memories and schoolyard curses) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150378 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Adriana" wrote: > > Glykonix: > > I'm sorry zgirnius to shatter your idyllic image of Grandpa Prince > holding a job in some shady (Dark Arts connected) enterprise in > Knockturn Alley, and Grandma Prince cooking up potions at home in > her kitchen to supplement the household income. > But Eileen herself was a half-blood. zgirnius: Hermione did not research Eileen's blood status. Upon discovering there was a witch named Prince at Hogwarts at one point, Hermione hypothesized: "No, listen! If, say, her father was a wizard whose surname was Prince, and her mother was Muggle, then that would make her a 'half- blood Prince'!" (The Seer Overheard, HBP). (Note the 'If, say', not just the statement of a fact about her father and mother.) In "The White Tomb" Harry and Hermione again discuss the HBP, when Hermione explains to Harry that Snape was Eileen Prince's son by a Muggle father. Harry suggests: "He's just like Voldemort. Pure-blood mother, Muggle father...ashamed of his parentage, (etc...)" Hermione neither agrees nor disagrees with this sentiment, which suggests to me she never researched Eileen's ancestry in more detail after the first scene, or she surely would have agreed/disagreed, as appropriate. So I shall continue in my little idyll of working-class pureblood Princes with Dark Arts connections ...as you are free to believe your preferred fanfic. (At least until Book 7 messes it up for us!) From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 03:08:17 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 03:08:17 -0000 Subject: Sectumsempra in the pensieve / or not In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150379 > Valky: > Yes its in GOF, I am pretty sure of that, in the cave meeting when > they talk about Karkaroff, Bertha and Florence as well, if memory > serves me correctly. zgirnius: It does . "Padfoot Returns" (p. 531 US paperback) "Snape's always been fascinbated by the Dark Arts, he was famous for it at school. Slimy, oily, greasy-haired kid he was," Sirius added, and Harry and Rin grinned at each other. "Snape knew more curses when he arrived at school than half the kids in seventh year, and he was part of a gang of Slytherins who nealry all turned out to be Death Eaters." > Valky: > That is why I contend so vehemently that Snape must have been a > dangerous boy. James' strongest character quality that we know was > that he was extraordinarily brave, it makes no sense that someone so > concieted and so brave at the same time (and concieted about his > bravery to compound it all) would allow himself to be seen locked in > eternal battle with an easy target. With the crowd cheering him on and > him being conscious of the girls by the lake watching him, it is clear > to me that he thought he was at the height of his pride in himself. > > We have proofs by contradiction that he would never be proud of > picking on something weaker or unfairly maligned, those proofs are his > friends. zgirnius: I have a bit of trouble seeing this aspect of James' personality in the evidence we have in the books. Surely if James were unable to take pride in picking on someone weaker, he would have asked Sirius to stay out of it in the Pensieve memory? From belviso at attglobal.net Sun Apr 2 03:09:24 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 22:09:24 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Sectumsempra in the pensieve / or not References: Message-ID: <00d801c65602$da7daaf0$e872400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 150380 > Valky: We have proofs by contradiction that he would never be proud of picking on something weaker or unfairly maligned, those proofs are his friends. Including Lupin, who was everything that many Snapeoholics are arguing was the one and only crime evident in Snape in the Pensieve. Lupin was always as shabby and unkempt as Snape, he was always as strange and quiet and staring at a book as Snape, Lupin was the wierd unusual gawky boy who had no friends in first year, that James befriended him is the absolute antithesis of a James who picked on Snape for nothing. Lupin is the proof by contradiction that James = empty headed Bully who picked on Snape for no reason - does not exist IMHO. Magpie: I agree that James did not pick on Snape for nothing, but Lupin is not the way you've described him here. There's nothing to indicate he's anything but a regular boy. Quieter than James and Sirius, maybe, but that doesn't make him strange or quiet. He's staring at his book to ignore what's going on in this scene, but there's no reason to think he spent all his time with his nose in a book otherwise. I don't have my books with me, but I can't remember "weird" "unusual" or "gawky" ever being used to describe Lupin. And why would he be shabby and unkept? He looks pale and drawn around the full moon, but that doesn't effect his ability to dress himself. His clothes are shabby as an adult because he can't get a job; he doesn't wear shabby uniforms at school. >From where I sat in the Pensieve it looked like Lupin was a cool kid, just not as flashy as James and Sirius. He wasn't completely ordinary--his looking peaked once a month and his having a secret may have put on a vibe of there being something "different" about him that didn't put James off, but socially he seems about as challenged as Seamus or Dean. -m From Aisbelmon at hotmail.com Sun Apr 2 03:26:59 2006 From: Aisbelmon at hotmail.com (M.Clifford) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 03:26:59 -0000 Subject: Ron's Eat Slugs hex/jinx In-Reply-To: <442F3592.000001.04016@D33LDD51> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150381 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Donna" wrote: > > I've seen reference to Ron jinxing Draco with "Eat Slugs" and > decided to look it up. > > As I see it, one of three things happened: > > 1 - Voiced jinx/hex from page 97 was carried over to page 112. > > 2 - Ron did a nonverbal jinx/hex (Intentional nonverbals have not > been learned yet). > > 3 - Something is left out of my edition. Valky: Wow great question! There's nothing missing from your edition that is in mine, Donna, we are reading the same thing but I simply never noticed before. For the record I knew as I was posting about the 'eat slugs' hex that there was some movie contamination in what I was writing, but I figured it to be negligible on the basis that both the book hex and the movie hex had exactly the same effects. I have one or two theories on how an apparently non-verbal spell made it into COS, myself. The first is that it could simply be a Flint, many of the scenes in CoS were meant for HBP context which could mean that perhaps JKR intended non verbal spells to be introduced in CoS and wrote this scene before she took the HBP stuff out again, missing this one in the process. This seems the most likely thing to me. Another alternative is that JKR was working along some plot point of intention in magic and Ron's intention to hex Malfoy with a slug hex caused his wand to lets say 'charge up' with the spell he had intended to use, but it backfired before he got the the words out. Valky From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 03:39:02 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 03:39:02 -0000 Subject: Words have consequences In-Reply-To: <27659046.1143837080087.JavaMail.SYSTEM@webmail> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150382 > Betsy Hp: > > But Draco went in ready to trade insults. He behaved horribly, I > agree. But he was the one lying unconscious on the floor, so > therefore, he was the victim. > >>BAW: > Then you say that it is reasonable to go around saying horrid > things to and about people and not expect a negative reaction? Betsy Hp: Gosh, no. And I'd say Draco was expecting a negative reaction. Just not such an overwhelming one. And while I do think Draco behaved horribly, by sinking to (or even beneath) his level, Harry and friends managed to turn him into a victim. > >>BAW: > > I would say that anyone who did something like that deserves > whatever happens to him, and what Draco said certainly approaches > that level. Betsy Hp: And, if the person in your example was knocked unconscious and the police were called, he'd be considered a victim and the attackers would be arrested. Betsy Hp From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Sun Apr 2 03:41:57 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 03:41:57 -0000 Subject: Sectumsempra in the pensieve / or not In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150383 Valky: > ...How does > Sirius know what Snape is thinking in the first moment he claps eyes > on James or vice versa... *(snip)* > Now from Ron's point of view maybe he could also think that Draco and > Harry hated each other on sight... Ceridwen: I had the impression that this quote was supposed to show us that James and Snape were much like Harry and Draco, reinforcing Dumbledore's words from PS/SS. Of course, Sirius could be wrong. But, maybe James told him. He of course wouldn't have Snape's word for it, unless it was spouted in anger, and angry comments, especially from kids, should be taken with a grain of salt. Potioncat: > > Peter was a toady. That relationship doesn't reflect well on James. Valky: > I agree it doesn't, he was clearly a sucker for flattery, a vain and > concieted boy, no doubt. But there is also an strong element of > benevolence in James relationship with Peter evident in James' trust > in him and caring for him right through their adult years together. Ceridwen: They were also roommates, from the same house, in the same year, as Ron, Neville, Dean and Seamus are Harry's roommates, and there will be a closer bond. This sort of bond goes beyond the surface repugnance of a person, unless the person is incredibly repugnant or the roommates are incredibly mean. I don't think Peter is really all that stupid, since he did learn to be an Animagus outside of the curriculum. Weak, though, yes. And, conniving, proven by his sycophantic behavior in the Pensieve scene, and his running to the most powerful wizard he could find once they were out of Hogwarts. I do think he was probably a hero-worshipper from before his first year at Hogwarts. Still, he was roommate and year mate, and he was a part of their group. Potioncat: > > James knew Remus for quite a while before he found out about the > > furry problem. By then he knew and liked the boy. Werewolves are > > dark creatures. Would James have bothered to get to know him if he > > had known he was a werewolf? Valky: > It's only my opinion, but I do think he would have done. When I put > together canon James I come up with a boy who didn't indulge in fears. Ceridwen: If James met Remus for the first time at Hogwarts, he might not have known about the 'furry problem' until later. Remus wouldn't want his roommates to know. The school, Dumbledore, went to great lengths to help him hide his condition, he was probably reminded not to advertise. Someone in Remus's position would understand the value of secrecy. Obviously, once James, Sirius and Peter found out, they didn't turn their backs on him, not out of fear or out of prejudice. We can probably wonder what Peter would have done with a different set of friends to guide him, but as it stood, Remus was safe enough during school with them knowing his position. I just don't think they knew right away. I think Remus would not have told them, until he had enough trust in them, or until he was accidentally outed. Yet another thing we don't know! Too many things to wonder about! Valky: > That is why I contend so vehemently that Snape must have been a > dangerous boy. James' strongest character quality that we know was > that he was extraordinarily brave, it makes no sense that someone so > concieted and so brave at the same time (and concieted about his > bravery to compound it all) would allow himself to be seen locked in > eternal battle with an easy target. Ceridwen: Dangerous, or perhaps skilled. There's no shame in taking on someone skilled if they're not dangerous. It's the skill, after all, whether or not that person might use it to harm. James was also known as good at magic, if I recall right. He would certainly want to show himself off with someone equally, or better, skilled. Valky: > Personally, I think it might have been because the WW was being so > hurt by Dark Arts at the time, I understand how a lot of people > disagree that James and Sirius could be so political at such a young > age, but I think they were ontological kids, thinking and moralising > was part of how they expressed themselves I don't think that they were > too young for it at all. Ceridwen: Most kids, given the impetus, will be political, I think. The impetus here was VWI. LV was already amassing his followers while he was still in school in the 1940s, and he had known followers by the time he reapplied for the DADA position in the 1950s. So the entire WW was politicized, and probably polarized as well. Sirius and his family would only be one example out of many. Look at the American Civil War, or any civil war. Brothers fight against their brothers, and their fathers, and their sisters, too. It's all idological. And everyone has an opinion, everyone is emotional about it. Valky: > I don't think James really did know much about the Dark Arts, he was > too prejudiced against them, is my guess, and gave them a really wide > berth. While OTOH I believe its possible that Snape was very like > James in his own way, brave in his own way in delving into the Dark > Arts to understand them, going where angels fear to tread, I think > Severus was a political boy too. Ceridwen: I don't think any of them could have avoided being political. I wonder if there was a generational element involved. There seems to be, with Sirius differing with his parents over LV and Pureblood Supremacy, but there may also be one with James and Snape as well. I don't think I recall anyone suggesting that James goes against his parents' philosophy, while everyone knows, from canon, that Sirius does. People also, at least from what I've read, think that Snape, like James, upholds his family's viewpoint. There's some evidence in canon that the Potters did have the same, or nearly the same, values as James, with Sirius staying at their house. But, Sirius couldn't have been the only rebel in that year at Hogwarts, could he? Valky: > Most of my pondering leads me to a place where James and Snapes hatred > was based on misunderstanding of each other, neither able or willing > to conceded their likenesses so they concentrated most defiantly on > their differences instead. Ceridwen: And, some likenesses don't get along with each other. Sometimes, strong personalities clash. There are some types of personalities that need to be the Leader, for instance, and another Leader coming in would upset the balance of a group, causing friction. So, their likenesses might have been the sort that clash. Interesting points! I'm enjoying this discussion. Ceridwen. From Aisbelmon at hotmail.com Sun Apr 2 03:53:50 2006 From: Aisbelmon at hotmail.com (M.Clifford) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 03:53:50 -0000 Subject: Sectumsempra in the pensieve / or not In-Reply-To: <00d801c65602$da7daaf0$e872400c@Spot> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150384 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Magpie" wrote: > > > Valky: > Lupin was always as shabby and unkempt as Snape, he was > always as strange and quiet and staring at a book as Snape, Lupin > was the wierd unusual gawky boy who had no friends in first year, > that James befriended him is the absolute antithesis of a James who > picked on Snape for nothing. Lupin is the proof by contradiction > that James = empty headed Bully who picked on Snape for no reason - > does not exist IMHO. > > Magpie: > I agree that James did not pick on Snape for nothing, but Lupin is > not the way you've described him here. There's nothing to indicate > he's anything but a regular boy. Quieter than James and Sirius, > maybe, but that doesn't make him strange or quiet. He's staring at > his book to ignore what's going on in this scene, but there's no > reason to think he spent all his time with his nose in a book > otherwise. I don't have my books with me, but I can't remember > "weird" "unusual" or "gawky" ever being used to describe Lupin. > And why would he be shabby and unkept? He looks pale and drawn > around the full moon, but that doesn't effect his ability to dress > himself. His clothes are shabby as an adult because he can't get a > job; he doesn't wear shabby uniforms at school. > > socially he seems about as challenged as Seamus or Dean. > > -m > Valky: You're right, m, I am taking some liberty with the descriptions of Lupin but its based based mostly on the things he says about himself and his freindship with the marauders in POA and not on the pensieve scene at all. There is his statement that he bit and scratched himself during his terrible transformations as a child, I strongly doubt he could have done this every month without it being something that people noticed about his appearance at school. "My transformations in those days were -- were terrible. It is very painful to turn into a werewolf. I was separated from humans to bite, so I bit and scratched myself instead. " (PA18) And then there is another quote in POA which I have looked for but I can't find, I hope someone can find it for me, where Lupin remarks that he could never have gotten through his years at Hogwarts if he had not had such good friends who refused to judge him on his appearance or something like that, I am paraphrasing from a very vague memory. I have also translated Lupins nose in a book characterisitic not from his adamant staring during the Pensieve scene but more from the rest of the context where he worries about his performance in the DADA exam and I take the liberty of assuming that when he says he was not as clever and gifted as James and Sirius, but he got good marks anyway he means that he worked hard academically to overcome his disadvantage in being a werewolf and by extension that means that he studied a lot more than his friends and a lot harder. So I admit I am rawing a lot of inferences, but I think they are well based. :) Valky From willsonkmom at msn.com Sun Apr 2 04:16:30 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 04:16:30 -0000 Subject: Sectumsempra in the pensieve / or not In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150385 Valky wrote: > I don't think James really did know much about the Dark Arts, he was > too prejudiced against them, is my guess, and gave them a really wide > berth. While OTOH I believe its possible that Snape was very like > James in his own way, brave in his own way in delving into the Dark > Arts to understand them, going where angels fear to tread, I think > Severus was a political boy too. > > Most of my pondering leads me to a place where James and Snapes hatred > was based on misunderstanding of each other, neither able or willing > to conceded their likenesses so they concentrated most defiantly on > their differences instead. Potioncat: That makes a lot of sense! Look how very much alike Harry and Snape are and how much Harry was attracted to the HBP. I suspect Severus saw the Dark Arts as an out. A way to be stronger than the other guy. This may be particularly true if Eileen was weakened by love, like Tonks or Merope. Severus may have seen power as more important than good or evil. Potioncat earlier: > > And why has no one mentioned the Remus quote from HBP saying that > > young Severus hadn't been as bad as he was made to look? Can anyone > > find that one? Potioncat now: April Fools! (no such quote exists...at least not yet) From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 04:28:25 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 04:28:25 -0000 Subject: Snape as infidel was Re: Kant and Snape and Ethics and Everything In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150386 > Pippin: > I think it's dangerous to confuse Harry's inner Slytherin with > Slytherin House (though Harry himself does this all the time.) > Harry's inner Slytherin needs to be assimilated. But the Slytherins > themselves have just as much right to be psychologically complex > as Harry -- they can't be reduced to the qualities Harry sees > as Slytherin in himself. > > I see the attractiveness of assimilating the Slytherins, but I > wonder if this isn't how the rift began, with each of the Founders > seeking power in order to make theirs the dominant > culture, fearing that otherwise what they regarded as unique > and valuable would be cast aside. > I think the answer is not in assimilation, in the houses becoming > more alike. I think it's in seeing that what unites them is more > important than what divides them. And part of that will be > admitting that they have scapegoated Slytherin, and that some > Slytherins have embraced the part. Betsy Hp: Ah! Now I think I understand what you're saying, and I agree. I don't want to see the Hogwarts house system come to an end. There is a beauty and healthiness in allowing for the different philosophies and appreciating each house's strength even if it's not your particular thing. I think I got hung up on the religion thing (which does bring a lot of extra stuff to the table, IMO). If I think about it as different philosophies it jells better for me. It's like on Star Trek you've got the three philosophies of Spock, Kirk and McCoy and the three together can take on the universe in a way they never could apart. Trying to mush them together into one single philosophy would never work, but there is a need for each man to recognize and appreciate the strength of the other. So you've got Hogwarts, with its four houses. (Let's throw in Scotty to make it all equal. ) Kirk = Gryffindor, Spock = Ravenclaw, Scotty = Hufflepuff, and McCoy = Slytherin. And Slytherin's been pushed out into the cold (or walked out). But, just as the Enterprise isn't going to do so well without McCoy, Hogwarts isn't going to do so well without Slytherin. And you know, I don't know that JKR really does see Gyffindor as better. *She* prefers Gryffindor and feels she'd probably be Sorted there, and the Gyffindor type lends itself better to this sort of tale. But it doesn't mean she doesn't get that other folks would feel more at home in, say, Hufflepuff. And it doesn't mean that she can't see how important Hufflepuff is to Hogwarts. > >>Betsy Hp: > > Oh, yeah, I'm pretty much talking about DDM!Snape whenever I talk > > about Snape. Rather than interesting the other flavors are too > > illogical, leading to the same dead-end. > >>Nora: > But note that your holding fast to DDM! generates some interesting > problems, such as you mentioned--that not being a very nice thing > for Dumbledore to do. Now, that could be actually what's going > on, and what is problematic is real and will probably generate > some further textual exegesis; but if you find it hard enough to > reconcile, it could also be a signal that you're running into > difficulties which are trying to tell you something. Betsy Hp: But that's the thing, it's not hard to reconcile at all. Dumbledore isn't all that nice. Sticking Sirius into his childhood home, sending Lupin to hang with the werewolf who turned him, returning Harry to the Dursleys year after year, none of those things are nice. At all. So a sudden dependence on Dumbledore not doing something merely because it isn't nice seems to be a deviation from the text. IMO, anyway. Betsy Hp, kinda proud of her Star Trek analogy From Aisbelmon at hotmail.com Sun Apr 2 04:31:31 2006 From: Aisbelmon at hotmail.com (M.Clifford) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 04:31:31 -0000 Subject: Severus's memories and schoolyard curses (Was: Huge overreactions .. . .) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150387 > Carol wrote: > And > note that he arrogantly refuses to help Remus study Transfiguration, > stating that *he* already knows that stuff. James's joking about the > werewolf question, in a voice loud enough to cause Remus concern, > and his dismissal of Remus's lycanthropy as "your furry little > problem" do not connote compassion in my view. Valky: I read the part of the Pensieve scene that you're mentioning here, Carol, very differently. There seems to me, to be an silent dialogue between Remus and Sirius that becomes evident when the whole Worst Memory is finished playing out. I think that when Lupin says to Sirius, if you're really bored you can test me on this, he's not saying that he really wants to study but that he really wants Sirius to be distracted because he knows what is likely to happen next is that Sirius and James are going to start trouble for themselves for a kick. So I expect that Remus really doesn't care as much about the impending transfiguration exam as it seems, but far more about the harm his two dearest friends are bound to do to themselves within the next few minutes and he tries to change Sirius's mind, but can't. Valky From puduhepa98 at aol.com Sun Apr 2 04:31:32 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 23:31:32 EST Subject: Snape as infidel was Re: Kant and Snape and Ethics and Ev... Message-ID: <20b.14c5e89b.3160ada4@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150388 >Nora: I> get the suspicion that if Snape is to live, he's going to have to >have some kind of concession scene. > > The whole "I hoped Professor Snape would be able to get over..." > speech at the end of OotP seemed to me, at least, to be a hope not > only for the specific actions (that Snape would come to see Harry as > a person in and of himself and maybe even love him like Dumbledore > obviously does), but that those actions would actually be a deep > change in Snape's perspective on life. >Pippin: >But Dumbledore blames Snape's lack of recovery on Snape's wounds not >on his choices and there is no hint that he considers it a moral failure >of Snape's. Nikkalmati: At the end, IF Snape and Harry are still alive, I believe there will be some changes in Snape, but we may not see it and it will be the result of a change in his circumstances. First, as a practical matter, Harry and DDMSnape are going to have to work together to achieve the overthrow of LV. That will require some level of mutual respect (and some interesting plot turns). Also, we must consider the substantial change in SS's position. Look at it from his POV. He has been stuck at Hogwarts for 10-15 years not able to move on and unable to do anything about LV himself because of the prophecy. After the war, he will no longer be under the stress of living a double life; there is no reason for him to teach or associate with anyone he doesn't like (or anyone at all for that matter). Right now he has been waiting a decade for this kid to show up, who has SS's own future in his hands and he turns out to be this nitwit, who in SS's view, is not up to the job. He doesn't work hard, he doesn't show special powers and he doesn't seem to care! If Harry had been more like Hermione, I don't think SS would have disliked him so. Now he is stuck waiting for the kid to grow up, watching him every day, and it doesn't seem to be happening. Just one more reason why SS doesn't like Harry. Once LV is gone, SS's temper will no doubt improve. BTW, as I said before, when DD told Harry (more or less) that he had hoped SS would be able to put aside his hatred of James and teach Harry Occlumency, he didn't know what had really happened in that classroom between SS and Harry. Is there any canon that would tell us he did know? Nikkalmati [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From sherriola at earthlink.net Sun Apr 2 04:53:09 2006 From: sherriola at earthlink.net (Sherry Gomes) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 20:53:09 -0800 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Severus's memories and schoolyard curses (Was: Huge overreactions .. . .) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150389 > Carol wrote: and > his dismissal of Remus's lycanthropy as "your furry little problem" do > not connote compassion in my view. Sherry now: I just wanted to reply to this bit. If you heard some of my friends interact with me, you might not think they are very compassionate either. They can make cracks about my blindness in ways that would never be tolerated from a stranger or even an acquaintance. Friends of mine can get away with saying things like, what's the matter with you, are you blind or something? And even worse things, if it came from people I don't' know and trust completely to accept me for me. The fact that James and Sirius joke with Remus about being a werewolf, even to the point that they do call it a furry little problem, seems to me a mark of their friendship. They show they truly accept him, just as he is by being able to joke about it. Things like that show me the strength of the bond between those marauders, not an arrogant or inconsiderate James or Sirius. Sherry From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 05:03:09 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 05:03:09 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150390 > Valky: > > I don't think James really did know much about the Dark Arts, he was > > too prejudiced against them, is my guess, and gave them a really > wide > > berth. While OTOH I believe its possible that Snape was very like > > James in his own way, brave in his own way in delving into the Dark > > Arts to understand them, going where angels fear to tread, I think > > Severus was a political boy too. > > Ceridwen: I don't think any of them could have avoided being > political. I wonder if there was a generational element involved. > There seems to be, with Sirius differing with his parents over LV and > Pureblood Supremacy, but there may also be one with James and Snape > as well. I don't think I recall anyone suggesting that James goes > against his parents' philosophy, while everyone knows, from canon, > that Sirius does. People also, at least from what I've read, think > that Snape, like James, upholds his family's viewpoint. There's some > evidence in canon that the Potters did have the same, or nearly the > same, values as James, with Sirius staying at their house. But, > Sirius couldn't have been the only rebel in that year at Hogwarts, > could he? Alla: Not me, Valky. I absolutely think that they WERE political and could not avoid being such with Voldemort already recruiting outside Hogwarts ( I speculated that Voldemort may have looked for the recruits inside Hogwarts too, but even if he was not, but waited till kids graduate, kids don't function in the vacuum and they were IMO forced to take sides) But I have actually a bit more to say than just " me too" ( Alla tries to put her train of thought on constructive track). The best example of the idea that kids could be political at the early age to me was always twelve year old Ron knowing full well how bad the word "mudblood" is, when he explains it to Harry in CoS. Now, I am not saying that Ron has fully formed stance in the Light v Dark struggle, but at twelve he already has SOME kind of position, he knows that people who use this word are wrong, big time. He still has to work on some issues of course, but I maintain that at twelve he IS political, therefore it is very reasonable to think that at fifteen /sixteen Sirius and James indeed were even more political and Sirius leaving his family house maintains that as well, IMO. Ceridwen, could you clarify a bit, please? Are you suggesting that James and Snape also clashed with their parents over their worldviews? I am not sure I can see any signs of this in canon as to James. I mean, always hated Dark Arts seems to me as something that his parents would have taught him, especially since as you said they took Sirius in. As to Snape rebelling, well since we are still fuzzy on the biographical details of his life, I guess it is possible, but what was he rebelling about to his parents? Speculate? :) > Sherry now: The fact that James and Sirius joke > with Remus about being a werewolf, even to the point that they do call it a > furry little problem, seems to me a mark of their friendship. They show > they truly accept him, just as he is by being able to joke about it. Things > like that show me the strength of the bond between those marauders, not an > arrogant or inconsiderate James or Sirius. Alla: To me what fully supports your argument, Sherry, is the way Remus remembers this remark. He brings it up in order once again compliment how Harry reacts to his lycanthropy and Remus LIKES how Harry reacts to his lycanthropy. I thought that was clear that Remus remembers fondly how James reacted to his lycanthropy too. I thought it was another very touching moment and that brought James' very positive quality to light in a very gentle way, so to speak. "But you are normal!" said Harry fiercely,"You've just got a --- problem---" Lupin burst out laughing. "Sometimes you remind me a lot of James. He called it my "furry little problem" in company. Many people were under impression that I owned a badly behaved rabbit" - HBP, p.335. LOVE this quote, absolutely love it. JMO, Alla From willsonkmom at msn.com Sun Apr 2 05:46:14 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 05:46:14 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150391 Alla: > I mean, always hated Dark Arts seems to me as something that his > parents would have taught him, especially since as you said they > took Sirius in. Potioncat: I still find it hard to understand "James hated Dark Arts" as something he could learn from his parents, unless it was because of a very personal reason. For example, my children would learn that racism is wrong, that drugs are bad...but they probably wouldn't walk out of the house hating either of them. But if the Potter family had somehow been hurt by Dark Arts, and it was something James had seen or heard about in a vivid way, then it would make sense that he hated Dark magic. For the record, I don't think using Dark Arts automatically makes one a follower of LV. I would think, regardless of your opinion of purity and blood, if you did not approve of dark arts, you would not follow LV. So someone like Snape might find himself more and more in association with LV followers. Fast forward. Harry uses Dark Arts. Snape never officially finds out how he learned it and Merlin knows what DD and McG were told. McG is very angry, chews him out, and that's it. He has detention for the rest of the term. So performing Dark Magic doesn't get him sent to Azkaban or tossed out of school (although it could have.) I suppose had James been alive, he would have sent a Howler. Not sure of my point. Just that James seems very passionate about this at a very young age. From catlady at wicca.net Sun Apr 2 08:13:49 2006 From: catlady at wicca.net (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 08:13:49 -0000 Subject: Lily/ChapDisc/Zach/TheDetentionCards/Werewolf/Spider/GoF Stomp / Snape :) Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150392 Annemehr presented in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150106 the JKR quote : << MA: Did [Lily] know anything about the possible effect of standing in front of Harry? JKR: No - because as I've tried to make clear in the series, it never happened before. No one ever survived before. And no one, therefore, knew that could happen. >> JKR chooses her words carefully. Lily couldn't KNOW what would happen, but she could maybe EXPECT some particular thing to happen based on a theory she had. Jen Reese summarized Chapter 13 in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150131 : << Chapter 13, The Secret Riddle >> I suppose there were two Riddles in this chapter, Merope was Mrs. Riddle and Tom was young Mr Riddle. Which one was secret? << 6. Just out of curiosity, we never learned what happened to Caractacus Burke. Any speculation? >> I speculate that he died of normal old age before young Riddle got a job at the shop. If he'd still been alive when TMR got the job, TMR would have murdered him in revenge for 'stealing' the locket. << 7. JKR made a statement prior to HBP that we would know more about the 'circumstances of Riddle's birth'. Was there anything about his birth or life in the orphanage that surprised you or was it pretty much the story you were expecting? >> I expected the orphanage to be a much nastier place. It wasn't really THAT bad -- it was better than the way the Dursleys treated Harry before he got his Hogwarts letter. Children allowed to have pets! I expected the witch to have lured Tom Sr with beauty rather than with a Love Potion, and therefore expected her to be his victim, rather than to feel sorry for Tom Sr. (I always liked the idea that they weren't even married, but I didn't really expect JKR to go for it.) I expected the witch's family (somehow I expected two parents and no sibling) to be cleaner and saner than they were. That is, I was all wrong. Hickengruendler wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150137 : << I just realised that Burke had to be alive at least some time later to give Dumbledore his evidence. >> I think Burke revolving above the Penseive means that he could have come from a memory that someone else gave to Dumbledore rather than from DD's own memory... That raises questions about who was the rememberer whom DD was concealing (another, secret, Riddle?) and was the Pensieve Trelawney DD's own memory? Magpie wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/15015 : << I couldn't figure out why everybody seemed to hate Zach from the year before. >> Because Zach is snide, or his friends would call it snarky. Snarkiness is delightful and charming when aimed by one's friends at people who aren't one's friends, and is at least irritating when aimed at one or one's close friends by people who aren't one's friends. Very much like Snape and Draco, whose snarkiness is one of their 'good' points. Sharon wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150184 : << << Kemper, who's wondering where all the detention/punishment forms are for Snape in Filch's filing cabinet.>> I doubt it. They might have been, but I think Snape would have made sure to remove them before setting Harry to re-write all the damaged cards in HBP. He wanted the opportunity to pull down Harry's estimation of James - not show himself in an equally bad light. >> It has been speculated that young Severus was good enough at sucking up to teachers that he avoided getting detentions. I dunno that I see that in his adult personality. But adult Snape seems to be a friend of Filch, so maybe young Snape was a friend of Filch and Filch didn't give him detentions. And Filch's detention cards might well only record detentions given by Filch. I'm not sure that Snape thought that reviewing James's and Sirius's juvenile delinquencies would lower them in Harry's esteem -- he claimed to believe that Harry was just like James including thinking that pantsing Severus was funny. I think the Snape spitefulness may simply have been to keep reminding Harry that the people who loved him were dead. It has been suggested that Snape was keeping Harry confined all those Saturday mornings in order to Legilimens him. If he was seeking information about Sirius, it would be reasonable to keep reminding Harry to think about Sirius. Pippin wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150213 : << JKR tells us that a clever wizard might be able to transfigure veritaserum into something else. Presumably that could be done with wolfsbane too, if the werewolf wanted an excuse to attack. >> You don't think that wizarding law provides capital punishment or lifetime in Azkaban for a werewolf who attacked a human and got caught? mrs_weasley2004 wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150244 : << Remember why Ron says he is afraid of spiders? One of the twins turned his teddy bear into a spider when he was a little kid. >> I'm sure that was the uncontrolled magic that wizarding children accidentally do when they're angry or frightened, like Harry turning his teacher's wig blue. Tonks_op wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150264 : << I do wonder what DD would have modeled for us. What would he have done??? >> He would have gently asked Draco: "Are you pleased that Cedric is dead?" I personally believe that Draco was not particularly pleased by the death of a pureblood wizard, good Quidditch player, who had never sided with Gryffindors against Draco. In fact, I imagine that just as Harry wants to blame Snape for Sirius's death, Draco wanted to blame Harry for Cedric's death. Dumbledore could have asked gentle steel questions and soon had Draco criticizing the Dark Lord... Alla wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150296 : << laughs when she remembers arguments in defense of the Draco in this scene long time ago that he was really .... warning Hermione here that danger is coming, because he secretly likes her. >> And how has that been disproved? kchuplis wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150328 : << I wonder if [young] Snape was ever happy. Or laughed. Or smiled. >> Surely he smiled nicely when he got one of his invented spells refined just right. And probably when he got an exam paper or an essay back with a perfect score. I specified 'nicely' above, because surely he smiled nastily when someone he disliked was humiliated or defeated. The man who made that poetic PS/Ss speech about the beauty of the softly shimmering cauldron must have been happy when he was making some of those potions. Pippin wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150337 : << Indeed in HBP we learned that their roots of the tragedy overtaking the wizarding world go back centuries, far beyond Voldemort. >> Do you mean the Gaunts being bred for looniness? From irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com Sun Apr 2 10:25:47 2006 From: irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com (IreneMikhlin) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 11:25:47 +0100 Subject: [HPforGrownups] How other people can treat Snape? WAS: Re: Snape less comic? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <442FA6AB.4000200@btopenworld.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150393 dumbledore11214 wrote: > > What level Lupin would be operating on though? The only level I > suggested was that people have a right to ignore Snape both on > social and professional level if and only if he refuses to change > and continues to mistreat people around him as he does. If Snape is > to be given a free reign to treat people around him as he does, I > absolutely maintain that people around him have an absolute right to > protect themseves from Snape. Sure. But why Lupin was civil to Snape during PoA? I mean, Snape was as unpleasant as ever, and Lupin went out of his way to behave as if they are childhood friends. Because of the potion? Because Dumbledore told him so? You see, if you insist that after the war Lupin has no reason to be civil to Snape, it means he was pretending for the whole year. > > Oh, and I heard Snape as Shylock analogy in the past, but never ever > bought it. > > Shylock is discriminated against by virtue of him being a jew only, > Snape is NOT discriminated against as former DE, Dumbledore makes > sure of it, deservingly or not. But was it just an empty prejudice against Shylock? Imagine yourself a 15th century Christian. Here are these people, doing money-lending - something your God considers Dark Magic, I mean, unforgivable, oops, I mean forbidden. And they are not at all civil - imagine, you invite someone for dinner, and he would not touch your food. Which is good enough for every honest person. Even if you are very enlightened, and will inquire as to how he prefers his food to be cooked, and promise to observe every rule - still he won't eat in your house. Obviously he considers your inferior, right? Oh, and if you are a believing 15th century Christian, then these people are responsible (or at best, contributed) for the death of your God and they have never shown any remorse. All that, and we still can't wholeheartedly consider Antonio and Portia to be wonderful people. I wonder why. Irene From amiabledorsai at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 11:25:29 2006 From: amiabledorsai at yahoo.com (amiabledorsai) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 11:25:29 -0000 Subject: Words have consequences In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150394 > Betsy Hp: > And, if the person in your example was knocked unconscious and the > police were called, he'd be considered a victim and the attackers > would be arrested. Interestingly, in the actual event, the Malfoys do not appear to agree with you. Amiable Dorsai From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Sun Apr 2 12:26:09 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 12:26:09 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150395 Alla: > Ceridwen, could you clarify a bit, please? Are you suggesting that > James and Snape also clashed with their parents over their > worldviews? > > I am not sure I can see any signs of this in canon as to James. > > I mean, always hated Dark Arts seems to me as something that his > parents would have taught him, especially since as you said they > took Sirius in. > > As to Snape rebelling, well since we are still fuzzy on the > biographical details of his life, I guess it is possible, but what > was he rebelling about to his parents? Speculate? :) Ceridwen: I definitely did not phrase that well! A generational element could be like Sirius, being opposite his family's stance, or it could be like James's situation appears to be, agreeing with his parents' stance. His parents seem to hold the same, or similar, views as James, since they took Sirius in. Remembering, of course, that someone might be considered progressive in their own time, while they seem more conservative to a much more progressive generation - James's parents might have been slightly more conservative while still holding the same *basic* viewpoint. And, fans tend to take for granted that Snape, knowing dark curses when he came to Hogwarts, means that he too is following in his parents' footsteps. That isn't necessarily so. He could be following only one parent/grandparent while opposing the other, or he could have become so fed up before eleven due to his family's *apparent* unhappiness, that he had already gone the other way and *somehow* found out about dark curses on his own or through a compliant friend of the family. A friend of mine, who was abused from an early age, deliberately went against her parents from at least the age of seven. Taking from real life, then, I can't agree wholeheartedly that Snape followed his family's politics. I also can't refute it. All I can say is, we don't know. It *seems* that fans tend not to think of the Hogwarts students as being political, with the exception of Sirius, who is stated to be politically opposed to his parents. But having lived through the protests etc. of the Viet Nam war (which had a major generational element to it in part due to the strict reining in during WWII of criticism of the government) I doubt, now that Valky has brought it up, that Sirius was the only student who opposed his parents; I also doubt that agreeing with one's parents is not a political stance, as it obviously is a political choice with James. Sure, it's speculation. But I do think, with Sirius's home situation, it is not outside of canon to wonder if other students were not in the same boat, possibly (though no canon to support this) Snape. James is certainly in a political situation, but his is directly opposite that of Sirius. The Black sisters are in the same position as James, only on the other side of the political fence. Another person we guess at, but have no canon for, is Lucius Malfoy. I don't think it's wrong, either, to speculate that some parents may be trying to ignore the situation, as Fudge and the Ministry did in OotP; or to speculate that their children may be more aware and be taking stances either for or against what they think their parents may believe without many clues to guide them. These were the ways my adolescent friends and I reacted to Viet Nam, I see no reason why WW kids would not react in the same ways. *whew!* Hope I got it right this time! ;) Alla: > > I mean, always hated Dark Arts seems to me as something that his > > parents would have taught him, especially since as you said they > > took Sirius in. > Potioncat: > > I still find it hard to understand "James hated Dark Arts" as > something he could learn from his parents, unless it was because of a > very personal reason. For example, my children would learn that > racism is wrong, that drugs are bad...but they probably wouldn't walk > out of the house hating either of them. But if the Potter family had > somehow been hurt by Dark Arts, and it was something James had seen > or heard about in a vivid way, then it would make sense that he hated > Dark magic. Ceridwen: LV had been active since before James was born. His parents very well could have had a reason to teach forcibly against the Dark Arts. And before LV, there was Grindlewald. And a hundred years before LV, there was another wizard as Dark as he was, so the hatred against the Dark Arts could have been passed down, very strenuously, through the Potter family, or James's mother's family, for generations. Yes, 'hate' does seem to bring a more personal quality to the subject. Not just didn't agree with them, or thought they were wrong, he hated them. Which sounds more visceral. Potioncat: > For the record, I don't think using Dark Arts automatically makes one > a follower of LV. I would think, regardless of your opinion of purity > and blood, if you did not approve of dark arts, you would not follow > LV. So someone like Snape might find himself more and more in > association with LV followers. Ceridwen: True, preference for the Dark Arts doesn't mean that person is automatically going to follow Voldemort. And true, a preference for the Dark Arts during this political time, would make it more likely that people who agree with Voldemort will be more likely to be the ones who will associate with you. So if someone is a Dark Arts person, he may find himself with no other friends than LV sympathizers, despite his own opinion about LV. Didn't Sirius say that his parents stopped supporting LV when he came out with his true agenda, even though they did not stop being Pureblood Supremacists? That, to me, would be the same thing as the Dark Arts preference not automatically meaning a preference for LV. Potioncat: > Fast forward. Harry uses Dark Arts. Snape never officially finds out > how he learned it and Merlin knows what DD and McG were told. McG is > very angry, chews him out, and that's it. He has detention for the > rest of the term. So performing Dark Magic doesn't get him sent to > Azkaban or tossed out of school (although it could have.) Ceridwen: Yes, it does seem that the Dark Arts are not illegal or Harry would certainly have been expelled and had his wand broken. Certain curses are Unforgivable, but only those three as far as we know. Harry was lucky that his use of Sectumsempra didn't do worse damage to Draco, or Draco's death coupled with the use of a spell in a Dark manner (which is Dark according to its inventor) most likely would have earned him expulsion, a trial, and a trip to Azkaban. I think the fact that Draco did not die had a lot to do with the reaction Harry got from the faculty. Potioncat: > I suppose had James been alive, he would have sent a Howler. Ceridwen: If he didn't come down to Hogwarts personally to tan Harry's hide! He did have a gut-level hatred of the Dark Arts, according to Sirius. I can't imagine him allowing a noisy piece of paper to be his only response. Ceridwen. From willsonkmom at msn.com Sun Apr 2 12:38:54 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 12:38:54 -0000 Subject: /ChapDisc/TheDetentionCards/Snape In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150396 Catlady wrote: > I expected the witch to have lured Tom Sr with beauty rather than with > a Love Potion, and therefore expected her to be his victim, rather > than to feel sorry for Tom Sr. (I always liked the idea that they > weren't even married, but I didn't really expect JKR to go for it.) Potioncat: I may have misunderstood this. You're saying you had expected that they had never married, but you were wrong? Because, yes, DD says they were married. I'm not clear on whether Riddle knew there was a child on the way. Very much like > Snape and Draco, whose snarkiness is one of their 'good' points. Potioncat:, Yes and they're very good at being bad. > It has been speculated that young Severus was good enough at sucking > up to teachers that he avoided getting detentions. I dunno that I see > that in his adult personality. But adult Snape seems to be a friend of > Filch, so maybe young Snape was a friend of Filch and Filch didn't > give him detentions. And Filch's detention cards might well only > record detentions given by Filch. Potioncat: I don't see anything in the books that would indicate Filch and Snape are friends. Filch performs some tasks for Snape, just as he might for any teacher. Filch seemed to like Umbridge very much. Your idea that the cards only reflect the detentions handed out by Filch is very interesting. If that's the case, Snape might not be in them. No, no, this is not good. Now I'm seeing a Severus-Argus friendship something like the Hagrid-Harry friendship....no, that won't do. > Surely he smiled nicely when he got one of his invented spells refined > just right. And probably when he got an exam paper or an essay back > with a perfect score. > The man who made that poetic PS/Ss speech about the beauty of the > softly shimmering cauldron must have been happy when he was making > some of those potions. Potioncat: I think you're right. Severus would have been happy when improving a potion-making technique, creating a new spell, perhaps getting a "well done!" I wonder if that the hook the DEs used to recruit him. From foxmoth at qnet.com Sun Apr 2 13:11:15 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 13:11:15 -0000 Subject: Words have consequences In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150397 > > Betsy Hp: > > And, if the person in your example was knocked unconscious and the > > police were called, he'd be considered a victim and the attackers > > would be arrested. > Amiable Dorsai > Interestingly, in the actual event, the Malfoys do not appear to agree > with you. Pippin: That might be because they don't want the subject of the quarrel discussed. If Hermione had had her wits about her, she might have observed that You Know Who doesn't seem to want his return announced, and while she's very gratified that Draco believes Harry, YKW might not be best pleased to know that his servants' families are trumpeting his return in public. And he's not as forgiving as we are. It might well be that Draco subconsciously wanted to be thumped. It must have created some tension in him that the boy he'd been rooting for all year as the Hogwarts champion had been murdered by the person he'd been reared to view as a savior. Picking a fight with Harry would be one way to deal with it. But Draco has never had the guts for a fight and it would have been civilized to offer him the option of leaving under his own power, even if he didn't accept. And if our heroes don't model civilized behavior, who will? Pippin From foxmoth at qnet.com Sun Apr 2 13:39:44 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 13:39:44 -0000 Subject: Snape as infidel was Re: Kant and Snape and Ethics and Everything In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150398 > Betsy Hp: > Ah! Now I think I understand what you're saying, and I agree. I > don't want to see the Hogwarts house system come to an end. There > is a beauty and healthiness in allowing for the different > philosophies and appreciating each house's strength even if it's not > your particular thing. > > I think I got hung up on the religion thing (which does bring a lot > of extra stuff to the table, IMO). If I think about it as different > philosophies it jells better for me. It's like on Star Trek you've > got the three philosophies of Spock, Kirk and McCoy and the three > together can take on the universe in a way they never could apart. > Trying to mush them together into one single philosophy would never > work, but there is a need for each man to recognize and appreciate > the strength of the other. > Pippin: On the bridge of the Enterprise there's diversity but no difference: no money, no politics, no religion, no wars on Earth, no family life, no disputes over gender roles or race relations -- nothing, in short, that makes diversity hard to manage in real life. The Houses are separated by more than personal style -- they are separated by real, substantive differences over how to live. Their challenge is to keep Voldemort from manipulating these rivalries to set them against one another. I think it can be done -- but only if they agree to be equal partners in the fight despite their honest feeling that their side of the issue is right and any good person would see it that way. Pippin From amiabledorsai at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 14:23:50 2006 From: amiabledorsai at yahoo.com (amiabledorsai) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 14:23:50 -0000 Subject: Words have consequences In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150399 > Betsy Hp: > And, if the person in your example was knocked unconscious and the > police were called, he'd be considered a victim and the attackers > would be arrested. > > > Amiable Dorsai > Interestingly, in the actual event, the Malfoys do not appear to > agree with you. > > Pippin: > That might be because they don't want the subject of the quarrel > discussed. Amiable Dorsai: We agree. Even the Malfoys realized Draco's behavior was too heinous to be discussed with civilized people. Pippin: > If Hermione had had her wits about her, she might have observed > that You Know Who doesn't seem to want his return announced, and > while she's very gratified that Draco believes Harry, YKW might > not be best pleased to know that his servants' families are > trumpeting his return in public. And he's not as forgiving as we > are. Amiable Dorsai: I don't think Hermione's had a chance to read "Order of the Phoenix" at this point--neither has Draco. Otherwise, yes, that would have been a devastating retort. Pippin: ...And if our heroes don't model civilized behavior, who will? Amiable Dorsai: By me, opposing evil is about as civilized as it gets. Sometimes, all it takes is being a good example. Often, all you need is to do is offer a word in season, or a helping hand. Once in a great while, though, you have to fire a whiff of grape across the bad guy's bow. Amiable Dorsai From belviso at attglobal.net Sun Apr 2 15:10:32 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 11:10:32 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Words have consequences/Snape as Infidel References: Message-ID: <004301c65667$96c5e650$6960400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 150400 >> Amiable Dorsai >> Interestingly, in the actual event, the Malfoys do not appear to >> agree with you. >> >> Pippin: >> That might be because they don't want the subject of the quarrel >> discussed. > > Amiable Dorsai: > We agree. Even the Malfoys realized Draco's behavior was too heinous > to be discussed with civilized people. Magpie: I wouldn't go that far, especially since Lucius is the one actually doing the stuff Draco is mouthing off about. We don't even know that Draco told his parents what happened. Narcissa does refer to Harry as the boy who keeps attacking her son in HBP, but I think it's just a case of their coming to the train and finding their kid on the floor in various states of distress. He may have just said he got into a fight. Lucius, given what we see in CoS, seems like he'd probably shame Draco over getting beaten. If Draco told him what he'd said Lucius would probably scold him for talking about it--not because it's heinous but because the Dark Lord's plans are hush hush. Bottom line is it's not the kind of issue where even interfering parents get involved in canon. However, I would say that *Draco* appears to not feel particularly in the right. By which I don't mean he's repentent, just that canonically he bounces back up and never mentions it again. It's not something he brings up either. Betsy Hp: I can't be as laissez-faire, I'm afraid. If JKR came out and said, "Yes the Slytherins are the Jews and I'm trying to show that the Christian Gryffindors have the better morality," that would kill the series for me. However, I don't think this is what JKR is doing. Magpie: I don't either. Especially since she's trying to write about how bad it is to judge people based on their blood and one's religion is more than anything else a consequence of one's family and where one is born. All the kids in canon seem to be nominally Christian. The few possible exceptions I can think of I think of because of their background--the Patil's may be of a faith connected to India (Parvati is a Hindu goddess and she's a Gryffindor), perhaps Anthony Goldstein is Jewish, we don't know. But JKR seems far too interested in the way peoples' interests clash to claim one group is always morally in the right just because of something like religion which, despite having a lot to say on morality, does not produce uniform morality among its followers. Cho seems very adamant about sticking with Marietta and I don't think Harry's feelings have to be considered right to her wrong--he doesn't care about the girl to begin with. The DA brought some good things, but it also seemed to curiously highlight how difficult it is for our guys to deal with anyone who disagrees with them, and given the Sorting Hat's most recent songs it feels like that's being set up as a challenge, not a fault of these minor characters. The Gryffindors don't read to me as examples of some of the most basic ideas of Christianity as I think of them. The fact that they *think* they are is just a trick of the perspective. (For instance, the difference between "gloating" and "celebrating" is often a matter of whether your team won or lost--just ask HP shippers after HBP.) They seem fond of the kind of chivalry maybe associated in popular imagination with the Crusades, but is that something Jesus came up with? He doesn't Prank non-believers, and he turns the other cheek. He passively allows himself to be sacrificed and forgives the people who do it. I wouldn't be so sure a Christian would naturally recognize some of the stuff the Gryffs do as not malicious just because they weren't literally trying to kill anyone or they thought it was funny. A Christian might find more in Luna to use as examples of good Christian thought. Look at James, after all. Doesn't the Pensieve seem to lay him out as a boy acting out bad impulses and treating his enemy badly? If he weren't Harry's father Harry would have easily written him off as just a bully, which is why it's so difficult that this is his father. He later comes to soften up on his thoughts on this scene, but that seems openly due to his own hatred of Snape clouding his first, more objective, impressions. James may have good reasons for hating Snape, but that doesn't mean his behavior towards Snape can't ever be wrong. -m From R.Vink2 at chello.nl Sun Apr 2 15:45:45 2006 From: R.Vink2 at chello.nl (Renee) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 15:45:45 -0000 Subject: How other people can treat Snape? WAS: Re: Snape less comic? In-Reply-To: <442FA6AB.4000200@btopenworld.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150401 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, IreneMikhlin wrote: > > > > > > Oh, and I heard Snape as Shylock analogy in the past, but never ever > > bought it. > > > > Shylock is discriminated against by virtue of him being a jew only, > > Snape is NOT discriminated against as former DE, Dumbledore makes > > sure of it, deservingly or not. > Irene: > But was it just an empty prejudice against Shylock? Imagine yourself a > 15th century Christian. Here are these people, doing money-lending - > something your God considers Dark Magic, I mean, unforgivable, oops, I > mean forbidden. > And they are not at all civil - imagine, you invite someone for dinner, > and he would not touch your food. Which is good enough for every honest > person. Even if you are very enlightened, and will inquire as to how he > prefers his food to be cooked, and promise to observe every rule - still > he won't eat in your house. Obviously he considers your inferior, right? > Oh, and if you are a believing 15th century Christian, then these people > are responsible (or at best, contributed) for the death of your God and > they have never shown any remorse. > > All that, and we still can't wholeheartedly consider Antonio and Portia > to be wonderful people. I wonder why. > > Irene > Renee: Because we're not the original audience and have 400 more years of anti-Semitism behind us, culminating in WWII? To make your point, you'd have to show the original audience didn't wholeheartedly consider Antonio and Portia wonderful figures. Renee From chonpschonps at hotmail.com Sun Apr 2 15:58:45 2006 From: chonpschonps at hotmail.com (xuxunette) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 15:58:45 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore MAY be alive.... and his name may be Godric Gryffindor In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150402 Mike: > > Now I have a question for you: if indeed Big D is Godric then where > > are the other three founding wizards? If one of them were immortal > > then would it not make sense that the others were as well, and if so > > then who could they be? Neuman: > Simple enough. > Hufflepuff: Poppy Pomfrey(I aways imagine her as a nurse.) > Ravenclaw: Irma Pince (Never could get her face out of those books...) > Slytherin: Argus Filch (The greatest actor in the WW!) Those secretly alive/rescucited/GG!Dumbledore theories are really surprising. The principal reason I find them to be so is that I believe they pretty much totally overlook miss one of the most important point of the books. Remember what Voldie has been running after since the beginning? What he tried to achieve with Horcruxes? Voldemort's ultimate goal is to obtain immortatlity. It's why he started to collect the Horcruxes, his interest in them going back as early as his Hogwart's years. In fact, it could be said that most of his evil deeds, since his first raise to power, are merely side effects to his quest of immortality. And remember what DD told Harry about death? Remember what DD's esteemed friend, Nicolas Flamel and his wife did? Before Harry perplexing over the Flamels' seemingly untroubled choice of giving up immortality just to prevent the stone from falling into the wrong hands, DD told Harry, in the very first book, that death was only the beginning of another adventure. Then, isn't it striking that one of the major differences which separate DD and Voldie is that while Voldemort endlessy struggles to escape his mortality, Dumbledore is serenely accepting of his own finiteness? All this leads me to think, putting the possible moral lesson aside, that Dumbledore continued living, after his death, is unbelievable because it would, at least, be totally out of character. xuxunette From foxmoth at qnet.com Sun Apr 2 17:05:22 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 17:05:22 -0000 Subject: Lily/ChapDisc/Zach/TheDetentionCards/Werewolf/Spider/GoF Stomp / Snape :) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150403 > Pippin wrote in > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150213 : > > << JKR tells us that a clever wizard might be able to transfigure > veritaserum into something else. Presumably that could be done with > wolfsbane too, if the werewolf wanted an excuse to attack. >> Catlady: > You don't think that wizarding law provides capital punishment or > lifetime in Azkaban for a werewolf who attacked a human and got caught? Pippin: The failure of the potion could be blamed on Snape. > Pippin wrote in > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150337 : > > << Indeed in HBP we learned that their roots of the tragedy overtaking > the wizarding world go back centuries, far beyond Voldemort. >> Catlady: > Do you mean the Gaunts being bred for looniness? > Pippin: Arrogance and instability seem to have been bred into the Gaunts, but also the Blacks and the Crouches, to the point where everyone thinks it's normal By comparison the Malfoys, though Hagrid says they have 'bad blood', seem to be okay. Pippin From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 17:06:38 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 17:06:38 -0000 Subject: Words have consequences In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150404 Pippin: > But Draco has never had the guts for a fight and it would have been civilized > to offer him the option of leaving under his own power, even if he didn't > accept. And if our heroes don't model civilized behavior, who will? Alla: But they did , Pippin, they DID offer Draco an option of leaving under his owne power and he did NOT accept. "Trying not to think about it, are we?" said Malfoy softly, looking around at all three of them. "Trying to pretend it hasn't happened?" "Get out," said Harry, He had not been this close to Malfoy since he had watched him uttering to Crabbe and Goyle during Dumbledore' speech about Cedric. He could feel a kind of ringing in his ears. His hand gripped his wand under his robes" - GoF, p.729, paperback. Being in the state Harry in, I applaud him for at least ATTEMPTING to react to situation peacefully. Does Malfoy listen? No, he instead starts the most appaling part of his speech. As I said, I don't begrudge Gryffindors situation one single bit, NOT as a justice, but as a reaction to provocation, to me it is that simple. But my question to everybody (Betcy, and whoever else considers Draco a victim in this situation). What in your mind should have been appropriate reaction to what Draco did? I mean, really, Draco and Dracettes ( thank you Amiable Dorsai - LOVE that name , would make the coolest band :)) are blocking the door, Gryffs can NOT call the teachers and are there even teachers on Hogwarts express on the ride home? ( I am truly not sure). So, does Draco's death threats deserve ANY kind of reaction, or in your opinion Gryffindors,whose friend was just been put through horrible ordeal had an OBLIGATION to listen to it, especially since Draco WAS offered an option to leave and did NOT take it? Alla From tonks_op at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 18:54:20 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 18:54:20 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore MAY be alive.... and his name may be Godric Gryffindor In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150405 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "xuxunette" wrote: > Voldemort's ultimate goal is to obtain immortatlity. (Snip) In fact, it could be said that most of his evil deeds, since his first raise to power, are merely side > effects to his quest of immortality. > > And remember what DD told Harry about death? Remember what DD's > esteemed friend, Nicolas Flamel and his wife did? > (snip) DD told Harry, in the very first book, that death was only the beginning of another adventure. > > Then, isn't it striking that one of the major differences which > separate DD and Voldie is that while Voldemort endlessy struggles to escape his mortality, Dumbledore is serenely accepting of his own > finiteness? > > All this leads me to think, putting the possible moral lesson aside, that Dumbledore continued living, after his death, is unbelievable because it would, at least, be totally out of character. Tonks: LV is taking the wrong path because he does not understand what eternal life is really about. LV fears death. But DD knows that death is necessary for life to continue. Think about this saying of DD "death is but the next great adventure." Does that sound like total annihilation to you? No, it means that DD's soul lives on after the body is gone. Otherwise, he would have said "We die, just accept it and live well while you can." The very fact that DD expects the next great adventure means that he know that he will continue to live in some form after his earthly body is gone. Life after death is one thing. Resurrection of the physical body is another. If DD is indeed a Christ figure, it does not necessary mean that he is GG, or if he is, that all of the founders have to also rise. We see many things in the person of DD. That is why JKR is going to do a separate book just about him. Here is something to ponder, from a modern translation of an ancient book of magic from Egypt. When I read this I thought of LV. "Man's problem is that in his ignorance he believes himself to be just a body, one that will grow old, suffer and die. His sense of injustice at inevitability of this fate leads him to hurt himself and others, either from the lust for more life or fear of approaching death." It goes on to say that we must accept death and be reborn in Spirit. The Egyptian ideas are more Gnostic than Christian, but there are seeds there of what later Christian thinkers used in writing some of Christian theology. So JKR uses, I believe, a little of this and a bit of that, but eventually will get to the big picture that will show that DD will rise again. And he will do so because he has ascended the ladder of perfection as a human being and was not afraid of death. The Christian teaching is that "in dying we are born to eternal life". It is this dying that LV is afraid to do. It is not just a literal dying of the body, but a dying to self that brings about new life in the spirit and eternal life to the soul. Tonks_op who really hopes that no one thinks that I am preaching to them, because that is not what I am trying to do. From HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com Sun Apr 2 18:58:06 2006 From: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com (HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com) Date: 2 Apr 2006 18:58:06 -0000 Subject: Weekly Chat, 4/2/2006, 1:00 pm Message-ID: <1144004286.12.12155.m34@yahoogroups.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150406 Reminder from the Calendar of HPforGrownups http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/cal Weekly Chat Sunday April 2, 2006 1:00 pm - 1:00 pm (This event repeats every week.) Notes: Don't forget, chat happens today, 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern, 7 pm UK time. Chat times do not change for Daylight Saving/Summer Time. Chat generally goes on for about 5 hours, but can last as long as people want it to last. To get into Chat, just go to the group online: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups and click on "Chat" in the lefthand menu. If you have problems with this, go to http://www.yahoo.com and in the bottom box on the left side of the page click on "Chat". Once you're logged into any room, type /join *g.HPforGrownups ; this should take you right in. If you have an Set up birthday reminders! http://us.rd.yahoo.com/cal_us/rem/?http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/cal?v=9&evt_type=13 Copyright 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.yahoo.com Privacy Policy: http://privacy.yahoo.com/ Terms of Service: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gelite67 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 19:50:05 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 19:50:05 -0000 Subject: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150407 I've always believed that someone else was present at GH on the night of Voldemort's downfall. Otherwise, how would anyone besides Harry (who couldn't remember) have known, prior to any admission by Voldemort, that Voldemort's powers had been broken or that Voldemort tried to perform the AK spell on Harry that rebounded on him? It seems to me that anyone happening upon the scene afterward would think the perpetrator simply caused all the damage and then left. Why would anyone assume it was an AK spell gone awry if, to the best of wizard knowledge at that time, there was no way to block an AK spell and make it go awry? For that matter, how did DD know in SS that Voldemort was the one who , in fact, killed James and Lily and tried to kill Harry? Obviously, this is confirmed later, but how did DD know at the time unless there was a witness who told him? (Snape, IMO) It's hard for me to belive that Voldemort would have gone there alone -- he would have wanted at least one DE there to impress, wouldn't he? Bragging rights and all that. I know that magic leaves traces, but enough to figure out what spells were cast, which were unsuccessful, and what the consequence of any failed spells were? I guess I've always assumed that DD never saw Harry until Hagrid brought him to the Dursleys. Is is possible that DD saw Harry before then and extracted Harry's memories of the events? Is there any other explanation for how DD knew what happened that night other than hearing/seeing the story from a witness? Angie From a_svirn at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 20:40:55 2006 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 20:40:55 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150408 > Potioncat: > > I still find it hard to understand "James hated Dark Arts" as > something he could learn from his parents, unless it was because of a > very personal reason. For example, my children would learn that > racism is wrong, that drugs are bad...but they probably wouldn't walk > out of the house hating either of them. But if the Potter family had > somehow been hurt by Dark Arts, and it was something James had seen > or heard about in a vivid way, then it would make sense that he hated > Dark magic. > a_svirn: I think you read too much in this "hated the dark arts" explanation. It's nothing more than a pious excuse for a nefarious deed. Cooked up hastily by Sirius to reconcile Harry with what he'd just learned about his father. It's much to Harry's credit that he didn't buy it at the time. From a_svirn at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 21:03:04 2006 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 21:03:04 -0000 Subject: Snape as infidel was Re: Kant and Snape and Ethics and Everything In-Reply-To: <442ED1B9.2090602@btopenworld.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150409 Irene: > I hope not, because some analogies are quite scary. Since someone > mentioned Shylock, I can't get it out of my mind. > The Gryffindors are written as brave, merry, cheerful. They would do > anything for a friend, just like Antonio and Bassanio. Red and gold all > around. > And here we have Snape, the oddball, all in black. Miserable, never > laughs, keeps grudges, vindictive. Would not it together with the Order > members. > a_svirn: But that's the very picture of Antonio, not Shylock. The play starts with his "In sooth, I know not why I am so sad: It wearies me; you say it wearies you" And throughout the entire play he's miserable, moody, uncivil and lonely. From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Sun Apr 2 21:29:10 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 17:29:10 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Why wasnt Harry sent to either a lightsided wizarding family or a muggle fam In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060402212910.17883.qmail@web37002.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150410 amiabledorsai wrote: It dovetails nicely into another speculation: the idea that Voldemort promised Snape he would not harm Lily--perhaps that Snape could *have* Lily--and that this broken promise led Snape to swear to Dumbledore that he, Snape, would help kill Voldemort, should Voldemort ever return. Catherine: Except that Snape had already turned against Voldemort and was working as a spy at the time that he (Voldemort) went to GH to kill Harry. In the penseive scene in GoF Dumbledore clearly says that SS turned spy against Voldemorst at "great personal risk" before his downfall. Catherine --------------------------------- Have a question? Yahoo! Canada Answers. Go to Yahoo! Canada Answers [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From mgrantwich at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 21:46:21 2006 From: mgrantwich at yahoo.com (Magda Grantwich) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 14:46:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Blood & predjudice... Reason or Excuse? You be the Judge. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060402214621.22256.qmail@web53107.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150411 --- Steve wrote: > While Voldemort, in his own sick deranged way, does believe in the > nobility of wizard blood, it is both illusion and delusion. Much > like the extreme fanatical Muslims, Voldemort's extreme pureblood > philosophy is not the reason but the /excuse/ for his actions. Does he really? I don't get the impression that Voldemort has much love for pureblood wizards, either. In fact, I personally think that all that purebloodism is just a sop to the group of not-too-bright thugs that he initially persuaded to support him and who make up the recruiting pool that he fishes in ever afterwards. I mean, if you're going to launch a takeover, you need some thugs and supporters. You've got to find a group whose prejudices you can discern and whose hot buttons you can press so you can control them. If they're a bunch of losers like the maternal family you discovered, it's pretty easy to get them to do your bidding by telling them how hard-done-by they are by all the sellouts in the upper echalons of the WW. They're dumb enough to believe it. Of course you run the risk of getting a Lucius Malfoy who's brighter than the others but as long as you don't wipe your feet on him and let him look good in front of the others, he's probably open to being handled. (That Voldemort seems to have forgotten this in HBP shows a dangerous lack of judgement IMO.) No, I think the pureblood hype is just recruitment bumpf as far as Voldemort is concerned. Magda __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 21:55:32 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 21:55:32 -0000 Subject: Difference between Houses (was:Snape as infidel was Re: Kant and Snape...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150412 > Pippin: > On the bridge of the Enterprise there's diversity but no > difference: > no money, no politics, no religion, no wars on Earth, no family > life, no disputes over gender roles or race relations -- nothing, > in short, that makes diversity hard to manage in real life. Betsy Hp: I seem to recall some clashes between Spock and McCoy over human vs. vulcan life theories. But yeah, the differences there were more philosophical than cultural. Hogwarts gets to deal with both. > >>Pippin: > The Houses are separated by more than personal style -- they > are separated by real, substantive differences over how to live. > Their challenge is to keep Voldemort from manipulating these > rivalries to set them against one another. I think it can be done - > - but only if they agree to be equal partners in the fight > despite their honest feeling that their side of the issue is right > and any good person would see it that way. Betsy Hp: There are differences, yes. But I think they've become exaggerated for Harry (especially with Slytherin). It's notable, IMO, that we don't know the houses of most of the adult characters. Is Rita a Slytherin or a Ravenclaw? Is Fudge a Hufflepuff? What house was Lockhart in? There is a difference between how a Ravenclaw would tackle a particular problem and how a Slytherin would, I suppose. Though it would also depend on the particular person. Draco would differ from Millicent, for example, though they're both in the same house. So, maybe the differences aren't really that huge. Perhaps they *do* tend more towards personal style than deep-seated philosophy. The difference between going at something head on, or sliding up around it, etc. I'm not sure that I've seen differences deeper than that, between the actual houses, I mean. Betsy Hp From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 21:56:21 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 21:56:21 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150413 > a_svirn: > I think you read too much in this "hated the dark arts" explanation. > It's nothing more than a pious excuse for a nefarious deed. Cooked > up hastily by Sirius to reconcile Harry with what he'd just learned > about his father. It's much to Harry's credit that he didn't buy it > at the time. > Alla: I am sorry, but I have to disagree. I view it as a canon statement and very much IMO supported by James later being an Order member and dying fighting against Voldemort. I mean, sure Sirius uses this statement as an excuse, but I also view it as statement of facts and till I see Sirius being proven as a liar anywhere in canon, I will view his factual statements ( not , say his evaluational statements of course) as a facts :) Be it "knew more Dark curses...", "Malfoy's lapdog", "hated Dark arts" or " Dumbledore thinks you are reformed but I know better". And where do you find "Harry did not buy it" in canon. I mean, Harry did not think that it was a good reason to do that to Snape, but where does he say something to the effect " no, I don't think my dad really hated Dark Arts". I tend to agree with Potioncat . I think James indeed hated Dark Arts. It does not mean that his behaviour towards Snape was not reprehensible, sure it was, but I see no reason to doubt it, IMO. I also think that speculation that his family was hurt by Voldemort is well taken. IMO, only ONE character so far had been proven as a liar in canon and that is Voldemort, so I would never believe what he says, unless it is supported by other characters words, as to other characters',sure I will take their biases into consideration, but not to such extent as to say that when Sirius reports facts he lies. Why? Because IMO even though Sirius does not serve as exposition nearly as often as Hermione does, sometimes he does serve as such, when JKR needs to give us some limited facts about Marauders' generation. Oh, how I wish to know more. :) JMO, Alla From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 22:14:41 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 22:14:41 -0000 Subject: Words have consequences In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150414 > >>Alla: > > But my question to everybody (Betcy, and whoever else considers > Draco a victim in this situation). > What in your mind should have been appropriate reaction to what > Draco did? Betsy Hp: You mean, what Draco *said*. He didn't actually *do* anything. So Harry could have argued back, though that would probably have been a waste of time. And I don't think Harry (or Ron or Hermione) were in a state of mind to allow them to channel Dumbledore. Forcing Draco out of their compartment would have been one option. Threatening him if he refused to leave was another. Betsy Hp From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 22:32:17 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 22:32:17 -0000 Subject: Words have consequences In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150415 > > >>Alla: > > > > But my question to everybody (Betcy, and whoever else considers > > Draco a victim in this situation). > > What in your mind should have been appropriate reaction to what > > Draco did? > > Betsy Hp: > You mean, what Draco *said*. He didn't actually *do* anything. So > Harry could have argued back, though that would probably have been a > waste of time. And I don't think Harry (or Ron or Hermione) were in a > state of mind to allow them to channel Dumbledore. Alla: Yes, he DID do something IMO. He left his compartment, took his goons with him and came into Gryffs compartment and started talking. IMO he acted. So, I meant what I said. Betcy: > Forcing Draco out of their compartment would have been one option. > Threatening him if he refused to leave was another. Alla: Okay, so you would allow Gryffindors to use SOME kind of physical force against Draco? Because "forcing" means forcing physically, no, since Draco did not leave when Harry told him to get out. Don't you see how subjective it is? Not only Gryffs are in no shape to listen to Draco threats, they cannot make Draco leave by words, because he does not erm... leaves. Let me just say again. I don't consider what Gryffs did to be some sort of justice against Draco. I just consider it a reaction. Not a perfect reaction maybe, but perfectly justifiable. Moreover, after rereading the scene, I don't see that Gryffs had much choice to react differently, unless of course they wanted to subject themselves to continue listening to Draco's monstrocities. And no, I don't think that Harry was in any shape or form to argue with Draco. Harry is clearly getting upset the moment Draco shows up and starts talking ( I brought the quote upthread). So, thank you for your answer, I am just still not quite clear as to how "forcing Draco out" helps Gryffindors to keep high moral ground, but hexing him ( independently from each other if I may ) does not. Or do you mean something different than "physically forcing" him out? Alla From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Sun Apr 2 22:20:43 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 18:20:43 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: The Huge overreactions from a five minute time span In-Reply-To: <20060328004739.82036.qmail@web61316.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060402222043.70701.qmail@web37003.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150416 Joe Goodwin wrote: Catherine before: > I have a feeling that the parallels from the marauders' time is more James-Draco Joe: I am a bit curious about your James/Draco parallel. James showed off too much and his pranks went too far sometimes. Draco tried to murder someone repeatedly with his only excuse being incompetence. Then he let Death Eaters into Hogwarts. Catherine again: (Sorry for the delayed response, but I've been catching up with the list for about week now...) Well, I see Draco/James as this. Both priviledged little rich boys, growing up pampered. Both with good looks and popular within their own houses, leaders of their own little gang. Bullying those whom they believe deserve it. James *did* in fact try to kill someone in the name of Severus Snape but rethought the idea and warned Sanpe. He endangered the lives of the people in the village of Hogsmead while cavorting with a full-grown werewolf. There are also many differences in motives which are significant, what James did for friendship, Draco does for glory and power. But the similarites are there. Catherine --------------------------------- Make Yahoo! Canada your Homepage Yahoo! Canada Homepage [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From orgone9 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 21:42:02 2006 From: orgone9 at yahoo.com (Len Jaffe) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 14:42:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060402214202.44674.qmail@web80608.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150417 > gelite67 wrote: > I've always believed that someone else was present at GH > [ edit ] > but how did DD know at the time unless there > was a witness who told him? Len: I totally agree. Somebody had to be there with him, and I think it was Pettigrew. I think he recovered LV's wand, and beat feet out of there. He may have even used that wand in his showdown with Black, and left it hidden in the sewer that he escaped down, or carried off to safe keeping before glomming onto Percy. But those are the only two I can think of, of whom we have any cannon to support contact with LV between GH and Gof. Len. From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Sun Apr 2 23:14:17 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 19:14:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: <20060402214202.44674.qmail@web80608.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060402231417.51946.qmail@web37001.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150418 Len Jaffe wrote: > gelite67 wrote: > I've always believed that someone else was present at GH > [ edit ] > but how did DD know at the time unless there > was a witness who told him? Len: I totally agree. Somebody had to be there with him, and I think it was Pettigrew. Catherine now: But how does Dumbledore know? Did Peter go straight to Dumbledore to tell him that Sirius had betrayed the Potters? Did Dumbledore also have a spy or someone looking out for the Potters? If anyone else knoew about their hideout, than it would have been Peter revealing the secret, and then everyone would know that he was the SK. Catherine --------------------------------- 7 bucks a month. This is Huge Yahoo! Music Unlimited [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From orgone9 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 23:23:31 2006 From: orgone9 at yahoo.com (Len Jaffe) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 16:23:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: <20060402214202.44674.qmail@web80608.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060402232331.59700.qmail@web80606.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150420 > > gelite67 wrote: > > I've always believed that someone else was present > > at GH [ edit ] > > but how did DD know at the time unless there > > was a witness who told him? > Len: > I totally agree. Somebody had to be there with him, > and I think it was Pettigrew. > [ edit ] > But those are the only two I can think of, of whom > we have any cannon to support contact with LV between > GH and Gof. Sorry to reply to myself, but it appears that I really messed up my editing in my previous post. I mentioned two people, and I was thinking it possible that Barty Crouch Jr. could have been there too, but I thought twice about posting my thoughts before I thought more on the topic. We know that Peter ended up with the wand in the graveyard. We need to piece together a plausible timeline to get the wand into Peter's possession, for there to have been a meeting between Jr and LV after Peter recovered LV from Albania. One of them had to have the wand, and it just feels more likely that it was Peter. Len. Leonard A. Jaffe lenjaffe at jaffesystems.com Leonard Jaffe Computer Systems Consulting Ltd. Columbus, OH, USA 614-404-4214 F: 530-380-7423 From sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 2 23:22:08 2006 From: sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com (sugaranddixie1) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2006 23:22:08 -0000 Subject: LV's wand / Re: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150421 Angie wrote: > I've always believed that someone else was present at GH on the > night of Voldemort's downfall. > > Is there any other explanation for how DD knew what happened that > night other than hearing/seeing the story from a witness? I'm not quite sure how this fits in, but I've always wondered about where Voldemort's wand was immediately after the events took place at Godric's Hollow. Part of Voldemort's own description of what happened when the curse rebounded (from GOF) was as follows: ..."Nevertheless, I was as powerless as the weakest creature alive, and without the means to help myself...for I had no body, and every spell that might have helped me required the use of a wand..." So where was Voldemort's wand at that point? In Voldemort's possession but unable to be used? Or left behind when he fled and somehow later recovered by him? If it was left behind, we know that a "Prior Incantato" spell could have revealed some of the events of that night. (Such as the one Amos Diggory used on Harry's wand to determine it had been used to conjure the Dark Mark at the World Cup.) So I'm just doing a lot of speculating, but it might explain how DD could have found out what happened without witnesses being there. Then the problem becomes explaining how LV regained possession of it. I don't necessarily believe this is what happened, but thought I'd throw it out there as a possibility... E.T. From juli17 at aol.com Sun Apr 2 23:46:07 2006 From: juli17 at aol.com (juli17 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 19:46:07 EDT Subject: Words have consequences Message-ID: <2a6.12570ba.3161bc3f@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150422 > > >>Alla: > > > > But my question to everybody (Betcy, and whoever else considers > > Draco a victim in this situation). > > What in your mind should have been appropriate reaction to what > > Draco did? Betcy: > Forcing Draco out of their compartment would have been one option. > Threatening him if he refused to leave was another. Alla: Okay, so you would allow Gryffindors to use SOME kind of physical force against Draco? Because "forcing" means forcing physically, no, since Draco did not leave when Harry told him to get out. Don't you see how subjective it is? Not only Gryffs are in no shape to listen to Draco threats, they cannot make Draco leave by words, because he does not erm... leave. Let me just say again. I don't consider what Gryffs did to be some sort of justice against Draco. I just consider it a reaction. Not a perfect reaction maybe, but perfectly justifiable. Moreover, after rereading the scene, I don't see that Gryffs had much choice to react differently, unless of course they wanted to subject themselves to continue listening to Draco's monstrocities. Julie: I agree that it was a reaction. But as you note, it wasn't a perfect reaction. In fact it went from reaction to retaliation, and that's when they stepped over the line. As Betsy said above, they could have simply forced Draco and gang out of the compartment and magically locked the door behind them. It is partly subjective. But there is a point when you cross from defending yourself to victimizing, and that is once your opponent is helpless. Once you've neutralized the threat (thrown them out) even if it requires force, then any further attack isn't really justifiable. Not in a moral sense anyway. (For instance, a cop continuing to beat a suspect with a baton once the suspect is rendered immobile is not morally justifiable.) For me, that is where Harry and Co. went wrong. Now, it's very understandable that they reacted this way, especially as they are teenagers. It was the easy thing to do, the viscerally satisfying thing to do. But it wasn't the right thing to do. Which is the trap we all fall into periodically, don't we, because we're only human. Alla again: And no, I don't think that Harry was in any shape or form to argue with Draco. Harry is clearly getting upset the moment Draco shows up and starts talking ( I brought the quote upthread). So, thank you for your answer, I am just still not quite clear as to how "forcing Draco out" helps Gryffindors to keep high moral ground, but hexing him ( independently from each other if I may ) does not. Julie: See above. High moral ground: neutralizing the threat. Not so high moral ground: victimizing once the threat is neutralized. I think this scene, along with several dozen other scenes in the books, focuses on one of JKR's main themes in Harry Potter, which is "doing what's right over what's easy." In both small and large ways the characters are continually forced to make that choice. Some fail repeatedly (Peter, for instance), some rarely (Dumbledore, Lily?), and most of the children in the books vacillate between the two (including our star character, Harry), while hopefully building their characters to the point where they will choose what is right rather than what is easy as a regular mode of behavior. Julie [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 00:05:35 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 00:05:35 -0000 Subject: Words have consequences In-Reply-To: <2a6.12570ba.3161bc3f@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150423 > Alla again: > So, thank you for your answer, I am just still not quite clear as to > how "forcing Draco out" helps Gryffindors to keep high moral ground, > but hexing him ( independently from each other if I may ) does not. > > > Julie: > See above. High moral ground: neutralizing the threat. Not so > high moral ground: victimizing once the threat is neutralized. > I think this scene, along with several dozen other scenes in > the books, focuses on one of JKR's main themes in Harry Potter, > which is "doing what's right over what's easy." In both small and > large ways the characters are continually forced to make that choice. > Some fail repeatedly (Peter, for instance), some rarely (Dumbledore, > Lily?), and most of the children in the books vacillate between the > two (including our star character, Harry), while hopefully building > their characters to the point where they will choose what is right > rather than what is easy as a regular mode of behavior. Alla: Okay, I would see your point, Julie IF I was able to find ANYWHERE in that scene where Gryffindors continued victimising once the threat us neutralised. Could you point me out to the relevant quote, please? Draco was not subjected to continuous series of hexes. He was subjected to INDEPENDENT one time hexes from everybody. Once he was on the floor, nobody attacked him again, right? You agree that it was a threat and it had to be neutralised, correct? So, they did neutralised the threat and stopped at that. Exactly what they should have done, no? I mean, I suppose that you could say that they could have carry out unconscious Malfoy and Co out of their appartment instead of kicking them out, but I don't think it is reasonable to expect them to do it. Besides that bit, I don't see anything that can be even interpreted as victimizing once the threat is neutralised. I am at least glad that we agree that Draco and Co WAS a threat that should have been neutralized. :) IMO of course, Alla, who goes out to slap her hands again. From gelite67 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 00:03:01 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 00:03:01 -0000 Subject: LV's wand / Re: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150424 --- > Angie wrote: > > I've always believed that someone else was present at GH on the > > night of Voldemort's downfall. > > > > Is there any other explanation for how DD knew what happened that > > night other than hearing/seeing the story from a witness? > > > ET wrote: > > If it [Edit: Voldemort's wand]was left behind, we know that a "Prior Incantato" spell could > have revealed some of the events of that night. (Such as the one > Amos Diggory used on Harry's wand to determine it had been used to > conjure the Dark Mark at the World Cup.) > > So I'm just doing a lot of speculating, but it might explain how DD > could have found out what happened without witnesses being there. > Then the problem becomes explaining how LV regained possession of it. > > I don't necessarily believe this is what happened, but thought I'd > throw it out there as a possibility... > > E.T. > Angie again: I like the theory, but I have a couple of problems. First, I find it hard to believe that DD would get VM's wand and then relinquish it -- surely he'd either destroy it or turn it over to the MOM???? Second, when the PI occured in GOF, neither Harry nor VM "appeared." So if what we saw in GOF (minus Bertha, FRank and Cedric, of course) is what DD would have seen had he done the PI, that wouldn't have told him about VM losing his powers or trying to kill Harry, would it? (How would DD have done it? Gotten the brother wand from Olivander?) Another possibility: If Pettigrew didn't get VM's wand, perhaps Vapormort possessed an animal that could go through the rubble of the Potters' home and find it???? From gelite67 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 00:11:19 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 00:11:19 -0000 Subject: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: <20060402231417.51946.qmail@web37001.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150425 > > gelite67 wrote: > > I've always believed that someone else was present > at GH > > [ edit ] > > but how did DD know at the time unless there > > was a witness who told him? > > > Len: > I totally agree. Somebody had to be there with him, > and I think it was Pettigrew. > > Catherine now: > But how does Dumbledore know? Did Peter go straight to Dumbledore to tell him that Sirius had betrayed the Potters? Did Dumbledore also have a spy or someone looking out for the Potters? If anyone else knoew about their hideout, than it would have been Peter revealing the secret, and then everyone would know that he was the SK. > > Angie again: Good questions, Catherine. Also, what did Pettigrew do with the wand after he killed everybody? Did he transform and run away with it in his mouth and hide it to retrieve it later? I like the idea of Pettigrew taking Voldemort's wand -- probably made him feel more powerful. Did I imagine it or does it say somewhere that you don't get such good results with another wizard's wand? If that's so, then I'm in a dilemma wondering how Pettigrew, who is apparently not a powerful wizard even with his own wand, managed to blow apart the street and kill all the Muggles using someone else's wand. (I'm assuming the explosion killed them and that he didn't do a mass-AK curse plus the explosion.) And, BTW, any ideas about what happened to James's and Lily's wands?? > > > --------------------------------- > 7 bucks a month. This is Huge Yahoo! Music Unlimited > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > From orgone9 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 00:00:51 2006 From: orgone9 at yahoo.com (Len Jaffe) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 17:00:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: <20060402231417.51946.qmail@web37001.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060403000051.20509.qmail@web80610.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150426 > Len: > I totally agree. Somebody had to be there [at GH] > with him, and I think it was Pettigrew. > > Catherine : > But how does Dumbledore know? Did Peter go > straight to Dumbledore to tell him that Sirius had > betrayed the Potters? Did Dumbledore also have a spy > or someone looking out for the Potters? If anyone > else knoew about their hideout, then it would have > been Peter revealing the secret, and then everyone > would know that he was the SK. Good question. We know that things happen that are not described in the books. By that I mean we don't get a day-by-day, minute by minute catalog of Harry's life. So things happen that are not talked about because they don't further the plot at hand. So all of the double dealing and plotting, and spying that went on happened, but we don't apparently need to know much about it, or else it would have been worked in already. We don't know that DD knows that there was a betrayal. Do we? The whole subject is fraught with contradictions. If DD knew about the secret keeper switch, and Peter's betrayal, then why was Sirius still sent to Azkaban? If he didn't, and still thought Sirius was the secret keeper, why are he and Hagrid bantering about Sirius' motorcycle in SS? What kind of pandemonium is going on in GH with the dark mark above the house and dead bodies in the house, and Hagrid appearing with a flying motorcycle and carting a 1-yo kid away. Were there ministry personnel present, or just confused/terrified neighbors? Or was the house in GH secluded? But, I may have failed to answer your question. As I understand the whole secret keeper thing, the secret is not so much private, as protected from spread. All of the member of the Order know where #12 GP is, but only because the secret keeper told them. The charm prevents them from sharing the knowledge that it is the HQ. For that matter, how does anybody know that LV is vanquished? We're never told that they found his old body in GH. But that may have been the reason they knew. Len. Leonard A. Jaffe lenjaffe at jaffesystems.com Leonard Jaffe Computer Systems Consulting Ltd. Columbus, OH, USA 614-404-4214 F: 530-380-7423 From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Mon Apr 3 00:39:23 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 20:39:23 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: <20060403000051.20509.qmail@web80610.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060403003923.19395.qmail@web37014.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150427 Len Jaffe wrote: > Len: As I understand the whole secret keeper thing, the secret is not so much private, as protected from spread. All of the member of the Order know where #12 GP is, but only because the secret keeper told them. The charm prevents them from sharing the knowledge that it is the HQ. Catherine: But that's my point exactly. Peter would have had to tell everyone where the Potters were to have anyone else present at the time. The only way out of this is that someone like Dumbledore could have known an approximate whereabouts of the Potters, i.e. GH, without the address. And after the distruction of the house, and the Potters, then the secret would no longer need to be kept. If the wording of the secret was "Potters" and that only one "Potter" is left, could that be enough to null and void the secret? Either Peter spread the Potter's whereabouts, which I doubt because that would out him as SK, or someone could know about the general area, and be keeping a lookout. I'm not puzzled that Sirius could show up at the house, he was the one who did the spell to make PP the SK in the first place (I imagine), therefore Peter would obviously let Sirius know where they are. It would look totally wierd of he refused to tell Sirius. Hagrid might have been the one in the area with orders already from DD to save Harry if possible and keep him safe. But it still doesn't answer the question of how DD knew exactly what happened that night. Unless it was he who witnessed it, but was unable to prevent it. Catherine --------------------------------- Have a question? Yahoo! Canada Answers. Go to Yahoo! Canada Answers [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From zgirnius at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 02:17:25 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 02:17:25 -0000 Subject: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: <20060403003923.19395.qmail@web37014.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150430 > Catherine: > But that's my point exactly. Peter would have had to tell everyone where the Potters were to have anyone else present at the time. The only way out of this is that someone like Dumbledore could have known an approximate whereabouts of the Potters, i.e. GH, without the address. zgirnius: There is a second explanation. Some people may have already known the secret at the time the Fidelius Charm was cast. The Charm would not wipe these people's memories of this fact-it would merely prevent them from spreading it. So Dumbledore, Sirius, and a few other friends of the Potters may have known without needing to be told by Peter. From puduhepa98 at aol.com Mon Apr 3 02:21:34 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 22:21:34 EDT Subject: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? Message-ID: <256.9351e7b.3161e0ae@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150431 Len. >The whole subject is fraught with contradictions. >If DD knew about the secret keeper switch, and >Peter's betrayal, then why was Sirius still sent to >Azkaban? >If he didn't, and still thought Sirius was the secret >keeper, why are he and Hagrid bantering about Sirius' >motorcycle in SS? >For that matter, how does anybody know that LV is >vanquished? We're never told that they found his >old body in GH. But that may have been the reason >they knew. Nikkalmati: When the SK switch was made, PP told SS and possibly DD the location of the Potters. It has been suggested (Carol?) that when DD realized he knew or recalled the location or in some other way discovered the SK no longer was working he knew something was wrong. He sent Hagrid to investigate. Hagrid could be sent by DD because the SK no longer worked. Hagrid met SB there, who either knew the SK was gone in the same way DD did or he was just visiting by chance. Hagrid took Harry out of the wreckage and contacted DD (was there a fireplace nearby? or could they use mirrors?). SB said "here take my bike" and ran off to find PP without telling Hagrid what he was doing. After he met PP and the Muggles were killed and the street blown up, SB was arrested and sent to Azkaban without trial. Hagrid brought Harry to Privit Drive. There may be other contacts and incidents in the meantime. I guess the MOM would have been contacted at some point and the word got out to the WW. I assume there were 3 bodies there and DD had to explain what had happened to Harry and get tacit approval. I don't know if anyone else was there. BTW I am not clear how LV was supposed to "give" Lily to Snape. She does not appear to be the type to be "given" and I can't see SS keeping her tied up in the dungeon of Hogwarts or Imperiusing her to stay in his house somewhere. Way too risky for a spy. Nikkalmati From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 03:35:27 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 03:35:27 -0000 Subject: Young Snape's cutting curse (Was: LID!Snape rides again) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150432 Carol earlier: > > But Black does not say that eleven-year-old Severus came to school knowing more *Dark* curses than half (and, yes, it is half) the seventh years. He only says that he knew more "curses" than half the seventh years. JKR is a bit inconsistent in distinguishing curses from hexes and jinxes (and hexes and jinxes from each other; IMO, throughout OoP she uses "jinxes" for "hexes," but that's another post. I agree that these so-called curses were schoolyard variety hexes and jinxes, some of them perhaps of his own invention (like the toenail jinx he later invented). > > Valky: > I have given this some pondering myself since we last spoke about it, Carol, and I think I have a good theory about the difference between curses and hexes/jinxes. Just going on the Bat Bogey Hex and the Eat Slugs examples, it seems that Hexes and Jinxes are temporary in nature, once cast they will eventually wear off after some discomfort so they are in esscence basically innocuous, inconvenient and uncofortable rather than dangerous. Curses, OTOH, it seems to me always need to be professionally countered by some expert in healing arts, they seem more permanent and by extension of that hence rather more a danger than hexes or jinxes. > Carol responds: I agree that *logically* hexes and jinxes should be relatively harmless and short-lived spells, that is, minor cursesthat can easily be cured with a simple countercurse if they don't wear off on their own. I would even add that hexes ought logically to be used on people and jinxes to objects (the parchment that Hermione jinxed, for example), but I don't think the pattern holds, especially in OoP, where almost all the minor curses except Ginny's Bat Bogey Hex are called jinxes. (That inconsistency with the other books always bothered me because, as a copyeditor myself, I would have caught and queried it, but, oh, well.) Aside from the Unforgiveable Curses, which are too dangerous and sinister to qualify as hexes (or jinxes), I think that the main consideration in naming the spells is not logic but sound. Confundus, for example, is called a curse even though its effects (unlike those of "Obliviate" are both minor and short-lived. Why? Because "Confundus Curse" alliterates. So does the Conjunctivitis Curse that Krum used against his dragon (and Sirius intended to suggest to Harry to do the same). The DADA spell Impedimenta, also short-lived (and used defensively) is also a curse, as is the Leg-Locker Curse. At any rate, this nomenclature makes *some* sense if hexes and jinxes are indeed curses but only minor ones. So, IMO, the so-called curses that eleven-year-old Severus came to school knowing--*not* labeled as "Dark" even by Snape's enemy Sirius Black--were almost certainly hexes and jinxes, not powerful, long-lasting Dark curses. (He was a little kid who had not even attended Hogwarts at this point.) The darkest among them might have been along the lines of Serpensortia, which Draco could cast in his second year. Not difficult for a child to cast and very easy for an adult to counter, but plenty scary for the kid on the receiving end. In fact, if Severus cast spells like Serpensortia or Densuageo (the tooth-growing spell) very frequently, the other kids would quickly learn to fear or at least avoid provoking him. That might account for his apparent unpopularity later, after his older friends (who no doubt regarded him as a prodigy) had left. I seriously doubt that child!Severus was casting really dangerous curses, however, or he'd have been expelled. Again, JKR uses "curses" very loosely and the term seems to include jinxes and hexes as well as the Unforgiveables and Sectum Sempra. We know of very few truly Dark curses but many schoolyard hexes and jinxes as well as DADA spells which, though defensive, tend to be referred to as curses. I think young Severus had quite an impressive repertoire of such "curses," but that most of them were no more dangerous than Muffliato, Levicorpus, and the toenail hex--all invented, so far as we know, when he was about sixteen. Levicorpus is subject to abuse but is not in itself dangerous and it's easily undone with a simple countercurse. Sectum Sempra is a very different matter, being both potentially lethal and requiring a complicated countercurse apparently known only to Snape. Levicorpus and the toenail hex appear to be more characteristic of his repertoire (which also includes helpful and nonlethal Potions tips and the useful little charm, Muffliato) than Sectum Sempra. I am still not convinced that the cutting curse in the Pensieve scene was Sectum Sempra for reasons that can be found upthread. But if it was SS, it was a very controlled version. If Severus had already invented Sectum Sempra, before Sirius Black tried to kill him, then he could have killed James, or at least hurt him very badly in retaliation for the cruelty of the Scourgify spell, the public humiliation of using his own spell against him, and the unprovoked two-on-one attack. Instead, he merely cut his cheek. That, in a hurt and angry boy who had already created a potentially lethal spell, shows remarkable self-control. I really don't think, however, that it was Sectum Sempra. I think the "You wait!" means that Severus intends to come up with a spell that will get James back and that the so-called Prank provided still more incentive. To return to firstyear!Severus, there is no evidence that the little boy's curses were any darker than anyone else's. Only the sheer number of them (and the fact that a very underage Half-Blood was practicing magic outside of Hogwarts) is unusual. And the number of spells that Severus knew is the point that Black is making: *more* curses than half the seventh years, not *darker* curses than the much older kids were using. Hogwarts can be a cruel place, and the kids don't need Dark magic to abuse each other, as James's using Scourgify to wash out Severus's mouth illustrates nicely. Carol, with apologies for repeating some of her arguments here and wishing that JKR were more consistent in her terminology From kchuplis at alltel.net Mon Apr 3 03:47:36 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 22:47:36 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Young Snape's cutting curse (Was: LID!Snape rides again) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150433 On Apr 2, 2006, at 10:35 PM, justcarol67 wrote: > > So, IMO, the so-called curses that eleven-year-old Severus came to > school knowing--*not* labeled as "Dark" even by Snape's enemy Sirius > Black--were almost certainly hexes and jinxes, not powerful, > long-lasting Dark curses. (He was a little kid who had not even > attended Hogwarts at this point.) The darkest among them might have > been along the lines of Serpensortia, which Draco could cast in his > second year. Not difficult for a child to cast and very easy for an > adult to counter, but plenty scary for the kid on the receiving end. > In fact, if Severus cast spells like Serpensortia or Densuageo (the > tooth-growing spell) very frequently, the other kids would quickly > learn to fear or at least avoid provoking him. That might account for > his apparent unpopularity later, after his older friends (who no doubt > regarded him as a prodigy) had left. kchuplis: I still don't get the feeling from the Mauraders comment that Snape just knew more minor stuff. There is a distinct impression left that Snape knew, or knew a lot *about* the Dark Arts. Now, they could have known that and not known that he was more interested in defense than using it, but the way that most matters is in James perception of Snape. > carol: > I am still not convinced that the cutting curse in the Pensieve scene > was Sectum Sempra for reasons that can be found upthread. But if it > was SS, it was a very controlled version. If Severus had already > invented Sectum Sempra, before Sirius Black tried to kill him, then he > could have killed James, or at least hurt him very badly in > retaliation for the cruelty of the Scourgify spell, the public > humiliation of using his own spell against him, and the unprovoked > two-on-one attack. Instead, he merely cut his cheek. That, in a hurt > and angry boy who had already created a potentially lethal spell, > shows remarkable self-control. kchuplis: I still say he *was* really angry and James was lucky. I think Snape missed. carol: > > I really don't think, however, that it was Sectum Sempra. I think the > "You wait!" means that Severus intends to come up with a spell that > will get James back and that the so-called Prank provided still more > incentive. kchuplis: Or it could mean, "you wait until we are in a situation that I can really use this fr*kin curse on you properly". Who knows? > carol: > And the number of spells that > Severus knew is the point that Black is making: *more* curses than > half the seventh years, not *darker* curses than the much older kids > were using. > > Hogwarts can be a cruel place, and the kids don't need Dark magic to > abuse each other, as James's using Scourgify to wash out Severus's > mouth illustrates nicely. kchuplis: I just wanted to point out too that kids don't always let adults know everything that they can do, but other kids certainly know what the kids know or are capable of very often. We see very sad accounts of this everyday now. And certainly DD isn't as aware of everything as he makes out to be, as we have seen often enough. Again, it *could* be that Snape was *not* or did not *set out to be* a *user* of the Dark Arts but the Mauraders certainly had the impression or knowledge (which is what I think) that he had ample amounts of the Dark Arts, and maybe more than was normal for a kid his age . As Steve says, just a thought. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 04:43:04 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 04:43:04 -0000 Subject: Where did he learn it all? (was Re: Severus's memories and schoolyard curses) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150434 > Tonks: > I am starting to wonder where Snape learned these dark arts that he > is said to know at age 12. Before HBP I assumed him to be a pure- > blood and from a family of dark wizards. But now we find that his > father was a Muggle. That begs some questions to ponder. Was his > mother involved in the dark arts? Was she the battered woman we > think she was, or not? What sort of family were the Princes? Did > Snape know Bella as a child? Why do Snape and Bella have such a > tense relationship? Does this go back to before DE days? > > Questions, questions, questions. Answers anyone?? Carol responds: Small correction. Severus would have been eleven like everyone else when he entered Hogwarts. The oldest students are those like Hermione and Angelina Johnson who have September birthdays. If we count JKR's website as canon, Severus was born in January, and would have been just over four months from his twelfth birthday on entering Hogwarts. As zgirnius pointed out (with excellent canonical support), we don't know Eileen's blood status, but given Sevvie's knowledge of so many "curses" (I think they were hexes and jinxes) at such an early age, I'd venture to say that she was a pureblood and that zgirnius isright about young Snape being the only half-blood in the family. I am not, however, ready to go along with the working-class background, which is pure speculation. I do think it would be very odd if Eileen were intimidated by her Muggle husband and yet Sevvie somehow grew up with such exceptional magical knowledge, so I speculate, in turn, that the shouting man is Grandpa Prince and that Tobias is nowhere in sight. (I don't think we need to speculate that the Princes approved of the marriage; Eileen could have put the announcements in the paper as an act of rebellion, which would explain her father's anger when she brought the little half-blood to contaminate their home after Tobias's death or desertion of his family, which is how I (speculatively) interpret the memory fragment. As for Bellatrix, if the Princes did have connections with the Blacks and other purebloods, maybe Bellatrix is the girl who's laughing at the scrawny boy (Severus) on the presumably hexed broom. (Brooms don't try to throw their riders unless they're hexed or the rider is afraid of them, and cowardice and timidity don't seem to be Snapeian traits.) I like to think that Bellatrix herself hexed it, possibly at some social occasion that they both attended. Or, given the difference in their ages, maybe she was what we Americans would call his babysitter when he was about eight and she was about fifteen. (I'm not proposing this thought as any kind of theory or even speculation>) Carol, still completely unable to reconcile Severus's growing up in a Muggle neighborhood with a Muggle father and all those hexes (and, as zgirnius suggests, their countercurses) and/or a precocious interest in the Dark Arts From tonks_op at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 04:55:03 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 04:55:03 -0000 Subject: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: <256.9351e7b.3161e0ae@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150435 Someone here once suggested that Snape would have known that something happened to LV when the dark-mark on his arm disappeared. But that does not explain how DD would have known that Lily did not have to die and threw herself in front of Harry. Isn't it amazing how JKR just put these little clues right in front of us and we never notice that something is amiss? I have never really thought about it. But how does DD know? The whole WW knew overnight, but how? And while we are at it some say that PP was there and killed all of those people with LV's wand and blamed it on Sirius. Then how come LV's wand didn't regurgitate those dead people before Lily and James? Huh?? How come? PP must have used his own wand. Right? And if he were running into hiding I don't think he would have stopped to have a chat with DD. Maybe there was a painting in the house that saw it all. And the person in the painting got out quick enough before the painting was destroyed. That seems like the only possibility, unless there was a house elf on duty. I guess a member of the order could have been standing watch in an invisibility cloak or someone who is an animagus like MG (or Sirius) could have been watching the house. But then again just how many people knew where the Potter where? I will have to go with the portrait. That is the only logical way for DD to have known. So whoever was in the painting saw it all and ran to DD when Lily was killed, the house blew up, Snape's dark mark disappeared and DD knew. Then he send Hagrid. You would have thought that he would have gone himself, but he must have been making arrangements for Harry's care. DD sure does trust Hagrid to let him go get the most important baby in the world. I would have been afraid that Hagrid being rather simple minded would have messed it up somehow. And then we have the mystery of Sirius's motorcycle and how it was that Hagrid happened to have it. I know we have gone round and round on that one before. Nikkalmati seems to have a good idea about the bike, that when Hagrid was sent Sirius was there and gave the bike to Hagrid to take Harry away while Sirius ran after Peter. So it sounds like Peter must have been there too, but I don't think that is how DD knew. And the events must have all happened very quickly, as they could with wizard apparating here and there. Now that I have typed all of this I had another idea. What if Peter in rat form was in the house and Sirius in dog form (after riding the motorcycle there as a human) was standing guard outside and fell asleep or something and didn't see LV enter. Mystery... Tonks_op From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 05:18:16 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 05:18:16 -0000 Subject: Snape less comic? In-Reply-To: <20060401154911.27888.qmail@web61321.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150436 Pippin: > DDM!Snape is not a child or a criminal. He has the right to decide > for himself whether he wants to change or not. > > Joe: > I fully agree that he has the right to decide but he is still probably a criminal. Dumbledore got him out of trouble with the Ministry by saying he has "returned to the Light" or however you want to put it. That said wouldn't he have had to do things that needed Dumbledore to in effect cover for him? > > Thus would that not make him a criminal? Granted a criminal that cut a deal but still a criminal. Carol responds: Apparently, the charges were dropped, and considering that the judge was Barty Crouch, there must have been nothing worse than being a DE to charge him with. Unlike Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, Avery, Macnair, et al., whose names were published in the papers after they declared themselves to have been placed under the Imperius Curse, Snape's name was apparently not published. Instead, he was regarded by Crouch, and afterwards apparently by the Wizengamot when Karkaroff brought up his name (again, charging him with no specific crime other than being a Death Eater) as completely reformed. So, just as Harry can't be called a criminal by Umbridge because the charges were dropped and there is no criminal record, Snape cannot be considered a criminal for anything he did during VW1 because he reformed and turned spy for Dumbledore, as the Wizengamot knows. So not a criminal who cut a deal to save his own skin a la Karkaroff, but a reformed criminal who risked his life working for the good side and who can't be recharged because the charges against him have been dropped--unless the WW is even more corrupt than it appears to be. The death of Dumbledore (and Snape's supposed current status as a faithful DE) is another matter, especially since Dumbledore can hardly testify in his favor a second time, but I won't go into that here. Carol, wondering how Snape will get off this time and feeling optimistic that he'll manage it somehow, with help from Harry and a Pensieve From zgirnius at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 05:35:26 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 05:35:26 -0000 Subject: Where did he learn it all? (was Re: Severus's memories and schoolyard curses) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150437 > Carol: > I am not, however, ready to go along with the working-class > background, which is pure speculation. zgirnius: Yup, sure is. A guess based on the theory that Spinner's End was Snape's childhood home, which would make Tobias a worker in a textile mill in a northern industrial city. From which I next guess that Eileen would come from a comparable social stratum in the WW rather than the rather socially elevated milieu of families like the Blacks. Carol: > I do think it would be very odd > if Eileen were intimidated by her Muggle husband and yet Sevvie > somehow grew up with such exceptional magical knowledge, so I > speculate, in turn, that the shouting man is Grandpa Prince and that > Tobias is nowhere in sight. (I don't think we need to speculate that > the Princes approved of the marriage; Eileen could have put the > announcements in the paper as an act of rebellion, which would explain > her father's anger when she brought the little half-blood to > contaminate their home after Tobias's death or desertion of his > family, which is how I (speculatively) interpret the memory fragment. zgirnius: I'm torn, really. I could see this, too. To be honest, I probably prefer my version because the idea of young Severus attending a Muggle elementary school is just too beautifully incongruous for me to discard. There is even a vague clues that he was raised at least partly in the Muggle world. In CoS, for example, ("The Duelling Club") Snape states "We'll be sending what's left of Finch-Fletchey up to the hospital wing in a matchbox." Would a WW-raised person know what that is? (OK, maybe Snape got an O on his Muggle Studies OWL.) The working-class thing...well, it would be another point of difference between Snape and James/Sirius. Another potential source of misunderstanding. Of course, I can have that even if I go with your Grandpa Prince was the shouting man scenario. And I do think it fits the character better (for example, his spitting after the Quidditch match he referees in PS/SS). Lucius Malfoy just wouldn't. Carol: > Carol, still completely unable to reconcile Severus's growing up in a > Muggle neighborhood with a Muggle father and all those hexes (and, as > zgirnius suggests, their countercurses) and/or a precocious interest > in the Dark Arts zgirnius: The Muggle neighborhood is certainly no problem-magic would go on indoors when no Muggles were present. (Don't other witches and wizards live in Muggle neighborhoods?) Tobias would be more of a problem, but there are ways around that (he works a late shift, he likes to go our for some beer after work, etc...) The question is, what would Eileen do if she realized she had a magical prodigy of sorts on her hands? Is it credible that she would encourage him to read and practice in secret if his father disapproved? It seems she might be too intimidated...on the other hand, if she did stay with Tobias, the household was probably subject to instances of uncontrolled magic by Severus (caused by a kid being angry/scared...) Might teaching him actually be a way to lessen the instances of 'accidental magic' which might otherwise be more likely to ensue in an unharmonious household? It would certainly be a reason for even a scared Eileen to encourage Snape's learning of magic. --zgirnius, who did manage to get one canon quote into this long speculation! From Aisbelmon at hotmail.com Mon Apr 3 06:13:40 2006 From: Aisbelmon at hotmail.com (M.Clifford) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 06:13:40 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150438 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "a_svirn" wrote: > > > Potioncat: > > > > I still find it hard to understand "James hated Dark Arts" as > > something he could learn from his parents, unless it was because > > of a very personal reason. > a_svirn: > I think you read too much in this "hated the dark arts" explanation. > It's nothing more than a pious excuse for a nefarious deed. Cooked > up hastily by Sirius to reconcile Harry with what he'd just learned > about his father. It's much to Harry's credit that he didn't buy it > at the time. > Valky: a_svirn, huh? I have got to say I don't understand how you can extrapolate 'cooked up hastily' out of "and James -- whatever else he may have appeared to you, Harry -- always hated the Dark Arts." I can't think of anything that it looks less like than a hastily cooked up excuse. Sirius really seems to believe in the virtue of this POV. Okay I could concede that Sirius hastily pieced together his first impulse in reaction, and I think that the whole -Snape was a baddie and that was what mattered to James- story is lame enough to be both impulsive and *true* at the same time. So we really don't have to leap into speculating that it was all made up to cover more nefarious tracks, don't you think? From a_svirn at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 10:25:40 2006 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 10:25:40 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150439 > Alla: > I view it as a canon statement and > very much IMO supported by James later being an Order member and dying > fighting against Voldemort. I mean, sure Sirius uses this statement as > an excuse, but I also view it as statement of facts and till I see > Sirius being proven as a liar anywhere in canon, I will view his > factual statements ( not , say his evaluational statements of course) > as a facts :) Be it "knew more Dark curses...", "Malfoy's > lapdog", "hated Dark arts" or " Dumbledore thinks you are reformed but > I know better". a_svirn: Presumption of innocence, I take it? You use it very selectively. Sirius cannot obviously be considered an independent witness, now can he? If anyone is biased in the entire series it would be Sirius Black. Especially where Snape is concerned. And until it is proven that Snape was guilty in practicing the Dark Arts at school, this is one crime he's innocent of. Certainly you cannot use the invectives Sirius hurled at Snape as "factual statements", any more than you can use "Snivellus". > Alla: > And where do you find "Harry did not buy it" in canon. I mean, Harry > did not think that it was a good reason to do that to Snape, but where > does he say something to the effect " no, I don't think my dad really > hated Dark Arts". a_svirn: This is not what I meant, though. Harry has no reason to question his father's adherence to the "cause of the Good" or whatever. When I said "he didn't buy it" I meant he was mature enough not to accept it as an excuse. > Alla: > I tend to agree with Potioncat . I think James indeed hated Dark Arts. > It does not mean that his behaviour towards Snape was not > reprehensible, sure it was, but I see no reason to doubt it, IMO. > a_svirn: He might or might not have "hated" the Dark Arts while still at school. It doesn't matter much, though. Some things are simply bad in themselves. Eating people for instance is bad. Even if they are as fat as Goering and as full of juice as Bormann. Bullying and abusing your schoolmates is also bad. Not as bad as eating them, admittedly, but still pretty bad. > Alla: sure I > will take their biases into consideration, but not to such extent as > to say that when Sirius reports facts he lies. a_svirn: Then what do you mean by "taking their biases in consideration?" When Hagrid says that all Slytherins are rotten and evil he does not lie, that's exactly how he sees them. Sirius also belongs to the same school of thought, and he deems Snape to be the worst of a bad lot. Moreover, he believes that he, Sirius, is entitled to meet out punishments to those who fall short of his exalting standards (self- righteousness clearly runs in the family). This makes Sirius unreliable and dangerous, but no, it doesn't make him a liar precisely. From a_svirn at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 10:54:20 2006 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 10:54:20 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150440 > Valky: > a_svirn, huh? I have got to say I don't understand how you can > extrapolate 'cooked up hastily' out of "and James -- whatever else he > may have appeared to you, Harry -- always hated the Dark Arts." I > can't think of anything that it looks less like than a hastily cooked > up excuse. Sirius really seems to believe in the virtue of this POV. > a_svirn: No he does not. He did say that he was not proud of the episode, didn't he? He simply couldn't come up with a better explanation at the time and threw in this "hated the DA" excuse. > Valky: > Okay I could concede that Sirius hastily pieced together his first > impulse in reaction, and I think that the whole -Snape was a baddie > and that was what mattered to James- story is lame enough to be both > impulsive and *true* at the same time. So we really don't have to leap > into speculating that it was all made up to cover more nefarious > tracks, don't you think? a_svirn: I don't understand this logic at all. If the justification is "lame", how can it be "true"? In what sense it is true? In a sense that Snape was a baddie? He might have been at that, so what? It is also *true* that James was a bully, and that's what mattered to Harry. From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Mon Apr 3 11:07:52 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 11:07:52 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150441 Alla: > *(and snip again)*...sure Sirius uses this > statement as > > an excuse, but I also view it as statement of facts and till I see > > Sirius being proven as a liar anywhere in canon, I will view his > > factual statements ( not , say his evaluational statements of > course) > > as a facts :) Be it "knew more Dark curses...", "Malfoy's > > lapdog", "hated Dark arts" or " Dumbledore thinks you are reformed > but > > I know better". a_svirn: > *(snip)* > Sirius cannot obviously be considered an independent witness, now > can he? If anyone is biased in the entire series it would be Sirius > Black. Especially where Snape is concerned. And until it is proven > that Snape was guilty in practicing the Dark Arts at school, this is > one crime he's innocent of. Ceridwen: Carol has brought up some thoughts in another post in this thread. She points out that the word 'dark' was not used by Sirius to describe Snape's knowledge of curses, and that sometimes the words 'hex', 'jinx' and 'curse' get used interchangeably in the series. We don't know if 'curse' was used erroneously in this case, or if this is a case of Sirius applying his own interpretation of something which caused he and his friends discomfort. Naturally, Sirius would believe his own interpretation, or he would not hold it. Sirius has issues with the darker side of magic. He is in a state of rebellion against his family, which holds to the ideal of Pureblood Supremacy, and which also, apparently, sees no problem with the Dark Arts. He *may* swing a bit too far in seeing the 'hexes' and 'jinxes' Snape may have known at eleven, as 'curses'. We don't know. The statement that 'Dumbledore thinks you're reformed but I know better' shows us at least two things: one, Sirius, like the rest of the Order as far as we know, does not know why Dumbledore trusts Snape; second, that Sirius suspects Snape, rightly or wrongly. He obviously does believe what he says, things hurled in the heat of argument are often the truth as far as the person hurling it perceives. We are being shown an argument, as well as Sirius's beliefs. *(snipping)* a_svirn: > He might or might not have "hated" the Dark Arts while still at > school. It doesn't matter much, though. ...Bullying and > abusing your schoolmates is also bad. Ceridwen: I don't see any reason to think that James didn't hate the Dark Arts. It supplies part of the motivation for the rivalry between James and Snape. It also explains Sirius's involvement with James. And if Sirius, and possibly James (we don't know the backstory on his family and the various Dark wizards of the past) interpret the curses Snape knew coming into school as the first steps toward the Dark, this would be the beginning of the feud between them. It makes sense, and it covers what we know from elsewhere in canon. Sirius said that Snape knew more curses coming into Hogwarts than half the seventh years. They were all eleven coming off the train, even if they turned twelve the next day. Another eleven year old knowing all of that would be daunting to the other eleven year olds, dark or light or just for fun. Alla: > sure I > > will take their biases into consideration, but not to such extent > as > > to say that when Sirius reports facts he lies. a_svirn: > Then what do you mean by "taking their biases in consideration?" Ceridwen: I think Alla means, and I'm sure she'll tell me if I'm wrong, that she will take certain statements with a grain of salt. But not to the extent that she will say someone is outright lying. People may misrepresent the truth while honestly believing they are giving factual information. So, Sirius saying that Snape knew more curses than half the seventh year (and they wouldn't be learning Dark curses anyway, not at Hogwarts!) might be engaging in hyperbole with the 'half the seventh year' statement, perhaps to make the point, but he does honestly believe that Snape knew a lot more than he should have known at age eleven. a_svirn: *(snip)* > Moreover, he believes that he, Sirius, is entitled to meet out > punishments to those who fall short of his exalting standards (self- > righteousness clearly runs in the family). Ceridwen: I do agree with this. It's a teenaged reaction, I think, since teens are idealogues who cannot understand others' failings. Their standards are impossibly high, and their reactions are absolute. Certainly not every teen, but as a group it seems to be a general characterisitic. Sirius, being stuck in Azkaban from the time he was still in this stage, still has signs of it in his adult personality. I've been wondering something about Snape knowing curses at eleven. Could his mother have taught them to him as defense? Did she think he would be teased (for looks, being a Half-blood, being 'working class') and so taught him how to defend himself? When I had trouble with a boy at school constantly jumping on my back, my father taught me how to do a Judo throw. Would Eileen have anticipated problems and done the WW's equivalent? Ceridwen. From amiabledorsai at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 11:23:14 2006 From: amiabledorsai at yahoo.com (amiabledorsai) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 11:23:14 -0000 Subject: Why was Lily to be spared? (WasRe: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know?) In-Reply-To: <256.9351e7b.3161e0ae@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150442 Nikkalmati: > BTW I am not clear how LV was supposed to "give" Lily to Snape. She > does not appear to be the type to be "given" and I can't see SS > keeping her tied up in the dungeon of Hogwarts or Imperiusing her > to stay in his house somewhere. Amiable Dorsai: Frankly, the whole idea disturbs me so much that I seldom write about it, but it was my suggestion that Lily was to be spared because Voldy had promised her to someone. As to how that someone would keep her, well, a little Memory Charm here, a bit of Amortentia there... Presto! your very own Lily doll. It walks, it talks, and is, uhhm, fully functional. Shame it's not really Lily, anymore. Reading "Prisoner of Azkaban", I had trouble understanding why Voldy hesitated to kill Lily at all. At the end of PoA, I was convinced that LV had promised her to Peter as a reward for his treachery. Peter seemed to me to be the sort of selfish and self-deluding wretch who would settle for a simulation of love, rather than the real thing. Reading "Half-Blood Prince, I began to wonder if maybe LV wasn't supposed to save her for Snape... Now before all the Snape fans jump on me, DDM, ESE, or otherwise, Snape does not strike me as the sort who would settle for a Lily doll, not really. Much as I despise the man, he seems too proud for that. But if the various "Snape loved Lily" theories are true, I have little trouble seeing him ask Voldemort for Lily's life as a payment for services rendered, either in hope of gratitude, or out of guilt for spilling the Prophecy--and I have zero trouble seeing him devote the rest of his life to vengeance if Voldy promised to spare her, then killed her anyway. Nikkalmati: > Way too risky for a spy. Amiable Dorsai: But not for a conqueror. If the Dark side won, as they seemed poised to do, Peter (or Snape) would be just that. As to timing, Catherine objected: Catherine: Except that Snape had already turned against Voldemort and was > working as a spy at the time that he (Voldemort) went to GH to > kill Harry. In the penseive scene in GoF Dumbledore clearly says > that SS turned spy against Voldemorst at "great personal risk" > before his downfall. Amiable Dorsai: Well, that's what Dumbledore thought, and it may be true. In any case, Voldemort thought that Snape was still working for him, spying on Dumbledore, so Snape would be in a position to ask Voldy for a boon. Amiable Dorsai From brahadambal at indiatimes.com Mon Apr 3 05:07:11 2006 From: brahadambal at indiatimes.com (latha279) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 05:07:11 -0000 Subject: LV's wand / Re: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150443 > Angie again: > > Second, when the PI occured in GOF, neither Harry nor VM "appeared." > So if what we saw in GOF (minus Bertha, FRank and Cedric, of course) > is what DD would have seen had he done the PI, that wouldn't have > told him about VM losing his powers or trying to kill Harry, would it? > (How would DD have done it? Gotten the brother wand from Olivander?) > Brady here: Exactly what has been bothering me for sometime now. Why is it that the Priori Incantatem didn't show either HP or LV? It should have, because it showed even the silver hand that LV conjured for PP. Does that mean that whoever was present at GH that night with LV performed the AK instead of LV himself? If so, why? HP was to be marked by "the Dark Lord" himself as his equal. Does that mean that this third person performed the AK on LV from behind and then performed a small spell to tranfer some Slytherin powers into HP (this would still explain the green light) and leave a scar behind to make both LV and HP believe in the prophesy? Just to lead the whole wizarding world on a real wild- goose chase? If this does lead to speculation, I put my bet on DD and / or Severus Snape to have done this. And all this was done to mislead LV to hunt an innocent boy while they can do the destroy-horcruxes operation in relative peace. Just my tuppence, Brady. From enlil65 at gmail.com Mon Apr 3 06:34:03 2006 From: enlil65 at gmail.com (Peggy Wilkins) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 01:34:03 -0500 Subject: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: References: <256.9351e7b.3161e0ae@aol.com> Message-ID: <1789c2360604022334ubceecdfxeb4586d468b9061c@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150444 On 4/2/06, Tonks wrote: > Someone here once suggested that Snape would have known that > something happened to LV when the dark-mark on his arm disappeared. > But that does not explain how DD would have known that Lily did not > have to die and threw herself in front of Harry. Isn't it amazing > how JKR just put these little clues right in front of us and we > never notice that something is amiss? I have never really thought > about it. But how does DD know? The whole WW knew overnight, but > how? The news of Voldemort's fall spread unbelievably soon after the events at GH considering how few witnesses we can account for. This suggests that the news was deliberately spread. So who started it all in motion? I think it's interesting that Dumbledore is portrayed as spreading a rumor in PoA. In the scene where Lupin describes how the Shrieking Shack was set up for his use during his transformations he says that the noises he made caused word to spread that the shack was haunted, which kept people away from the place, and "Dumbledore encouraged the rumor." So here we have a Dumbledore who is more than happy to spread misinformation when it works to his advantage. This is a strategic thing to do, so to me it is very Dumbledore-like. I think the news of Voldemort's fall may be strategic news from his point of view as well. This may also explain why Dumbledore remarks of the "dozens" of celebrations he supposedly passed on the way to Privet Drive to meet up with Hagrid/Harry: it helps spread a story and so lends credence to it. In other words, it's a diversionary tactic. I know there's no direct evidence to support this, but I think it's worth thinking about. Tonks: > And while we are at it some say that PP was there and killed all of > those people with LV's wand and blamed it on Sirius. Then how come > LV's wand didn't regurgitate those dead people before Lily and > James? Huh?? How come? PP must have used his own wand. Right? I thought the people killed there were killed by the gas line explosion, and so there was no curse that directly killed them; only an explosion. Whichever wand performed the curse simply caused an explosion. -- Peggy Wilkins enlil65 at gmail.com From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Mon Apr 3 12:28:27 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 12:28:27 -0000 Subject: LV's wand / Re: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150445 Angie again: > > > > Second, when the PI occured in GOF, neither Harry nor VM "appeared." Brady here: > > Does that mean > that whoever was present at GH that night with LV performed the AK > instead of LV himself? Ceridwen: The PI might not have evoked either Harry or LV because neither died. Harry lived, and while LV's body apparently died, LV's spirit, as the true essence of LV, did not. Ceridwen. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 12:30:10 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 12:30:10 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150446 > a_svirn: > Presumption of innocence, I take it? You use it very selectively. > Sirius cannot obviously be considered an independent witness, now > can he? If anyone is biased in the entire series it would be Sirius > Black. Especially where Snape is concerned. And until it is proven > that Snape was guilty in practicing the Dark Arts at school, this is > one crime he's innocent of. Certainly you cannot use the invectives > Sirius hurled at Snape as "factual statements", any more than you > can use "Snivellus". Alla: Erm.... presumption of innocence I sure may use selectively by the luxury of fiction ( as in I am not obligated to give the characters due process, if I don't want to :)), for example when I read about the murder on the Tower, that is what it is in my head - murder, for which Snape should be punished. If JKR decides to let Snape off the hook, I will let her give me the reasons to let Snape of the hook, but for now he is guilty, guilty, guilty to me. That is of course precisely because it is fiction and I can have a luxury of thinking that. But what presumption of innocence are you talking about here? It is presumption of speaking the truth and I don't think I use it selectively at all. As I said upthread, the only character, whose words I always disbelieve when not supported by others is Voldemort, and maybe Lucius, although I am not even sure about that. And as far as I am concerned, it is ALREADY proven that Snape was guilty in practicing Dark arts in school - if by nothing else, then by the fact that he invented Sectusempra. Even though I wish as I said earlier for JKR to be more clear for what constitutes Dark Magic, IMO it is clear that this curse is Dark. So, yes, I can use some Sirius statements as factual and will continue to do so, till it will be proven in canon that Sirius is a liar and I don't think it is so far. Snivellius is not a factual statement, IMO. > > Valky: > > Okay I could concede that Sirius hastily pieced together his first > > impulse in reaction, and I think that the whole -Snape was a baddie > > and that was what mattered to James- story is lame enough to be > both > > impulsive and *true* at the same time. So we really don't have to > leap > > into speculating that it was all made up to cover more nefarious > > tracks, don't you think? > > a_svirn: > I don't understand this logic at all. If the justification > is "lame", how can it be "true"? In what sense it is true? In a > sense that Snape was a baddie? He might have been at that, so what? > It is also *true* that James was a bully, and that's what mattered > to Harry. > Alla: I agree with Valky. As to how it can be both lame and true... of course it can be IMO. It is LAME as an excuse for bullying, since no matter what Snape hated or did not hate, it should not be James' justification as to bullying him, but it is also TRUE as in James indeed hated DA and that may have been a part of the reason of the initial hatred between two boys. Ceridwen: > The statement that 'Dumbledore thinks you're reformed but I know > better' shows us at least two things: one, Sirius, like the rest of > the Order as far as we know, does not know why Dumbledore trusts > Snape; second, that Sirius suspects Snape, rightly or wrongly. He > obviously does believe what he says, things hurled in the heat of > argument are often the truth as far as the person hurling it > perceives. We are being shown an argument, as well as Sirius's > beliefs. > > *(snipping)* Alla: Actually, I thought about it and I don't think that this is a factual statement, so this is the one I will wait colloboration on, although Tower sure looks like one to me. ( I know, I know :-)) > Ceridwen: > I don't see any reason to think that James didn't hate the Dark > Arts. It supplies part of the motivation for the rivalry between > James and Snape. It also explains Sirius's involvement with James. Alla: Yes, yes, Ceridwen I totally agree. > a_svirn: > > Then what do you mean by "taking their biases in consideration?" > > Ceridwen: > I think Alla means, and I'm sure she'll tell me if I'm wrong, that > she will take certain statements with a grain of salt. But not to > the extent that she will say someone is outright lying. People may > misrepresent the truth while honestly believing they are giving > factual information. So, Sirius saying that Snape knew more curses > than half the seventh year (and they wouldn't be learning Dark curses > anyway, not at Hogwarts!) might be engaging in hyperbole with > the 'half the seventh year' statement, perhaps to make the point, but > he does honestly believe that Snape knew a lot more than he should > have known at age eleven. Alla: That is absolutely what I meant, Ceridwen. Like in "Malfoy lapdog", I may not believe that Snape was siting in Malfoy's lap, but I will sure believe that Snape was very close with Malfoys for whatever reason AND I also think that we sort of saw the proof for that too - not an absolute prooof, but support for that in UV. That is if Snape main reason for taking UV was his loyalty to Malfoys, if it was, he sure went a great deal beyond the call of the duty, IMO. JMO, Alla. From foxmoth at qnet.com Mon Apr 3 12:40:48 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 12:40:48 -0000 Subject: Words have consequences In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150447 > Pippin: > > If Hermione had had her wits about her, she might have observed > > that You Know Who doesn't seem to want his return announced, and > > while she's very gratified that Draco believes Harry, YKW might > > not be best pleased to know that his servants' families are > > trumpeting his return in public. And he's not as forgiving as we > > are. > > Amiable Dorsai: > I don't think Hermione's had a chance to read "Order of the Phoenix" > at this point--neither has Draco. Otherwise, yes, that would have > been a devastating retort. Pippin: Though Dumbledore's announcement is less than a day old, Hermione has been checking the Daily Prophet and listening to the other students for a week since Harrys' return from the graveyard. If she'd had her thinking cap on, she'd have realized that the WW couldn't ignore LV's return unless he wanted them to. Amiable Dorsai: > Once in a great while, though, you have to fire a whiff of grape > across the bad guy's bow. Pippin: We agree. The proper next move would have been a warning shot, not a broadside amidships. Pippin From Aisbelmon at hotmail.com Mon Apr 3 13:00:16 2006 From: Aisbelmon at hotmail.com (M.Clifford) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 13:00:16 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150448 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "a_svirn" wrote: > > > Valky: > > a_svirn, huh? "and James -- whatever else > > he may have appeared to you, Harry -- always hated the Dark Arts." > > I can't think of anything that it looks less like than a hastily > > cooked up excuse. Sirius really seems to believe in the virtue of > > this POV. > > a_svirn: > No he does not. He did say that he was not proud of the episode, > didn't he? He simply couldn't come up with a better explanation at > the time and threw in this "hated the DA" excuse. Valky: LOL, we are on completely different wavelengths us two when it comes to reading context a_svirn :) Again I find that, for me, Sirius's statement that he's is not proud of what he did couldn't look less like a contradiction to his belief in virtue. It seems to me that he is admitting the paradigm has shifted for him, and especially because this one comment cannot wipe away for me all the many other interactions between him and Snape such as in the Shrieking shack and Christmas at Grimmauld place, where Sirius displays genuinely and passionately his distrust of Snape is not a fake or a cover for anything, he really does think he smells something rotten. To me, that Sirius has idealogical issues with Snape, is too consistent a characteristic of their relationship for this one uncomfortably guilty comment to change. > > > Valky: > > Okay I could concede that Sirius hastily pieced together his first > > impulse in reaction, and I think that the whole -Snape was a > > baddie and that was what mattered to James- story is lame enough > > to be both impulsive and *true* at the same time. So we really > > don't have to leap into speculating that it was all made up to > > cover more nefarious tracks, don't you think? > > a_svirn: > I don't understand this logic at all. If the justification > is "lame", how can it be "true"? In what sense it is true? In a > sense that Snape was a baddie? He might have been at that, so what? Valky: It's true in the sense that it's true, plain and simple, they were a couple of vigilante brute teenagers in the middle of a war who believed they were taking on the enemy, The Dark Arts. But that's lame, too,because they targetted Snape their symbol of Dark Arts and Snape wasn't *the enemy*, he was just another kid. Does that clarify it? > It is also *true* that James was a bully, and that's what mattered > to Harry. > Fair enough. I think Harry is missing a lot of the context of the scene, because he's a teenager too, he's acting typically teenage and thats alright because he is standing by his principles and that matters. He also idealised his father and godfather beyond a level that they could humanly live up to and was more shocked for it than he otherwise might have been if he hadn't expected them to have been perfectly saintly boys who took in werewolves as friends fell in love with benevolent witches AND never got in an unfair fight or got full of their own wind. Valky From sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 03:15:21 2006 From: sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com (sugaranddixie1) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 03:15:21 -0000 Subject: LV's wand / Re: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150449 > ET wrote: > > If it [Edit: Voldemort's wand]was left behind, we know that > > a "Prior Incantato" spell could have revealed some of the > > events of that night. > Angie again: > I like the theory, but I have a couple of problems. First, I find > it hard to believe that DD would get VM's wand and then relinquish > it -- surely he'd either destroy it or turn it over to the MOM???? > > Second, when the PI occured in GOF, neither Harry nor VM > "appeared." So if what we saw in GOF (minus Bertha, FRank and > Cedric, of course) is what DD would have seen had he done the PI, > that wouldn't have told him about VM losing his powers or trying > to kill Harry, would it? (How would DD have done it? Gotten the > brother wand from Olivander?) E.T.- All valid points...I'm just sort of playing around with the possibility. Even if Harry and Voldemort didn't appear during a PI, it doesn't seem like it would be difficult to deduce parts of the story from what did appear. Harry was still alive & his parents were dead. The PI would just give positive evidence that it was Voldemort's wand that had killed them. DD wouldn't need the brother wand because you don't need it to perform a PI...Amos Diggory performed one on Harry's wand at the World Cup. Also, & most importantly, DD already knew the prophecy & how it said that LV would "mark" the child involved. Assuming Lily was left where she fell, it would have been obvious she died while trying to protect Harry. DD would have asked himself what could have saved Harry. I think it could have been put together easily enough even without a PI. But I do think you're absolutely right that if DD had ever come into possession of LV's wand, he certainly wouldn't have allowed it to fall back into evil hands.....so he most likely never had it. E.T. From foxmoth at qnet.com Mon Apr 3 13:16:51 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 13:16:51 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150450 > Alla: > > Erm.... presumption of innocence I sure may use selectively by the > luxury of fiction ( as in I am not obligated to give the characters > due process, if I don't want to :)), for example when I read about > the murder on the Tower, that is what it is in my head - murder, for > which Snape should be punished. If JKR decides to let Snape off the > hook, I will let her give me the reasons to let Snape of the hook, > but for now he is guilty, guilty, guilty to me. That is of course > precisely because it is fiction and I can have a luxury of thinking > that. > Pippin: You don't think JKR means to show us that presumption of innocence is a good thing? That we really, really need it because it's so easy to get things wrong when judging by appearances? Especially when it's a character she makes a point of not wanting us to like? I think Dark Magic is like the famous definition of obscenity -- you can't say what it is, but you know it when you see it. That's what Snape meant when he said it was unfixed, mutating, indestructible. The gruesome pictures in the DA classroom seem to say 'by their fruits ye shall know them. " We are not told that teenaged Snape ever used magic to permanently damage anyone. We are told that he received wounds too deep for the healing. So who was the dark wizard? Pippin From kchuplis at alltel.net Mon Apr 3 14:26:56 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 09:26:56 -0500 Subject: LV's wand References: Message-ID: <000701c6572a$a9421100$b301010a@ConsolidatedTelephone.local> No: HPFGUIDX 150451 Maybe Peter took it and put it in a safe deposit box at Gringott's before his disappearing act. I can't see Goblin's caring or giving up that info. Seems like a pretty secure institution. They don't seem to check on vaults very often. He certainly had time. Or maybe he hid it elsewhere. Heck he could have buried it. I don't see this as a really big mystery. There had to be a fair amount of time between fleeing the scene and the meeting Sirius. Peter could have done a lot with that wand. kchuplis [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From anamariafranco2003 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 09:28:47 2006 From: anamariafranco2003 at yahoo.com (anamariafranco2003) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 09:28:47 -0000 Subject: R.A.B Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150452 I think I may know who R.A.B is. I think it is Sirius' brother Regulus Black. (Order of the Phionex (family tree)) It would tie in so well... # 5 says that Regulus Black became a death eater but something happened and Regulus Black tried to leave the bad influence group and He Who Must Not Be Named killed him himself. I think that maybe Regulus didn't like He Who Must Not Be Named's horcrux idea so he switched the horcrux and destroyed the real one. Then He Who Must Not Be Named found out and killed him. anamariafranco2003 From sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 14:38:17 2006 From: sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com (sugaranddixie1) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 14:38:17 -0000 Subject: LV's wand / Re: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150453 > Angie again: > > > > > > Second, when the PI occured in GOF, neither Harry nor > VM "appeared." > Brady here: > > > > Does that mean > > that whoever was present at GH that night with LV performed the AK instead of LV himself? > Ceridwen: > The PI might not have evoked either Harry or LV because neither died. > Harry lived, and while LV's body apparently died, LV's spirit, as > the true essence of LV, did not. E.T.: I don't think you have to die for a PI to evoke the spell that killed you...it just displays prior spells of all sorts. Perhaps it only will display spells that are totally completed or that worked as intended. I do believe it was Voldemort that performed the AK's on James and Lily using his own (LV's) wand. Then he tried to kill Harry. My impression is that he interprets the prophecy as meaning that he must be the one to kill Harry himself. I think he has continued to feel that way & although he wants to kill Harry himself to show the other DEs that he is the more powerful of the two, I also thinks he believes it must be him & no one else. From mandorino222 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 17:02:21 2006 From: mandorino222 at yahoo.com (mandorino222) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 17:02:21 -0000 Subject: LV's wand In-Reply-To: <000701c6572a$a9421100$b301010a@ConsolidatedTelephone.local> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150454 wrote: I like this explanation. Gringotts is, after all, the same place that allowed a cash withdrawal from the account of one Sirius Black while he was still a wanted man. Seems like Gringotts doesn't take sides in the whole good versus evil war. It's not like the need for banks goes away when the dark side takes control. nick From kchuplis at alltel.net Mon Apr 3 19:37:37 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 14:37:37 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: LV's wand References: Message-ID: <000d01c65756$100fe940$b301010a@ConsolidatedTelephone.local> No: HPFGUIDX 150455 ----- Original Message ----- From: mandorino222 To: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, April 03, 2006 12:02 PM Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: LV's wand wrote: I like this explanation. Gringotts is, after all, the same place that allowed a cash withdrawal from the account of one Sirius Black while he was still a wanted man. Seems like Gringotts doesn't take sides in the whole good versus evil war. It's not like the need for banks goes away when the dark side takes control. kchuplis: It's what I would have done, if for no other reason than to have a little something important in reserve. No one every said Peter was stupid. Not in any kind of CYA way anyway. I can see him hanging on to things for "future use", collateral, possible leverage if he were ever caught (long shot, but giving up the want of LV might have gotten him some useful priveledges) etc. Lots of reasons to do so and it sounds like something Peter Petigrew would have thought of immediately. There is an adaptable person. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 21:23:47 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 21:23:47 -0000 Subject: Words have consequences In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150456 > >>Betsy Hp: > > Forcing Draco out of their compartment would have been one > > option. Threatening him if he refused to leave was another. > >>Alla: > Okay, so you would allow Gryffindors to use SOME kind of physical > force against Draco? Because "forcing" means forcing physically, > no, since Draco did not leave when Harry told him to get out. Betsy Hp: Sure. Though I think Harry could have intimidated Draco into leaving by merely standing up and drawing his wand, especially if Ron and Hermione followed his lead. I don't recall Draco ever willingly taking part in a physical fight up to this point, and I doubt he was ready to start then. > >>Alla: > Don't you see how subjective it is? Not only Gryffs are in no > shape to listen to Draco threats, they cannot make Draco leave by > words, because he does not erm... leaves. Betsy Hp: I agree. I think Draco was prepared for a war of words, and he'd have stuck around for that. Once wands were drawn though, I'm betting he'd have left. If he'd been given the chance. > >>Alla: > Let me just say again. I don't consider what Gryffs did to be some > sort of justice against Draco. I just consider it a reaction. Not > a perfect reaction maybe, but perfectly justifiable. Moreover, > after rereading the scene, I don't see that Gryffs had much choice > to react differently, unless of course they wanted to subject > themselves to continue listening to Draco's monstrocities. Betsy Hp: I can understand why Harry and his friends reacted the way they did. (I think I've said as much upthread.) And, once their side of the story was heard, I'd imagine any authority figure would let them off rather lightly. It doesn't change the fact, however, that Draco was the victim of their attack. > >>Alla: > > So, thank you for your answer, I am just still not quite clear as > to how "forcing Draco out" helps Gryffindors to keep high moral > ground, but hexing him ( independently from each other if I may ) > does not. > Betsy Hp: I suppose it goes back to your original question. Forcing Draco out of the compartment, either physically (pushing or shoving him out) or threats (drawing a wand) does not make Draco a victim. By attacking without warning, Harry and his friends made Draco and Crabbe and Goyle into victims. That's how moral high ground is lost. Betsy Hp From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Mon Apr 3 21:24:58 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 21:24:58 -0000 Subject: R.A.B In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150457 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "anamariafranco2003" wrote: >anamariafranco2003: > I think I may know who R.A.B is. I think it is Sirius' brother Regulus > Black. (Order of the Phionex (family tree)) > > It would tie in so well... > # 5 says that Regulus Black became a death eater but something > happened and Regulus Black tried to leave the bad influence group and > He Who Must Not Be Named killed him himself. > > I think that maybe Regulus didn't like He Who Must Not Be Named's > horcrux idea so he switched the horcrux and destroyed the real one. > Then He Who Must Not Be Named found out and killed him. Geoff: I hate to be a bit of a wet blanket and dampen your enthusiasm but the first suggestion that RAB was Regulus Black was made in message 132914 at 1.13 pm on 19th July 2005, thirteen minutes after the group reopened after the hiatus during the publication of HBP. :-) From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 16:37:36 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 16:37:36 -0000 Subject: The memory of Burke in the Pensieve In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150459 catlady wrote: > I think Burke revolving above the Penseive means that he could have come from a memory that someone else gave to Dumbledore rather than from DD's own memory Carol responds: Since Bertha Jorkins ("That is Bertha as I remember her," quoted from memory), Snape, and Trelawney all rise from the Pensieve when Dumbledore wants to show only the speaker without the context and these are all, AFWK, DD's own memories, I see no reason to think that the memory of Burke is not also DD's. When DD went to investigate the situation and why we don't know--possibly after he got the first Gaunt memory from Bob Ogden and learned that Merope wore a locket. He also knew that Tom Riddle had been born in London, which would lead him, IMO, to check out Borgin and Burke's as a place where she might have tried to sell the locket. Or he might have contacted Burke after the death of Hepzibah Smith and his acquisition of Hokey's memory. He seems to have been following Riddle's life and career for a very long time, before Severus Snape and MWPP were even born. At any rate, I'm quite sure that the figure of Burke rising from the Pensieve is from Dumbledore's own memory, and I doubt that we'll learn any more about it. Carol, wishing that DD had left behind a shelf full of bottled memories involving Severus Snape as boy and man From BrwNeil at aol.com Mon Apr 3 21:36:09 2006 From: BrwNeil at aol.com (BrwNeil at aol.com) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 17:36:09 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: R.A.B Message-ID: <198.525d20ed.3162ef49@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150460 In a message dated 4/3/2006 5:28:01 PM Eastern Standard Time, gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk writes: Geoff: I hate to be a bit of a wet blanket and dampen your enthusiasm but the first suggestion that RAB was Regulus Black was made in message 132914 at 1.13 pm on 19th July 2005, thirteen minutes after the group reopened after the hiatus during the publication of HBP. :-) Like most people, I agree that RAB was Regulus Black. My question is, who was with him. Dumbledore makes the comment that one person alone would not have been able to get the necklace. Neil [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From walter_link2000 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 17:49:26 2006 From: walter_link2000 at yahoo.com (walter_link2000) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 17:49:26 -0000 Subject: Hermione Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150461 Yeah, this is a little late, but why doesn't Hermione get in trouble for using magic on the train or in Diagon Alley? Just a thought, fixing Harry's glasses isn't a big deal but it's still underaged using magic... "walter_link2000" From djklaugh at comcast.net Mon Apr 3 22:08:13 2006 From: djklaugh at comcast.net (Deb) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 22:08:13 -0000 Subject: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: <1789c2360604022334ubceecdfxeb4586d468b9061c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150462 (Snip) > I thought the people killed there were killed by the gas line > explosion, and so there was no curse that directly killed them; only > an explosion. Whichever wand performed the curse simply caused an > explosion. > -- > Peggy Wilkins > enlil65 at ... > Deb here: No, that was the "story" that was put about to Muggles to explain all the damage and the deaths. While Wormtail might have used a spell to ignite the gas line, he did indeed use magic to get away from Sirius and that lead to Muggles being killed and property being distroyed. POA, The Servant of Lord Voldemort: "He's got a toe missing." said Black. "Of course," Lupin breathed. "So simple... so brilliant... he cut it off himself?" "Just before he transformed," said Black. "When I cornered him, he yelled for the whole street to hear that I'd betrayed Lily and James. Then, before I could curse him, he blew apart the street with the wand behind his back, killed everyone within twenty feet of himself -- and sped down into the sewer with the other rats...." "Didn't you ever hear, Ron?" said Lupin. "The biggest bit of Peter they found was his finger." Deb (aka djklaugh) From rkdas at charter.net Mon Apr 3 22:13:34 2006 From: rkdas at charter.net (susanbones2003) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 22:13:34 -0000 Subject: Hermione In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150463 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "walter_link2000" wrote: > > Yeah, this is a little late, but why doesn't Hermione get in trouble > for using magic on the train or in Diagon Alley? Just a thought, > fixing Harry's glasses isn't a big deal but it's still underaged > using magic... > > "walter_link2000" > Jen D. here, My thought on this is that as Dumbledore explained to Harry, the MOM can detect when magic is happening but can not tell who is doing it. When Harry was at Privet Dr., they knew he was the only wizard on the premises so when the Violet Pudding went flying, they made the obvious assumption (wrongly, of course) that Harry had done the deed. In Diagon Alley, there are so many wizards and witches, the MOM most probably relies on parents (as DD said they do in private homes) to police their children. So the MOM would know someone was doing magic but not specifically who. Now as for the train, I don't have such a tidy theory. Perhaps it's a small no-man's-land where prefects are supposed to police against the worst offenses but still, things get through, like the hexing of Draco and pals. That I don't understand. Does anyone else have an idea? Jen D. From OctobersChild48 at aol.com Mon Apr 3 19:21:49 2006 From: OctobersChild48 at aol.com (OctobersChild48 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 15:21:49 EDT Subject: Ron's Eat Slugs hex/jinx Message-ID: <338.157f03e.3162cfcd@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150464 > Valky: > For the record I knew as I was posting about the 'eat slugs' > hex that there was some movie contamination in what I was writing, > but I figured it to be negligible on the basis that both the book > hex and the movie hex had exactly the same effects. > > I have one or two theories on how an apparently non-verbal spell > made it into COS, myself. The first is that it could simply be a > Flint, many of the scenes in CoS were meant for HBP context which > could mean that perhaps JKR intended non verbal spells to be > introduced in CoS and wrote this scene before she took the HBP > stuff out again, missing this one in the process. This seems the > most likely thing to me. Sandy: I'm not as eloquent as so many of you are, so hopefully I can make this make sense. Actually, there is a precursor to non-verbal spells in book one. Book one, chapter 4, page 58, American version: "Hagrid", he said quietly, "I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a wizard". To his surprise,Hagrid chuckled. "Not a wizard, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared or angry?" Harry looked into the fire. Now he came to think about it.... every odd thing that had ever made his aunt and uncle furious with him had happened when he, Harry, had been upset or angry.... chased by Dudley's gang, he had somehow found himself out of their reach...... dreading going to school with that ridiculous haircut, he'd managed to make it grow back.... and the very last time Dudley had hit him, hadn't he got his revenge, without even realizing he was doing it? Hadn't he set a boa constrictor on him? All of those incidents were non-verbal magic performed at a time when Harry didn't even know he was a wizard. But more to the point, it would appear that non-verbal magic can be performed when a witch or wizard is angry or frightened, with no real thought attached to it. Therefore, I think your last theory would be pretty close. Ron was certainly very angry and intended to act upon it, but it turned into an anger generated non-verbal curse/hex/jinx that backfired on him through his broken wand before he had the chance to verbalize it. Sandy who never noticed it before now either. From puduhepa98 at aol.com Mon Apr 3 19:50:13 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 15:50:13 -0400 Subject: R.A.B In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8C8256EF50F64F1-1164-7AFB@mblk-d12.sysops.aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150465 >anamariafranco2003: >I think that maybe Regulus didn't like He Who Must Not Be Named's >horcrux idea so he switched the horcrux and destroyed the real one. >Then He Who Must Not Be Named found out and killed him. Nikkalmati: I know we have discussed RAB before and the idea that he/she was Sirius' brother is a popular idea, but how he could place the necklace, cross the lake, put in the potion (and why would he use a poison? Did he think LV would drink it?) This post gave me another idea. What if RAB switched the necklace before LV put it in the basin in the middle of the lake and hid the original necklace? LV killed him, or RAB was killed by the necklace, and LV never found out about the replacement or maybe just never found out where it was. Nikkalmati From alcuin74 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 20:01:54 2006 From: alcuin74 at yahoo.com (alcuin74) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 20:01:54 -0000 Subject: Harry is almost certainly a horcrux Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150466 Having just completed another re-reading of CoS, I'm convinced that Voldemort unwittingly made Harry a horcrux that fateful night in Godric's Hollow. The conversation between Harry and Dumbledore at the end includes this exchange: "You can speak Parseltongue, Harry," said Dumbledore calmly, "because Lord Voldemort - who is the last remaining ancestor of Salazar Slytherin - can speak Parseltongue. Unless I'm much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar. Not something he intended to do, I'm sure ..." "Voldemort put a bit of himself in *me*?" Harry said, thunderstruck. "It certainly seems so." Notice that Harry's response (which Dumbledore nevertheless affirms) goes beyond Dumbledore's original claim. Not only did Voldemort transfer some of his *powers* to Harry, he transferred some of *himself* (but not intentionally, as Dumbledore says). As we learned in HBP, this is exactly the function of a horcrux, to contain part of a person's soul or self. If this is correct, then I can only conclude that Harry will have to give up his life in order to finish off Voldemort. I believe book 7 will see the heroic death of Harry Potter. Alcuin From katbofaye at aol.com Mon Apr 3 20:31:21 2006 From: katbofaye at aol.com (katssirius) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 20:31:21 -0000 Subject: Draco victim in GOF/ Harry in HBP Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150467 All the arguments to justify attacking Draco at the end of GOF can be used to make it perfectly fine to attack Harry on the train ride to school in HBP. Harry goes in uninvited, spys on the Slytherins in order to tell on them, gets caught by a boy who is in terrific pain and stress because his father is in prison and his family is under a death threat from Voldemort. It is amazing to me that the same people who argue that the trio is allowed to deal out justice or retribution will now say but it isn't okay for Draco to do it. katssirius and wondering if JKR can possibly create a seventh book as a first time storyteller to meet our expectations From sherriola at earthlink.net Mon Apr 3 22:49:13 2006 From: sherriola at earthlink.net (Sherry Gomes) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 15:49:13 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Draco victim in GOF/ Harry in HBP In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150468 katssirius All the arguments to justify attacking Draco at the end of GOF can be used to make it perfectly fine to attack Harry on the train ride to school in HBP. Harry goes in uninvited, spys on the Slytherins in order to tell on them, gets caught by a boy who is in terrific pain and stress because his father is in prison and his family is under a death threat from Voldemort. It is amazing to me that the same people who argue that the trio is allowed to deal out justice or retribution will now say but it isn't okay for Draco to do it. Sherry now: I can't speak for anyone else, but I have never said Harry didn't deserve what he got in a way. As soon as he decided to go in there, I knew he was going to get caught and the consequences wouldn't be pretty. I love Harry and I defend him often, but that was one time I thought maybe he had to learn a lesson he wouldn't enjoy. Sherry From a_svirn at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 22:51:55 2006 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 22:51:55 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150469 Ceridwen: The statement that 'Dumbledore thinks you're reformed but I know better' shows us at least two things: one, Sirius, like the rest of the Order as far as we know, does not know why Dumbledore trusts Snape; second, that Sirius suspects Snape, rightly or wrongly. He obviously does believe what he says, things hurled in the heat of argument are often the truth as far as the person hurling it perceives. a_svirn: There is nothing *obvious* about it. Suppose he does know something against Snape. Why doesn't he accuse him openly rather than simply drop hints? It is his godson's life that might be at stake, after all. Ceridwen: I don't see any reason to think that James didn't hate the Dark Arts. a_svirn: I don't either. Ceridwen: It supplies part of the motivation for the rivalry between James and Snape. It also explains Sirius's involvement with James. a_svirn: By *rivalry* you mean what? What we see in the Pensieve is not *rivalry*, any more than Dudley's *involvement* with Mark Evance is. Ceridwen: Sirius has issues with the darker side of magic. a_svirn: If Sirius has *issues* it is his problem and should not be Snape's. Alla: And as far as I am concerned, it is ALREADY proven that Snape was guilty in practicing Dark arts in school - if by nothing else, then by the fact that he invented Sectusempra. a_svirn: Then you use the word "proven" very loosely. It is by no means "proven". It is one of the theories currently under discussion. Alla: So, yes, I can use some Sirius statements as factual and will continue to do so, till it will be proven in canon that Sirius is a liar and I don't think it is so far. a_svirn: *Some* of them? Aren't you being selective again? The very worst that Sirius could say about Snape he already had in GoF in the cave. He certainly did not lie then and I for one believe everything he said. It did not amount to much, though. Certainly to nothing "proven", only to suspicions, if justifiable ones. Alla: Snivellius is not a factual statement, IMO. a_svirn: And IMO. But "Lucius's lapdog" is the essentially the same thing as "Snivellus", that is to say, a rather juvenile insult. The most obvious way to insult a man is to cast a slur on his courage and/or manly powers, just as the most obvious way to insult a woman is to impugn her chastity and/or looks. This is what takes place at the Grimault Place ? Snape and Sirius are trading insults, immature to say the least. Sirius calls him a *lapdog* which has certain effeminate overtones; Snape retaliates with accusing him in cowardice. Would you take Snape's words as factual statement? From a_svirn at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 23:03:07 2006 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 23:03:07 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150470 > Valky: > It's true in the sense that it's true, plain and simple, they were a > couple of vigilante brute teenagers in the middle of a war who > believed they were taking on the enemy, The Dark Arts. a_svirn: This is your imagination, plain and simple. *Vigilant* teenagers in the *middle of war*?! What I see is a rather peaceful afternoon and a gang of bullies taking on a most likely victim for no better reason than that they are bored. And Sirius's excuse is not only lame; it is also hypocritical, because he tries to present their bullying as a sort of a holy crusade for the cause of the Good. Which is most certainly *not* true. From Aisbelmon at hotmail.com Mon Apr 3 23:16:52 2006 From: Aisbelmon at hotmail.com (M.Clifford) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 23:16:52 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150471 a_svirn: And IMO. But "Lucius's lapdog" is the essentially the same thing as "Snivellus", that is to say, a rather juvenile insult. The most obvious way to insult a man is to cast a slur on his courage and/or manly powers, just as the most obvious way to insult a woman is to impugn her chastity and/or looks. This is what takes place at the Grimault Place ? Snape and Sirius are trading insults, immature to say the least. Sirius calls him a *lapdog* which has certain effeminate overtones; Snape retaliates with accusing him in cowardice. Would you take Snape's words as factual statement? Valky: Actually, yes I would, and I do. I do think that Snape believes Sirius is a coward, and that Snape calling Sirius a coward represents something factual in the context of their history. We don't know what it is, really, but I speculate that it is probably how Snape feels about the pensieve scene. Snape can reasonably and factually call Sirius a coward for what happened in the schoolyard. We have the evidence of what he might be basing it on, and it stands up well. By the same token Sirius might surely be able to factually call Snape a lapdog and a sniveller and an evil git, we have got glimpses and hints of what this might be based on, such as Sirius contending that Snape connived to get the Marauders into trouble during school years (and apparently may have succeeded on more than one occasion per HBP), Snapes determination that he would have Sirius dementor kissed without any ado in POA, and of course the clear bias that he shows towards the Malfoy family in general despite their obvious leanings towards the side of dark, manipulation and evil doing. So all in all it is my estimation that these things do represent something factual tothe men as tey are saying them, and hence factual as far as canon goes in determining the backstory. > Valky: > It's true in the sense that it's true, plain and simple, they were a > couple of vigilante brute teenagers in the middle of a war who > believed they were taking on the enemy, The Dark Arts. a_svirn: This is your imagination, plain and simple. *Vigilant* teenagers in the *middle of war*?! What I see is a rather peaceful afternoon and a gang of bullies taking on a most likely victim for no better reason than that they are bored. And Sirius's excuse is not only lame; it is also hypocritical, because he tries to present their bullying as a sort of a holy crusade for the cause of the Good. Which is most certainly *not* true. Valky: I love my imagination ;) You're entitled to argue that all you want a_svirn, but it doesn't sway my conclusion one way or the other. :) By the way I said they were vigilante not vigilant, slight difference. You speak, I believe, here wih authority that you do not possess in regards to the backstory of the Marauders and Snape. It is not my imagination that they were living in the midst of a war, a_svirn. Is it in your imagination that they were not? Perhaps you will need to reread the GOF chapter entitled Padfoot Returns in which Sirius makes a conclusive statement that not only were they a. in the midst of a world war, but also b. shock, horror, gasp!! ;) they were profoundly affected by it. From katbofaye at aol.com Mon Apr 3 22:59:42 2006 From: katbofaye at aol.com (katssirius) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 22:59:42 -0000 Subject: Lily/Snape Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150472 JKR does not write main characters that are one-dimensional. Professor Snape is second only to the trio for appearances in the books and therefore must have the dimensions of an excellent main character including feelings that the reader understands. Severus Snape appears to be bad tempered and cruel without reason. This should alert us. We may be leaping to conclusions. JKR loves to trap her readers into judging a character's actions on too little information. She devotes an entire book (POA) to trapping her characters and her readers into judging Sirius Black. I believe Severus Snape switched sides. He made a choice and JKR's characters reap the costs and the rewards of their choices. Professor Snape must feel the guilt for his acts while he was a Death Eater and guilt as one of the few people who might have prevented Lily's death. His own prejudice against Sirius may have led him and led Dumbledore to believe Black was the traitor. An old grudge blinded him to Pettigrew. Consequently, Lily died. Severus turns his grief into rage and directs it at Harry. An infant who survives his birth while his mother does not may feel guilty for having "killed" his mother. Adults may also blame the child, especially in a dysfunctional family, and Severus Snape's memories give us every reason to assume he grew up in one. His rage is even greater because Lily exchanged her life for Harry's rather than as an accidental sacrifice. Severus Snape blames Harry for his mother's death and he blames Neville for not being the boy in the prophecy. In Snape's grief Neville could have prevented the death if he had been the one with the power the Dark Lord knows not and Harry could have prevented his mother's death by sacrificing himself. Lily's eyes look out at Severus reminding him of his loss every time he sees her son. Harry's risks and rule breaking must seem ungrateful to Snape just as it does to Professor Lupin in POA (pg 290 Am hardback). Severus Snape continues to honor Lily Potter by protecting Harry while at the same time he hates Harry for not being worthy of Lily's sacrifice. We leave HBP with Harry blaming Snape for Sirius' and Dumbledore's death. These two are moving towards a resolution that will bring redemption to Snape in Harry's eyes and forgiveness for Harry from Snape. "katssirius" From a_svirn at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 23:33:52 2006 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 23:33:52 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150473 > Valky: I do think that Snape believes Sirius > is a coward, and that Snape calling Sirius a coward represents > something factual in the context of their history. a_svirn: He must be daft to believe that. > Valky: > I love my imagination ;) You're entitled to argue that all you want > a_svirn, but it doesn't sway my conclusion one way or the other. :) > By the way I said they were vigilante not vigilant, slight difference. a_svirn: *Vigilante* is even more ironic. They were anything but. It is the Marauders who were law-breakers, not their victims. > Valky: > You speak, I believe, here wih authority that you do not possess in > regards to the backstory of the Marauders and Snape. It is not my > imagination that they were living in the midst of a war, a_svirn. Is > it in your imagination that they were not? Perhaps you will need to > reread the GOF chapter entitled Padfoot Returns in which Sirius makes > a conclusive statement that not only were they a. in the midst of a > world war, but also b. shock, horror, gasp!! ;) they were profoundly > affected by it. a_svirn: What do you mean by affected? That they were more inclined to violence than most, because of the war? I think you have no authority to make this statement either. There is nothing in canon to suggest that. And, you know, no one is more affected by the war than Harry, but we don't see him being *vigilante*, do we? From Aisbelmon at hotmail.com Mon Apr 3 23:54:54 2006 From: Aisbelmon at hotmail.com (M.Clifford) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 23:54:54 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150474 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "a_svirn" wrote: > > > Valky: > I do think that Snape believes Sirius > > is a coward, and that Snape calling Sirius a coward represents > > something factual in the context of their history. > > a_svirn: > He must be daft to believe that. Valky: No I don't think it's daft, its a bit narrow-minded, both Sirius and Snape have terrible tunnel-vision about each other, I think. There is plenty of proof for us all that Sirius is not a coward, thats true, but Snape chooses not to see it because it doesn't suit his vendetta for Sirius to be good in any way, and same goes vice versa. IMHO. > > > Valky: > > I love my imagination ;) You're entitled to argue that all you > > want a_svirn, but it doesn't sway my conclusion one way or the > > other. :) By the way I said they were vigilante not vigilant, > slight difference. > > a_svirn: > *Vigilante* is even more ironic. They were anything but. It is the > Marauders who were law-breakers, not their victims. Valky: In war people change the degrees of their moral compass, they act out their feelings of entrapment in chaos, striking out at the nearest symbols of the enemy. Children pick up lethal weapons, and others drop bombs on semi-related civilian settlements. The war doesn't make it less wrong, but that doesn't stop people getting caught up in themselves as heroes of a cause and going through with such awful deeds, despite that they are otherwise good and moral people. > > > Valky: > > You speak, I believe, here wih authority that you do not possess in > > regards to the backstory of the Marauders and Snape. It is not my > > imagination that they were living in the midst of a war, a_svirn. > Is > > it in your imagination that they were not? Perhaps you will need to > > reread the GOF chapter entitled Padfoot Returns in which Sirius > makes > > a conclusive statement that not only were they a. in the midst of a > > world war, but also b. shock, horror, gasp!! ;) they were > profoundly > > affected by it. > > a_svirn: > What do you mean by affected? That they were more inclined to > violence than most, because of the war? I think you have no > authority to make this statement either. There is nothing in canon > to suggest that. I don't know what authority I need to say that this quote was in Chapter 27 of Goblet of Fire, but thats all I said, effectively, AFAIK- "Imagine that Voldemort's powerful now. You don't know who his supporters are, you don't know who's working for him and who isn't; you know he can control people so that they do terrible things without being able stop themselves. You're scared for yourself, and your family, and your friends. Every week, news comes of more deaths, more disappearances, more torturing The Ministry of Magic's in disarray, they don't know what to do, they're trying to keep everything hidden from the Muggles, but meanwhile, Muggles are dying too. Terror everywhere panic confusion that's how it used to be." "Well, times like that bring out the best in some people and the worst in others." Chapter 27 GOF. But there you have it. > And, you know, no one is more affected by the war > than Harry, but we don't see him being *vigilante*, do we? > Valky: Yes we do, he's all over Malfoy like a pool of sick in HBP. ;) From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Mon Apr 3 23:59:09 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 23:59:09 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150475 Ceridwen: > *(snip)*He (Sirius) > obviously does believe what he says, things hurled in the heat of > argument are often the truth as far as the person hurling it > perceives. a_svirn: > There is nothing *obvious* about it. Suppose he does know something > against Snape. Why doesn't he accuse him openly rather than simply > drop hints? It is his godson's life that might be at stake, after > all, Ceridwen: In the post I'm responding to, you say further down: > The most obvious way to insult a man is to cast a slur on his > courage and/or manly powers... Or, I would suggest, to say he is untrustworthy. Especially in a situation where the person has a history of having once been with the enemy. Sirius can't forget that, and he isn't going to let Snape forget it, either. Sirius *apparently* believes that Snape is less than fortright with Dumbledore. But, as you say, he has no specifics, he has no proof, or he would certainly say something because it very well *could be* Harry's life. What Sirius knows and obviously, at least to me, believes, is that he does not trust Snape. And, *apparently*, for no other reason than Snape's history, and the shared history between Snape and Sirius. A similar statement would be: 'I know you're up to something. I don't know what it is, but I'm going to dog you until I find out'. Pun only intended after I noticed it. Ceridwen: > It supplies part of the motivation for the rivalry between > James and Snape. It also explains Sirius's involvement with James. a_svirn: > By *rivalry* you mean what? What we see in the Pensieve is not > *rivalry*, any more than Dudley's *involvement* with Mark Evance is. Ceridwen: Just to be sure we're on the same page, I looked up rivalry at dictionary.com. Sometimes, the *feel* of a word is different to different people, so I thought it would be a good precaution. Rivalry can be competing, emulating, or a competitive or antagonistic state (condensed from the various sources). There can be friendly rivalries, and deadly serious rivalries. Someone (Tonks?) mentioned that James doesn't want to fight someone weaker than himself - that would make him look bad. And I think it was the same post that suggested that James got carried away because Snape continued to get up, to come back for more. It appears to me that neither James nor Snape is going to let the other win if he can help it. That sounds like a rivalry to me. They certainly had an antagonistic state going. And, James's dislike for/hatred of/knee-jerk reaction to Snape's supposed expertise in the Dark Arts puts it at an idological level, at least on James's part. I do think the on-going clashes between James and Snape can be seen as a rivalry. An antagonistic rivalry, not a friendly rivalry. Sorry for not being more specific. Ceridwen: > > Sirius has issues with the darker side of magic. a_svirn: > If Sirius has *issues* it is his problem and should not be Snape's. Ceridwen: I agree. But for us to get someting from Sirius's point of view, we need to know his background and his feelings concerning the darker side of magic. This is a filter through which his statements are made. He distrusts Snape because Snape knew more curses... Snape was a Dark Arts oddball... James, his best friend, hated the Dark Arts... We all see through filters that have something to do with our pasts. So does Sirius. So, how true, how objective, are his statements? I have no doubt that he believes them. As I mentioned above, he probably does believe that Snape is 'up to something', though he has no proof, and no idea of what it is. I agree with you that, if he had something concrete, he wouldn't be shouting at Snape, he'd be telling Dumbledore. But a gut feeling, like the gut feelings Harry has had all through the series... I can see him having it, and shouting it in anger. And this distrust *probably*, in my opinion, stems at least in part from his ideological differences with Snape, and his issues about the Dark Arts with his family. Sure, it's Sirius's problem. But it's our problem, and Harry's problem, too, because Sirius is a primary witness to these events that we want to know about. We have to know how to negotiate what he says. Knowing that he has issues with the darker side of magic helps us to interpret his testimony. Ceridwen. From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 3 23:46:39 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 16:46:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Political positions of the characters In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060403234639.36477.qmail@web61319.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150476 a_svirn: What do you mean by affected? That they were more inclined to violence than most, because of the war? I think you have no authority to make this statement either. There is nothing in canon to suggest that. And, you know, no one is more affected by the war than Harry, but we don't see him being *vigilante*, do we? Joe: Yes we do, he goes to the Ministry instead of relying on Magical Law Enforcement to handle the situation. In fact the entire Order of the Phoenix are vigilantes. They are taking the law into their own hands. Which just goes to illustrate the truth, you can be the good guys AND be vigilantes. The truth is we no almost nothing about the Marauders/Snape feud so mostly what we believe is colored by our perceptions of their characters. Some people want Snape to be good and some people want Snape to bad. Joe From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 00:48:55 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 00:48:55 -0000 Subject: Lily/Snape In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150477 > >>katssirius: > > Severus Snape blames Harry for his mother's death and he blames > Neville for not being the boy in the prophecy. In Snape's grief > Neville could have prevented the death if he had been the one with > the power the Dark Lord knows not and Harry could have prevented > his mother's death by sacrificing himself. > Betsy Hp: Great post, and for the most part I agree with it. However, I've never gotten the impression Snape had any sort of personal issue with Neville. He gets frustrated with him, and he devotes a bit of personal attention when Neville goes through his third year crises. But it's nothing like the personal level things get to when Harry is involved. At least, IMO. Betsy Hp From belviso at attglobal.net Tue Apr 4 00:51:31 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 20:51:31 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. References: Message-ID: <007601c65781$eae17680$b298400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 150478 > > a_svirn: > *Vigilante* is even more ironic. They were anything but. It is the > Marauders who were law-breakers, not their victims. Valky: In war people change the degrees of their moral compass, they act out their feelings of entrapment in chaos, striking out at the nearest symbols of the enemy. Children pick up lethal weapons, and others drop bombs on semi-related civilian settlements. The war doesn't make it less wrong, but that doesn't stop people getting caught up in themselves as heroes of a cause and going through with such awful deeds, despite that they are otherwise good and moral people. Magpie: But are you honestly seeing any of this in this scene? As a_svirn said, it's a peaceful afternoon. They're in a good mood. They're on top of the world. Far from being affected by a war or feeling afraid, they seem like they think they're pretty much invincible. Snape isn't practicing any Dark Arts. He's just sitting there and they're bored and they start calling him names. They're not even standing up to him, they're taunting him, getting him to fight. I think a_svirn's point--and this is what I see in the scene as well--is that they're using the fact that Snape is these things to explain to Harry, who has correctly called them on just plain bullying for fun, why they did it. At the time the war doesn't seem to be on their minds at all. If it was supposed to be JKR would have written something to show that. But she goes out of her way to not do that. James just can't stand the kid. And that is a danger that's always there in the books, to use the fact that you're on the "right" side to justify little things that aren't right at all, or that have nothing to do with the good fight. When you start saying that just because they could find a good reason to dislike Snape means that picking on Snape is always connected to that reason, you start dividing the world into humans and people who are always okay to pick on. Who we are is shown by what we do, so there's only so many times you can say, "Well, I acted like a X here...but that doesn't define who I am, you should let that slide." Eventually it does define who you are, and in Snape's case it probably defined James. I'm sure if you told him James was picking on him that day because he was just so upset about the war and Voldemort he'd have rolled his eyes and laughed. And probably so would James. Even while all three of us agreed that Snape was, indeed, up to his eyeballs in the Dark Arts. It just seems like JKR intentionally gave us a scene where MWPP are in the wrong. She also gave us the backstory that James was a good guy and Snape wasn't. The scene seems, imo, to be about exactly this--are the "good guys" being good here just because some people can be treated badly without it counting? Even Harry is ambivalent about that. Seeing the scene he instinctively sees Snape as the victim--yet thinks if it were Malfoy (his own Dark Arts obnoxious kid) he'd deserve it. Harry himself starts the book wanting to fight. He picks a target whom he has great reasons to hate, but he's not fooling himself that he's fighting with him because of that at that moment. I think what we see in this scene is much what we see with characters in fandom--and people in life. We react to people personally sometimes far more passionately than we do for idealistic reasons. We may like to list the moral reasons for hating them after the fact and enjoy finding them out, but if we're really honest what we're doing is far more personal and far less noble. I have no problem believing that James hated the Dark Arts, that Snape practiced them even as a kid, that James wanted to fight Voldemort when he got out of school. I still think he's just picking on a convenient target in the scene, and perhaps in the long run making things worse for himself and his side in the war. -m From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 01:13:11 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 01:13:11 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/Draco in GoF and Harry in HBP In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150479 > a_svirn: > And IMO. But "Lucius's lapdog" is the essentially the same thing > as "Snivellus", that is to say, a rather juvenile insult. Alla: Yes, "Malfoy lapdog" IS an insult, but when you take an insulting part out of it, you WILL get some factual information from it. What information? That Snape is close with Malfoys for the reason unknown. You are free to disbelieve such information of course, I see no reason to not believe it. I will take emotions, insults out of Sirius statements toward Snape, of course, if there is a factual information left, I believe it. If it is not, well... then of course it is not a factual statement. > a_svirn: > This is your imagination, plain and simple. *Vigilant* teenagers in > the *middle of war*?! What I see is a rather peaceful afternoon and a > gang of bullies taking on a most likely victim for no better reason > than that they are bored. Alla: Okay, if you don't see how their mindsets could be affected by war, I really have nothing to say, but agree to disagree. Voldemort is on the rise, their families ARE affected, Hogwarts does not exist in the vacuum, IMO. a_svirn: And Sirius's excuse is not only lame; it is > also hypocritical, because he tries to present their bullying as a > sort of a holy crusade for the cause of the Good. Which is most > certainly *not* true. Alla: It is NOT an excuse for bullying, it is not, it is not, it is not. I really don't know how to make myself any clearer, sorry. :-) It IS a possible explanation of their mutual hatred though. Oh, and certainly I won't argue that Sirius acted hypocritically either. What I do disagree with you quite strongly is that hatred of Dark Arts played no part in their relationships. I think it did play a very big one. > Valky: SNIP Perhaps you will need to > reread the GOF chapter entitled Padfoot Returns in which Sirius makes > a conclusive statement that not only were they a. in the midst of a > world war, but also b. shock, horror, gasp!! ;) they were profoundly > affected by it. > > > Alla: Yes, Valky - me too. Magpie: I have no problem believing that James hated the Dark Arts, that > Snape practiced them even as a kid, that James wanted to fight Voldemort > when he got out of school. I still think he's just picking on a convenient > target in the scene, and perhaps in the long run making things worse for > himself and his side in the war. Alla: Honestly, this is ALL I am asking for. I may waver as to whether Snape in general was a convenient target or target for revenge or something, but your interpretation I have NO problems with, I see where you are coming from and sort of agree with you, but I am just very puzzled of the absolute confidence that James did not REALLY hated Dark Arts and that Sirius cooked it up. > katssirius > All the arguments to justify attacking Draco at the end of GOF can be used > to make it perfectly fine to attack Harry on the train ride to school in > HBP. Alla: Erm... Yes, absolutely. The situation in HBP is the mirror of what happened in GoF. Harry had no business in Draco's compartment, none. JMO, Alla From gelite67 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 01:51:28 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 01:51:28 -0000 Subject: LV's wand / Re: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150480 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "latha279" wrote: > > > > Angie again: > > > > Second, when the PI occured in GOF, neither Harry nor VM "appeared." > > So if what we saw in GOF (minus Bertha, FRank and Cedric, of course) > > is what DD would have seen had he done the PI, that wouldn't have > > told him about VM losing his powers or trying to kill Harry, would it? > > (How would DD have done it? Gotten the brother wand from Olivander?) > > > > Brady here: > > Exactly what has been bothering me for sometime now. Why is it that the > Priori Incantatem didn't show either HP or LV? It should have, because > it showed even the silver hand that LV conjured for PP. Does that mean > that whoever was present at GH that night with LV performed the AK > instead of LV himself? If so, why? HP was to be marked by "the Dark > Lord" himself as his equal. Does that mean that this third person > performed the AK on LV from behind and then performed a small spell to > tranfer some Slytherin powers into HP (this would still explain the > green light) and leave a scar behind to make both LV and HP believe in > the prophesy? Just to lead the whole wizarding world on a real wild- > goose chase? > > If this does lead to speculation, I put my bet on DD and / or Severus > Snape to have done this. And all this was done to mislead LV to hunt an > innocent boy while they can do the destroy-horcruxes operation in > relative peace. > > Angie again: Wow, the thought of doing that to mislead LV to hunt an innocent boy just blows my mind (and turns my stomach!)! My gut response is to say that neither DD nor Snape would put Harry at such risk. (Yes, not even Snape b/c if you read the books carefully, Snape consistently protects Harry). But if you're right, it kinda gives new meaning to DD's comment in SS that he wouldn't remove Harry's scar if he could and that scars come in handy, doesn't it? :) The very visible scar would would assure "The Chose One" no anonymity whatsoever in the WW and would keep him on everyone's minds. Without the scar, they could change Harry's name, make up a cover story, and he could be incognito. But this theory seems contradictory to DD's stated intention to tell Harry the truth about what happened. But then, again, as someone else pointed out in another post (sorry, don't know who), DD encouraged the rumors about the Shrieking Shack, so he's not above rumor-mongering when it suits his purpose -- how much more crucial would his purpose be in this case, if it bought them time to go Horcrux-Hunting? Hmmmm . . . Just curious, are you assuming that whoever might have AK'd LV from behind did not know about the Horcruxes? Because the way I read LV's speech to the DEs in the graveyard, they knew about the Horcruxes ("And then I asked myself, but how could they have believed I would not rise again? They, who knew the steps I took, long ago, to guard myself against mortal death?" GOF, U.S. softcover at 648.). Did that person believe that LV would, in fact, be killed? Man, that's one spell I wouldn't want to risk failing on me! From gelite67 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 02:16:37 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 02:16:37 -0000 Subject: R.A.B In-Reply-To: <8C8256EF50F64F1-1164-7AFB@mblk-d12.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150481 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, puduhepa98 at ... wrote: > > > > >anamariafranco2003: > >I think that maybe Regulus didn't like He Who Must Not Be Named's > >horcrux idea so he switched the horcrux and destroyed the real one. > >Then He Who Must Not Be Named found out and killed him. > > Angie here: As Geoff so dramatically pointed out :), this has been discussed before. I personally think RAB is alive, though -- they never found his body as I recall. Here's a wild RAB theory for you, partially intended to be tongue-in- cheek. One of the Horcruxes is locked up at Gringotts, where else? RAB discovered the location, attempted to break in and got sucked in the vault fewer than ten years ago, b/c they check the vaults every ten years. He's survived all this time b/c he had his wand and he managed to destroy the Horcrux. Wonder when the next vault check is due? :) From Aisbelmon at hotmail.com Tue Apr 4 02:35:05 2006 From: Aisbelmon at hotmail.com (M.Clifford) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 02:35:05 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: <007601c65781$eae17680$b298400c@Spot> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150482 > > a_svirn: > *Vigilante* is even more ironic. They were anything but. It is the > Marauders who were law-breakers, not their victims. Valky: In war people change the degrees of their moral compass, they act out their feelings of entrapment in chaos, striking out at the nearest symbols of the enemy. Children pick up lethal weapons, and others drop bombs on semi-related civilian settlements. The war doesn't make it less wrong, but that doesn't stop people getting caught up in themselves as heroes of a cause and going through with such awful deeds, despite that they are otherwise good and moral people. Magpie: But are you honestly seeing any of this in this scene? Valky: Hi m :) I read your whole discourse although I think from this point at the beginning there has been a misunderstanding. Well, actually, I have to take some of that blame for that because I haven't spelled out recently what I mean by bringing the 'being affected by war' canon into this discussion, so I am sorry for that. I see your point and I really do understand how you can say that the pensieve scene seems very far removed from a wartime scenario. So to explain, I am actually agreeing that the scene appears removed from the war issues, but it is not happening in a void, as Alla has very eloquently said on numerous occassions, there is a backdrop of context beyond the sunny sky and girls sitting by the lake and I think the number of degrees separating the schoolyard and the wizard world is much smaller than it seems. Now my postulation is that James and Sirius have gone beyond their original ideological standpoint by the time they are in fifth year, this is supported by the statement in OOtP (by Sirius? help me Loons) that they'd had gotten 'carried away' (I think it was Lupin. ) As I see it they have gotten to the point where they believe it understood by all that Snape is Hogwarts 'little DE' both dangerous and ideologically the enemy in the war. And so from this platform, and in the essence of their own 'risk makes it fun' personality they are choosing to engage Snape to kill their boredom, this is the height of cool to them and to many others who cheer them on, although later as adults they realise it was nowhere near what they imagined it in their minds to be and were not proud of it, in the schoolground they are objectifying the war issues in a scenario where they are the symbols and metaphorically the underdogs (light magic users), while Snape is the overlord (Dark magic User). Now the fact that the children of Hogwarts are affected by the war is only a few degrees from this scene in my theory. 1. Snape has friends, or has been known to be friends with people, who are all DE LV supporters, dangerous and Dark wizards with deadly powers. Thes people are Snape's Friends and they do LV'S kind of magic to hurt people. Snape has these big scary freinds, he does LV's kind of magic too, plus he's a skilled dueller and he's a brilliant wizard . It's not a leap to conclude that most kids at Hogwarts wouldn't engage Snape in a hysterical fit, its no leap to conclude that he scared the pants off everyone just by existing. Can anyone honestly object to that theory? 2. They are in the war at this time. It need only be a few days before this that news came in the Daily Prophet of some poor soul who lost their family and loved ones to Voldemorts supporters and there is the reality of their backdrop. Families are being torn apart, the world is in turmoil, and nothing seems to be getting done to stop it, moreover there's these kids at Hogwarts who are actually into that stuff, its on the doorstep and its in the dormitories of Hogwarts. 3. James and Sirius were both brilliant and gifted wizard kids. The best at everything they did, according to Lupin. The "best", never needing or wanting to study with two years of school to go. They were worse than bored, is my guess. They were superior class wizards in the art of Light magic, and as far as they were concerned couldn't wait to prove that that meant 'Superior to The Dark Arts'. And they didn't. So these few degrees from the Dark is at light with the war - to - pick on Snape because we are bored, is where I am coming from. These things are removed from each other, but they are not unrelated, that is the basis of my contention. James and Sirius think that taunting Snape will cure their boredom. Why? Because of point 1. He's scary, his friends are scary, its a flirt with danger. They accept admiration for this behaviour, why? Because of point 1. they are taking a risk and point 2. they are seen to be taking a stand against the bad ideaology that should have no place at Hogwarts as far as they are concerned - Now after several years of this feud going on between them is it really necessary for it to be front of their minds and of the circumstances in their fifth year, I think not. But that doesn't not mean its not part of what is happening. And Finally, they do this without reason other than they are bored, Why? because of point 3. They ARE bored, to such a degree that they shouldn't even be at Hogwarts, they should be in Auror training or something that would challenge their minds but apparently the 70's WW did not accelerate the gifted. So to round the thing off nicely with a RL scenario heres the analogy that I think fits the picture. You are a teenage boy in Germany 1940's some of your friends and loved ones are Jewish people and you know of their suffering, and you hate the ideaology of Genocide and propagandic brainwashing that is behind it. At your school you know a boy, who hates you and kicks you whenever he has the chance for whatever reason, and you know that he reads the Hitler youth propaganda and goes to SS training, and you know his friends are Browncoats who can and will shoot you on sight for being a sympathiser with the enemy. You know this kid hates you and you know he carries a weapon. But you are the best boxer in your boxing team and you think you can take him even with his weapons. Are you brave if you walk up and punch him? Do you at least think you are? Valky From belviso at attglobal.net Tue Apr 4 02:38:15 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 22:38:15 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Political positions of the characters/Draco in GoF and Harry in HBP References: Message-ID: <009901c65790$d4096350$b298400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 150483 > Magpie: > > I have no problem believing that James hated the Dark Arts, that >> Snape practiced them even as a kid, that James wanted to fight > Voldemort >> when he got out of school. I still think he's just picking on a > convenient >> target in the scene, and perhaps in the long run making things > worse for >> himself and his side in the war. > > > Alla: > > Honestly, this is ALL I am asking for. I may waver as to whether > Snape in general was a convenient target or target for revenge or > something, but your interpretation I have NO problems with, I see > where you are coming from and sort of agree with you, but I am just > very puzzled of the absolute confidence that James did not REALLY > hated Dark Arts and that Sirius cooked it up. Magpie: Oh, I don't think Sirius cooked it up whole cloth. I think it was absolutely true that James hated the Dark Arts, it's just not the reason he picked on Snape that day in that moment. (I think I take a lot of Sirius' information the way you do, knowing that he's biased but also knowing there's factual information buried in all of that--Snape had something to do with Lucius Malfoy, for instance. It's what makes the Sirius chapters in OotP so intriguing for me--I'm so psyched the Regulus story seems like it's going to come to something!) Even Sirius, iirc, doesn't even really say in the scene that James was attacking Snape out of his Dark Arts hatred by the lake that day. The Dark Arts is something he arrives at and it's true, but it's not like when Harry asks about their relationship Sirius immediately replies that Snape was evil and did horrible things and James was offended. He starts out trying to explain the personal friction between them iirc. Actually, now I think about it doesn't he conclude by saying that James, "however it may have appeared" to Harry in that scene, hated the Dark Arts? That line could have two meanings. One that Sirius is saying that maybe it *looked* like James had no good reasons to hate Snape but there were things about him that were really bad. But the line could also be taken to be Sirius saying, "however it may have looked" James hated the Dark Arts because it may have looked as if James was a Dark Arts fan given his behavior.;-) I took it as Sirius admitting that James was sometimes just being an arrogant berk, but that he always had strong feelings against the Dark Arts. I hope I didn't just totally screw up the quotes because I don't have my book handy. -m From jazmyn at pacificpuma.com Tue Apr 4 02:53:45 2006 From: jazmyn at pacificpuma.com (Jazmyn Concolor) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 19:53:45 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: R.A.B In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4431DFB9.40605@pacificpuma.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150484 gelite67 wrote: >As Geoff so dramatically pointed out :), this has been discussed >before. I personally think RAB is alive, though -- they never found >his body as I recall. > >Here's a wild RAB theory for you, partially intended to be tongue-in- >cheek. One of the Horcruxes is locked up at Gringotts, where else? >RAB discovered the location, attempted to break in and got sucked in >the vault fewer than ten years ago, b/c they check the vaults every ten >years. He's survived all this time b/c he had his wand and he managed >to destroy the Horcrux. Wonder when the next vault check is due? :) > > > I have a different theory. Regalus drank the same potion that Dumbledore later drank to get to the real horcrux and died from it and people simply assumed that Voldemort killed him. Its not like anyone would dare ASK Voldemort 'did you kill Regalus Black?'.... I don't think even Snape would dare ask such questions directly... This is why I feel that Dumbledore was going to die from the poison/potion he drank in the cave, he knew he would die from it after seeing the note left behind by RAB and all Snape did later was put him out of his misery at his request. He likely even suspected that Voldemort would make acquiring the Horcrux deadly to anyone who went after. Unlikely that Volde would ever have to go get it himself, being as there was no need once it was hidden. It was mentioned before that there ARE poisons that there are no antidotes for. Jazmyn From willsonkmom at msn.com Tue Apr 4 03:05:10 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 03:05:10 -0000 Subject: Where did he learn it all? (was Re: Severus's memories and schoolyard curses) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150485 zgirnius: > The Muggle neighborhood is certainly no problem-magic would go on > indoors when no Muggles were present. (Don't other witches and > wizards live in Muggle neighborhoods?) Tobias would be more of a > problem, but there are ways around that (he works a late shift, he > likes to go our for some beer after work, etc...) Potioncat: I'm sure whatever the real story is, we won't have thought of it. But, I would think if Tobias was shady to begin with, he might not mind a bit of Dark Magic. As far as I can tell 12 Grimmauld Place is in the middle of a Muggle neighborhood. It must be something all the wizarding families have to deal with. Although it doesn't make too much sense that they know so little about Muggles, if they are scattered about in Muggle locations. But either Eileen was a Dark Witch, or someone Severus came in contact with was... it must have been someone from the Prince family. Here's another essay about Spinner's End and what it may mean for Snape. This one is in the Lexicon, and disagrees with one I found earlier, but does mention the other one. http://www.hp-lexicon.org/essays/essay-spinners-end.html Potioncat, who was actually looking for a non-Snape topic...oh well. By the way, I'm in SC (USA) and just passed by the site of a former textile mill, the only thing that's left is the tall finger of a tower...and of course, the old mill houses that make up that section of town. No cobblestones or terraced houses in this neck of the world, but you get the same feeling. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 03:06:48 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 03:06:48 -0000 Subject: Lily/Snape In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150486 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "katssirius" wrote: >These two are moving towards a resolution that > will bring redemption to Snape in Harry's eyes and forgiveness for > Harry from Snape. Alla: Maybe one day I will figure out why the fact that Harry's mum loved him enough to die for him means that Snape has to forgive Harry for that, however tender feelings Snape may have felt towards Lily. Maybe final resolution will make Snape realize that he was wrong and should not have blamed a child who was left to suffer without his parents? I don't know. Somehow I think that Snape will not be forgiving Harry in the final confrontation. It seems more likely to me that Harry will be the one granting mercy, that is if Snape will not turn out to be, not on the good side. JMO, Alla, who thought that she hypnotized herself enough into accepting that Snape/Lily is coming at the end in one way or another, but who realised again just how grossed she is with this ship. Maybe I am lucky enough and JKR will not go beyond Snape/Lily being friends. Sigh. From coriolan at worldnet.att.net Tue Apr 4 03:08:32 2006 From: coriolan at worldnet.att.net (Caius Marcius) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 03:08:32 -0000 Subject: FILK: A Snake Got Art Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150487 A Snake Got Art (OOP, Chap. 21-22) To the tune of How Great Thou Art by Carl G. Boberg and RJ Hughes http://johntroutman.com/lyrics/howgreatthouart.html HARRY: `Twas late at night, as I fell into slumber To dream of Cho, demanding my broomstick Then all at once, I was no more encumbered By arms or legs, as my forked tongue did flick. Some Inner Eye this vision gave to me A snake got Art, a snake got Art I saw it all from serpent POV A snake got Art, a snake got Art Across the floor, I did as serpent slither And found a man, a-snoring in the door So I then struck, I know not how or whither And left that man, all drenched in blood and gore Some Inner Eye this vision gave to me A snake got Art, a snake got Art I saw it all from serpent POV A snake got Art, a snake got Art And then I woke, in pain so loudly screaming McGonagall inquired of my state And so she said, "We must report this dreaming To Dumbledore, who likes to stay up late." Some Inner Eye this vision gave to me A snake got Art, a snake got Art I saw it all from serpent POV A snake got Art, a snake got Art So Dumbledore came out with some contraption That issued smoke, which serpent form assumed. "In essence, thus, divided," was his caption, And then I saw, through me was Arthur doomed. Some Inner Eye this vision gave to me A snake got Art, a snake got Art And so I must now learn Occlumency A snake got Art, a snake got Art - CMC HARRY POTTER FILKS http://home.att.net/~coriolan/hpfilks.htm From kchuplis at alltel.net Tue Apr 4 03:17:37 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 22:17:37 -0500 Subject: Martin Miggs The Mad Muggle and other burning questions Message-ID: <2C19F7CD-EFB1-46D9-8E64-AF9A655C6F67@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150488 Does anyone else want to know what the Adventures of Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle are about? I know JKR probably wants to get away from Potterverse, but wouldn't it be a fun subset. Does Martin know any witches? What kinds of adventures would the WW find entertaining? Are the adventures of a fantastical nature where Martin is drawn into perplexing situations where magic is working but he, being unaware, must find other means of explaining them? Is he really a muggle? I don't know, it just intrigues me everytime I see it in CoS. There are so many "untold stories" I'd love to be told. Dean Thomas' background seems like it would be a fascinating story. His dad probably died heroically and here his wife thinks he deserted them. Did she know he was a wizard? Well, because of Dean, eventually, I suppose, but when they got married? How and when does one reveal that to a muggle they are involved with? Do you have to obliviate memories (shades of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) if you break up? How hard is it to get a license? Where do wizards and witches meet muggles (considering how little folks like Arthur Weasley seem to know about them)? So much of Potterverse and we only get this little corner. *sigh* From gelite67 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 03:27:27 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 03:27:27 -0000 Subject: LV's wand / Re: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150489 --- > > ET wrote: > > > If it [Edit: Voldemort's wand]was left behind, we know that > > > a "Prior Incantato" spell could have revealed some of the > > > events of that night. > > > Angie again: > > I like the theory, but I have a couple of problems. First, I find > > it hard to believe that DD would get VM's wand and then relinquish > > it -- surely he'd either destroy it or turn it over to the MOM???? > > > > Second, when the PI occured in GOF, neither Harry nor VM > > "appeared." So if what we saw in GOF (minus Bertha, Frank and > > Cedric, of course) is what DD would have seen had he done the PI, > > that wouldn't have told him about VM losing his powers or trying > > to kill Harry, would it? (How would DD have done it? Gotten the > > brother wand from Olivander?) > > > E.T. > All valid points...I'm just sort of playing around with the > possibility. > > Even if Harry and Voldemort didn't appear during a PI, it > doesn't seem like it would be difficult to deduce parts of the story > from what did appear. Harry was still alive & his parents were > dead. The PI would just give positive evidence that it was > Voldemort's wand that had killed them. DD wouldn't need the brother > wand because you don't need it to perform a PI...Amos Diggory > performed one on Harry's wand at the World Cup. Also, & most > importantly, DD already knew the prophecy & how it said that LV > would "mark" the child involved. Assuming Lily was left where she > fell, it would have been obvious she died while trying to protect > Harry. DD would have asked himself what could have saved Harry. I > think it could have been put together easily enough even without a > PI. > > But I do think you're absolutely right that if DD had ever come into > possession of LV's wand, he certainly wouldn't have allowed it to > fall back into evil hands.....so he most likely never had it. > > E.T. > Angie again: Oh, yeah, I forgot about the PI re the Dark Mark. But that just goes to show that LV's wand would only tell DD or whomever that LV's wand was the offending wand, but not necessarily who did the deed. But I guess this is a moot point, anyway, since LV fessed up. From donnawonna at worldnet.att.net Tue Apr 4 04:05:55 2006 From: donnawonna at worldnet.att.net (Donna) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 00:05:55 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Hermione References: Message-ID: <4431F0A3.000009.03556@D33LDD51> No: HPFGUIDX 150490 " wrote: > > Yeah, this is a little late, but why doesn't Hermione get in trouble > for using magic on the train or in Diagon Alley? Just a thought, > fixing Harry's glasses isn't a big deal but it's still underaged > using magic... > > "walter_link2000" > Jen D. here, My thought on this is that as Dumbledore explained to Harry, the MOM can detect when magic is happening but can not tell who is doing it. When Harry was at Privet Dr., they knew he was the only wizard on the premises so when the Violet Pudding went flying, they made the obvious assumption (wrongly, of course) that Harry had done the deed. In Diagon Alley, there are so many wizards and witches, the MOM most probably relies on parents (as DD said they do in private homes) to police their children. So the MOM would know someone was doing magic but not specifically who. Now as for the train, I don't have such a tidy theory. Perhaps it's a small no-man's-land where prefects are supposed to police against the worst offenses but still, things get through, like the hexing of Draco and pals. That I don't understand. Does anyone else have an idea? Jen D. Donna asks: In Chamber of Secrets, US edition, Chap. 6 (The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters), pg 105. Ron is trying to turn Scabbers yellow and Hermione says, "I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all." In Chap 7 (The Sorting Hat), pg 115, Ron has just told Harry that he heard the sorting involved a test. The text reads, "No one was talking much except Hermione Granger, who was whispering very fast about all the spells she'd learned and wondering which one she'd need.". Did she learn all these spells on the train to Hogwarts? If not, at home? If so, why didn't she get into trouble with the MOM? On the side, maybe Ron's spell didn't turn Scabbers yellow because he's already "yellow", as in coward. Before posting to any list, you MUST read the group's Admin File! http://groups.yahoo com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin_Files/HBF_Text__MUST_READ Please use accurate subject headings and snip unnecessary material from posts to which you're replying! YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "HPforGrownups" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: HPforGrownups-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From donnawonna at worldnet.att.net Tue Apr 4 04:52:38 2006 From: donnawonna at worldnet.att.net (Donna) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 00:52:38 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) Subject: Wormtail Message-ID: <4431FB96.00000E.03556@D33LDD51> No: HPFGUIDX 150491 I've been under the impression that the Marauders chose their nicknames (Moony, Padfoot, Prongs, Wormtail) because of their personal attributes, for use among themselves, and to maintain anonymity. Yet, Voldemort calls Peter "Wormtail" (Goblet of Fire, Chap. 1, pg 15, and Chap. 33, pg 645, US edition) as does Snape in HBP, Spinners End (Chap. 2). Does anyone have any idea how "Wormtail" for PP came into common use? Other than PP himself, who would have revealed his nickname? When did it become common knowledge? Does this mean that the other Marauder's private nicknames are now common knowledge? In "Prisoner of Azkaban" , Chap 14, Snape's Grudge, Snape doesn't seem to recognize the name "Mr. Wormtail" when the Marauder's Map insults him. Comments? Corrections? Thoughts? Donna [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From Schlobin at aol.com Tue Apr 4 06:00:30 2006 From: Schlobin at aol.com (susanmcgee48176) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 06:00:30 -0000 Subject: Draco victim in GOF/ Harry in HBP In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150492 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "katssirius" wrote: > > All the arguments to justify attacking Draco at the end of GOF can be > used to make it perfectly fine to attack Harry on the train ride to > school in HBP. Harry goes in uninvited, spys on the Slytherins in > order to tell on them, gets caught by a boy who is in terrific pain and > stress because his father is in prison and his family is under a death > threat from Voldemort. It is amazing to me that the same people who > argue that the trio is allowed to deal out justice or retribution will > now say but it isn't okay for Draco to do it. > > katssirius and wondering if JKR can possibly create a seventh book as a > first time storyteller to meet our expectations > Uh, a boy who is in terrific pain and stress because his father is in prison, etc....so he stamps on someone and breaks their nose? Lots of people are under terrible stress, but few break others' noses. Susan From Ajohnson5 at comcast.net Tue Apr 4 06:17:12 2006 From: Ajohnson5 at comcast.net (April Johnson) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 02:17:12 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Wormtail References: <4431FB96.00000E.03556@D33LDD51> Message-ID: <005d01c657af$6994f1a0$6601a8c0@april> No: HPFGUIDX 150493 Donna writes: > In "Prisoner of Azkaban" , Chap 14, Snape's Grudge, Snape doesn't seem to > recognize the name "Mr. Wormtail" when the Marauder's Map insults him. April writes: Snape also doesn't recognize any of the names when the map says Masters, Mooney Padfoot, Wormtail and Prongs present the Marauders Map. *Is hoping this isn't movie contamination and I'm doing this from memory* You would have thought if the names were commonly known even if it was only after they left school, or after their death, that Snape would have recognized it. April From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Tue Apr 4 06:40:19 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 06:40:19 -0000 Subject: Harry is almost certainly a horcrux - repost of ideas against In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150494 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "alcuin74" wrote: Alcuin: > Having just completed another re-reading of CoS, I'm convinced that > Voldemort unwittingly made Harry a horcrux that fateful night in > Godric's Hollow. The conversation between Harry and Dumbledore at > the end includes this exchange: > > "You can speak Parseltongue, Harry," said Dumbledore calmly, "because > Lord Voldemort - who is the last remaining ancestor of Salazar > Slytherin - can speak Parseltongue. Unless I'm much mistaken, he > transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that > scar. Not something he intended to do, I'm sure ..." > "Voldemort put a bit of himself in *me*?" Harry said, > thunderstruck. > "It certainly seems so." > > Notice that Harry's response (which Dumbledore nevertheless affirms) > goes beyond Dumbledore's original claim. Not only did Voldemort > transfer some of his *powers* to Harry, he transferred some of > *himself* (but not intentionally, as Dumbledore says). As we learned > in HBP, this is exactly the function of a horcrux, to contain part of > a person's soul or self. > > If this is correct, then I can only conclude that Harry will have to > give up his life in order to finish off Voldemort. I believe book 7 > will see the heroic death of Harry Potter. Geoff: I feel I must take up an opposite stance to you on this. In the past, I have already posted that i do not believe the "Harry-is-a-Horcrux" and am going to re-post some of my comments to suport my view Back in message 139859, I wrote: We are told that a Horcrux is created, "by an act of evil ? the supreme act of evil. By committing murder. Killing rips the soul apart. The wizard intent upon creating a Horcrux would use the damage to his advantage: he would encase the torn portion-" (HBP "Horcruxes" p.465 UK edition) Adding to that, canon goes on: '"Encase? But how -?" "There is a spell, do not ask me, I don't know!" siad Slughorn, sheking his head like an old elephant bothered by mosquitoes..."' (ibid. p.465) Returning to post 139859: Now, considering Harry as a possible Horcrux, it has been suggested that it could have happened at Godric's Hollow. Passing beyond this for a moment. I think on the other occasions when Voldemort and Harry were close together, the conditions for creating a Horcrux did not obtain. At the end of Philosopher's Stone, the question has been raised as to whether Quirrell died because of Harry's attack or Voldemort's withdrawal from his possession. Whatever the cause, Voldemort was in disembodied form and was not able to wield a wand. One the next occasion when they met directly at the end of Goblet of Fire, it was Peter Pettigrew who actually murdered Cedric; at that point in time, Voldemort was again in no state to use a wand. Later in the face off, he was more intent on killing Harry than doing anything else to him. And in the last encounter at the Ministry of Magic, Voldemort did not murder anyone, although he tried to hit Harry with an Avada Kedavra. Dumbledore comments on Voldemort's progress in HBP: "However, if my calculations are correct, Voldemort was still at least one Horcrux short of his goal of six when he entered your parents' house with the intention of killing you. He seems to have reserved the process of making Horcruxes for particularly significant deaths. You would certainly have been that. He believed that in killing you, he was destroying the danger the prophecy had outlined. He believed he was making himself invincible. I am sure he was intending to make his final Horcrux with your death." [2] So, if there had been a chance to make Harry into a Horcrux, it would have had to be at Godric's Hollow. But it would seem that Voldemort was obsessed in destroying the person he saw as his most dangerous opponent. I agree that on this occasion he did commit murder twice but I believe that his intentions were then directed to killing Harry and that he did not give any thought to making him a Horcux. As this point, those he had created were all encased in "objects" and the thought that he could create a living fragment case may not have occurred to him. I cannot subscribe to the idea that a Horcrux could be created accidentally. This is not mixing the wrong ingredients for a potion and creating something new and unexpected. The spells for a Horcrux must be very specific and powerful. I do not think that in the sudden turmoil of the backfire and personal disembodiment which would have been disorientating, to say the least, that Voldemort would have been able to do anything further in the way of casting spells and I see Lily's protection ? whatever form it did take ? saving his life and nothing else. And then in post 140343, I elaborated further on my feelings about the theory: I believe that if Harry is a Horcrux with a soul fragment inside him, this would be a plot device which would create problems and possible paradoxes within the Potterverse which Jo Rowling has crafted. One of the points which has often been made about the Harry Potter world is that choice is paramount to the action. The pivotal statement is probably the oft-quoted one made by Dumbledore in Book 2: "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." (COS "Dobby's Reward" p.245 UK edition) Harry has made choices ? sometimes consciously, sometimes not ? which have guided him towards the side of light, of compassion and acceptance of the need to be prepared to tackle Voldemort. Tom Riddle, on the other hand, has set his mind to becoming powerful and has chosen evil and selfish ways of doing it. Others, such as Snape and more recently Draco, are making choices which are rather ambivalent leaving us still uncertain about where their final loyalties will lie. I feel that this possibly reflects Jo Rowling's views on Christianity. The Christian faith is a faith of choices. No one is a Christian by birth or privilege but by choice. But, if Harry is a Horcrux, this ability to choose is being seriously eroded and there then seems to be an argument for those who take the Calvinistic view of predestination. Let us therefore consider the various scenarios which might emerge if Harry is indeed "encasing" a piece of You-Know-Who's soul. If he is, then it would seem that, in order to kill Voldemort, he will have to sacrifice himself to do it. If he chooses to walk away from the situation and decides to ignore the prophecy, then he is condemning the Wizarding World to a likely takeover by the Death Eaters. Even then, his security would not be guaranteed because Voldemort would still feel unsafe as long as Harry was around so our hero would spend his time in hiding, looking over his shoulder all the time and knowing that he had left his friends to the tender mercy of the Dark side. But we do know from Book 6 that he is deciding to face up to Voldemort. Ginny says "I knew this would happen in the end. I knew you wouldn't be happy unless you were hunting Voldemort." And for Harry himself, `Moving felt much more bearable than sitting still: just as setting out as soon as possible to track down the Horcruxes and kill Voldemort would feel better than waiting to do it.' (HBP "The White Tomb" p.603 UK edition) However, this is where our paradoxes begin to raise their heads. Harry arrives for a stand- off with the Dark Lord having dealt with all the other Horcruxes. I can see three scenarios here, all of which present problems if Harry is a Horcrux. Number one. Harry apparently kills Voldemort. The last remnant of soul in him is destroyed but ? there is still a piece of soul in Harry. What happens? Does Voldemort become disembodied again? What happens if you have a piece of soul but it is not within you? Does he become an empty shell like a soul-sucked Dementor victim? Or would he be able in some disembodied way to seize on the piece in Harry? I am reminded of the Lord of the Rings here when Gandalf says that, if the Ring is thrown into Mount Doom, Sauron would not die but fall so far that the possibility of him arising again could not even be imagined. Would that happen here and Voldemort become almost a ghost figure? Presumably, as per the words of the prophecy, Harry would have vanquished him, but what of the future? Number two. Voldemort kills Harry. this is the worst case scenario because it would leave Voldemort as the victor in possession of the tattered remnants of his soul and with no viable opposition to him. A new Dark age would descend upon the Wizarding world. Number three. This I consider to have a low probability. They fire spells at each other and kill other simultaneously and both soul fragments are destroyed. The last time they did something like this, we saw the Priori Incantatem effect. If, as I imagine, they are still using the "brother wands", Dumbledore says that "they will not work properly against each other.." (GOF "The Parting of the Ways" p.605 UK edition). So, unless the spells do not "collide" there is a very low likelihood of them killing each other. My feeling is, that for the purposes of the plot, scenario two seems to be unlikely. I cannot see Jo Rowling, having brought us so far along the way, allowing Voldemort to win by a flick of the wand. Scenario one provides an unsatisfying resolution to the problem of really vanquishing him and scenario three hints at a rerun of the GOF event which would leave the fulfilment of the prophecy unresolved. So, for better or for worse, I'm sticking with the Harry-is-not-a-Horcrux camp as I feel that, within our fictional universe, JKR needs to show that the choices, the efforts, the sacrifices of those whose have stood alongside Harry, and those who have taught him to use his gifts have not worked in vain. This is not the real world, it is fantasy and we need a satisfying closure. My apologies for re-posting large chunks but it might be easier than leaving folk to trawl in the depths of the archives. From zgirnius at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 06:51:33 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 06:51:33 -0000 Subject: Wormtail In-Reply-To: <4431FB96.00000E.03556@D33LDD51> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150495 Donna: > Does anyone have any idea how "Wormtail" for PP came into common use? Other > than PP himself, who would have revealed his nickname? When did it become > common knowledge? Does this mean that the other Marauder's private > nicknames are now common knowledge? zgirnius: Voldemort addressed Pettigrew as Wormtail in the "Death Eaters" chapter of GoF. I think this is when the nickname became general knowledge among all of the Death Eaters. Donna: > In "Prisoner of Azkaban" , Chap 14, Snape's Grudge, Snape doesn't seem to > recognize the name "Mr. Wormtail" when the Marauder's Map insults him. zgirnius: I believe Snape recognizes the names in that scene (though he may not be sure which nickname applies to which Marauder, other than the rather obvious Moony.) When he calls Lupin to his office and they discuss the Map, Snape says, "You think a joke shop could supply him with such a thing? You don't think it more likely he got it *directly from the manufacturers*?" (Emphasis in original). I believe the italicized phrase was a reference to the Marauders. From MadameSSnape at aol.com Tue Apr 4 08:35:16 2006 From: MadameSSnape at aol.com (MadameSSnape at aol.com) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 04:35:16 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Wormtail Message-ID: <140.576b2943.316389c4@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150496 In a message dated 4/4/2006 2:21:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Ajohnson5 at comcast.net writes: Snape also doesn't recognize any of the names when the map says Masters, Mooney Padfoot, Wormtail and Prongs present the Marauders Map. *Is hoping this isn't movie contamination and I'm doing this from memory* You would have thought if the names were commonly known even if it was only after they left school, or after their death, that Snape would have recognized it. ----------------- Sherrie here: I always had the feeling that he DID recognize at least one of the names - that was why he summoned Lupin, and made those pointed remarks about "directly from the manufacturers": he knew that "Moony" referred to Lupin, & could therefore infer, if he didn't already know, that the other names referred to Lupin's friends. My take - YMMV. Sherrie "Accept no one's definition of your life. Define yourself." - Harvey Fierstein [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Tue Apr 4 10:09:59 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 10:09:59 -0000 Subject: LV's wand / Re: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150497 E.T.: > > I don't think you have to die for a PI to evoke the spell that killed > you...it just displays prior spells of all sorts. Ceridwen: LOL! But there was no PI'o performed on LV's wand. The PI'm that took place in the graveyard, due to the brother wand thing, only pulled the dead out of LV's wand, and then only the most recent killings. It didn't, for instance, show LV or PP using it to button LV's shirt or anything that mundane. It didn't show any other killings before James and Lily, either. E.T. > Perhaps it only > will display spells that are totally completed or that worked as > intended. I do believe it was Voldemort that performed the AK's on > James and Lily using his own (LV's) wand. Ceridwen: Yes, LV did do the AK that killed James and Lily. Even if he parcels out his killings based on importance, killing the Prophecy Kid and his parents would be important enough for him to do the deed personally. E.T. > Then he tried to kill Harry. My impression is that he interprets the > prophecy as meaning that he must be the one to kill Harry himself. I > think he has continued to feel that way & although he wants to kill > Harry himself to show the other DEs that he is the more powerful of > the two, I also thinks he believes it must be him & no one else. Ceridwen: It's too early in the morning, I honestly don't recall just now if the first part of the prophecy contains that information. I don't *think* it does, but please don't quote me! My brain will return sometime this afternoon. I do think he sees this killing as too important to leave to anyone else. Maybe the DEs don't know the prophecy, either - it could make LV sound vulnerable, he might not have let them know. Ceridwen. From amiabledorsai at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 11:57:15 2006 From: amiabledorsai at yahoo.com (amiabledorsai) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 11:57:15 -0000 Subject: Words have consequences In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150498 Amiable Dorsai: > Once in a great while, though, you have to fire a > whiff of grape across the bad guy's bow. Pippin (neatly hoisting me with my own petard ;-): > We agree. The proper next move would have been a warning shot, > not a broadside amidships. Amiable Dorsai: OK, I'm going to try to explain myself with a minimum of wisecracks, then I'll shut up for a while on the issue (unless I think of something really funny to post). Pippin, Betsy, anyone else, here's your chance to get in the last word. Pippin, the thing that makes this so difficult is that, in a larger sense, we do agree: Most of the time, the vast majority of times, it is wrong to respond to mere words with violence--even violence as mild as the Gryffindor's, even words as vicious as Draco's. This time, I believe, was the rare exception. To understand why I think so, we need to look well beyond that rail car; with apologies to Steve, we need to look at the whole elephant. There's a war on--a trite observation, but a necessary one--and the Dark's greatest weapon is fear. I mean real fear, the kind of fear that stampeded hundreds or thousands of witches and wizards, *each armed with a deadly weapon*, away from a few dozen people in silly masks at the Quidditch World Cup; the unreasoning, hollow-belly terror that panicked Fudge into denial so total that he tried to railroad a teenage hero rather than admit to himself that Voldemort was back. It's a fantastic weapon, it will paralyze the Ministry for a year, it will force the Order underground, and it will hobble their every step. If Peter's excuse is to be believed, it put Harry in a cupboard for much of his life. And Draco is using it. Whether he's thought his actions through, or just absorbed the technique from Lucius, Draco has picked that weapon up and fired it straight at the Trio. That's why I object to calling Draco a victim--it trivializes his actions, it diminishes him. Now the way to fight fear is to oppose it, forcefully. The Gryffs did just that, and in my opinion, they got it just about right. Jelly-legs, Furnunculus--small-time stuff by wizarding standards, enough to dissuade Draco from using that particular weapon again, not enough to cause permanent damage, as, say, a Reducto to the head would have done. The cumulative effect was large, yes, but no one of the Gryffs used excessive force--the Slytherins got off lightly. Betsy suggested that Harry, Ron, and Hermione could simply have forced Draco and his enforcers out of the car. Perhaps, though in my opinion that would have been inadequate--Draco needed to be burned a little, to warn him from that stove. There's nothing in Draco's history to suggest otherwise. Draco was not a victim here, save of his own miscalculation. Nor was Harry a victim, a year and a summer later, when he invaded Draco's compartment, and Draco broke his nose--he was a warrior who took a calculated risk and lost--a casualty, certainly, but again, calling Harry a victim here misses the mark, I think. Are the two cases morally equivalent? Me, I prefer folks with a "people saving thing" to wannabe murderers--but that's a call you have to make for yourself. This isn't to say that Harry's entitled to beat on Draco whenever he feels the need--he and Fred were clearly in the wrong when they attacked Draco on the Quidditch pitch during Harry's fifth year. Draco was merely being insulting, not trying to wield Voldemort's best weapon. But Draco's incursion into that compartment was naked aggression; any less forthright response would have invited more of the same, and much worse besides. Amiable Dorsai From foxmoth at qnet.com Tue Apr 4 12:35:38 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 12:35:38 -0000 Subject: Harry is almost certainly a horcrux - repost of ideas against In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150499 Geoff: > Number one. Harry apparently kills Voldemort. The last remnant of soul in him is destroyed but ? there is still a piece of soul in Harry. What happens? Does Voldemort become disembodied again? Would that happen here and Voldemort become almost a ghost figure? > Presumably, as per the words of the prophecy, Harry would have vanquished him, but what of the future? Pippin: Constant vigilance. Evil can never be entirely defeated. But it can be driven out. Help has always been to hand once evil has been exposed and recognized. Only when the characters refuse to see it in their midst do they become vulnerable. Even if Harry is the last horcrux (and it could just be his scar) in the end Harry would die, and the last of Voldemort's horcruxes would be destroyed. If Voldemort is once again a disembodied entity, less than the meanest ghost, he would remain one, but one that cannot take mortal form again without risking mortal death. Even with Quirrell and his wand available, Voldemort was reluctant to do that. I imagine he'd be even more reluctant to do it if he knew that all the horcruxes were gone. But there might still be a way to destroy Voldemort. If a horcrux is hidden in the body of a living person, and that body passes through the veil, then IMO the soul fragment within will not be on the earth anymore, and nothing will tie the disembodied Voldemort to earth. I can see the last ESE!character surfacing after Harry has vanquished Voldemort, revealing himself in order to prevent Harry from using the veil to dispose of himself and the last horcrux. Perhaps they will struggle and fall through together, and Harry will come out again through the locked door. Or not. Or maybe Harry will be persuaded that a live Harry and a dead ESE is worth a disembodied Voldemort who no longer has any followers who would bring him to life again. I get the impression Dumbledore thought death was too good for LV. Whatever happens, it's been said more than once that Voldemort alone is not so dangerous -- it's his followers that are the real problem. I don't think the story will be quite over when Voldemort goes down for the last time. Pippin From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Tue Apr 4 13:04:38 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 09:04:38 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Hermione In-Reply-To: <4431F0A3.000009.03556@D33LDD51> Message-ID: <20060404130438.36007.qmail@web37010.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150500 Jen D. here, Now as for the train, I don't have such a tidy theory. Perhaps it's a small no-man's-land where prefects are supposed to police against the worst offenses but still, things get through, like the hexing of Draco and pals. That I don't understand. Does anyone else have an idea? Jen D. Catherine now: There are a couple of adults in the train, and there are students who are older than 17. The MoM cannot tell who did what. I always believed it to be akin to "no magic in the corridors between classes". A rule that is rarely upheld. People get jinxed/hexed/cursed all the time in between classes and never get punished for it. Hermione never even gets punished for the spots on Marietta. They just get trips to the hospital wing. Catherine --------------------------------- Share your photos with the people who matter at Yahoo! Canada Photos [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From willsonkmom at msn.com Tue Apr 4 13:09:14 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 13:09:14 -0000 Subject: Wormtail In-Reply-To: <140.576b2943.316389c4@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150501 > Sherrie here: > > I always had the feeling that he DID recognize at least one of the names - > that was why he summoned Lupin, and made those pointed remarks about "directly > from the manufacturers": he knew that "Moony" referred to Lupin, & could > therefore infer, if he didn't already know, that the other names referred to > Lupin's friends. Potioncat: Me too! Potioncat (just before she hits the send button, a small elf in a teatowel, decorated in Cubs logos, whispers in her ear.) Oh, Yeah, perhaps I should expand on that: I think this is one of those great scenes that we read for the first half dozen or times as innocently as Harry experiences it. He doesn't know anything about those 4 gentlemen, nor do we. Read that scene with the idea that Snape knows who they are and knows what they are like, and has his own strong biases toward them and the scene becomes very different! Of course, you'll read it with your own bias about Snape, but that's ok. To me, he knows one of the 4 is a dangerous convict who is out to kill Harry and one of the others is in the castle. I don't think Snape knew it was a map, though. Another scene like this is in GoF when Snape sets Harry in a desk near his, then hisses insults at him and refers to things being stolen. Harry (and us most likely) think he's harping back to CoS, but he's really trying to determine if Harry is making Polyjuice Potion now. Oh, and btw, I think the nicknames may have been fairly common knowledge, or at least not well protected. Who would suspect, based only on the nicknames, that the 4 transformed into animals? From sherriola at earthlink.net Tue Apr 4 13:48:48 2006 From: sherriola at earthlink.net (Sherry Gomes) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 06:48:48 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Wormtail In-Reply-To: <4431FB96.00000E.03556@D33LDD51> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150502 Donna wrote: In "Prisoner of Azkaban" , Chap 14, Snape's Grudge, Snape doesn't seem to recognize the name "Mr. Wormtail" when the Marauder's Map insults him. Comments? Corrections? Thoughts? Donna Sherry now: Actually, I always felt by the tone of the discussion between Snape and Lupin in the scene, that Snape did know the nicknames. And we do see the marauders calling themselves those names in the pensieve scene as well. I mean this as a completely neutral Snape comment with no thought of good or bad Snape. Just that I feel confident he knew the names. As to how Wormtail became common knowledge, I've sometimes wondered, if someone like Peter might have gloried in that name, that it could have given him a sense of pride. You know, hey, I'm with the coolest group of guys and we've got special names and everything. PP himself may have spread his name far and wide. And it doesn't seem as though the Marauders particularly tried to keep it quiet. The reason for the names was a secret, but the names themselves didn't need to be. Sherry From pegdigrazia at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 14:34:49 2006 From: pegdigrazia at yahoo.com (Peg DiGrazia) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 07:34:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Martin Miggs The Mad Muggle and other burning questions In-Reply-To: <2C19F7CD-EFB1-46D9-8E64-AF9A655C6F67@alltel.net> Message-ID: <20060404143449.41452.qmail@web42203.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150503 kchuplis wrote: >There are so many "untold stories" I'd love to be told. Peg: My dream is that someone will publish JKR's notebooks full of backstories. I want to know everything there is to know! kchuplis: >Dean Thomas' background seems like it would be a fascinating >story. His dad probably died heroically and here his wife >thinks he deserted them. Did she know he was a wizard? Well, >because of Dean, eventually, I suppose, but when they got >married? Peg: I have the impression from what JKR has said that Dean and his mother still believe his father was a muggle who deserted them. I'd think, if Dean knew the truth about his father, it would have come up during the discussions/arguments about Harry in the boys' dorm in OOTP, but all we hear is that his mother is a muggle and he doesn't tell her about what's happening in the WW. Still, it does seem strange that no one at Hogwarts has talked to Dean about his father... Peg --------------------------------- Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates starting at 1/min. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From rkdas at charter.net Tue Apr 4 15:58:45 2006 From: rkdas at charter.net (susanbones2003) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 15:58:45 -0000 Subject: Hermione In-Reply-To: <20060404130438.36007.qmail@web37010.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150504 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, catherine higgins wrote: > > > > Jen D. here, > Now as for the train, I don't have such a > tidy theory. Perhaps it's a small no-man's-land where prefects are > supposed to police against the worst offenses but still, things get > through, like the hexing of Draco and pals. That I don't understand. > Does anyone else have an idea? > Jen D. > > Catherine now: > > There are a couple of adults in the train, and there are students who are older than 17. The MoM cannot tell who did what. I always believed it to be akin to "no magic in the corridors between classes". A rule that is rarely upheld. People get jinxed/hexed/cursed all the time in between classes and never get punished for it. Hermione never even gets punished for the spots on Marietta. They just get trips to the hospital wing. > > Catherine > Catherine, Too right. Sometimes HP world reminds me of "Animal Farm." There are some animals who are more equal than others. Jen D. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 17:05:15 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 17:05:15 -0000 Subject: Wormtail In-Reply-To: <140.576b2943.316389c4@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150505 Sherrie wrote: > > I always had the feeling that he DID recognize at least one of the names - that was why he summoned Lupin, and made those pointed remarks about "directly from the manufacturers": he knew that "Moony" referred to Lupin, & could therefore infer, if he didn't already know, that the other names referred to Lupin's friends. Carol responds: Agreed. One additional point: Snape doesn't argue when Lupin says, "I'll take this *back*, shall I?" (PoA Am. ed. 289, my italics). Back? When was the map in Lupin's possession that the first-time reader is aware of? Certainly not in PoA. But Snape agrees, under the pretense that he wants Lupin to check out the parchment for Dark magic (which he could certainly have done himself if that were his real motive). The map insulted him in exactly the terms that MWPP would have used. I think he knows exactly who the four manufacturers were even if he doesn't know which is which. And it's immediately after the four makers insult him that he summmons Lupin. Rather than punishing Harry "Harry waited for the blow to fall"), he merely says softly, "We'll see about this," and astounds Harry by seizing a handful of Floo powder and tossing it into the fire, shouting "Lupin, I want a word!" (287). And Lupin comes. I think Snape knows for sure who the makers are and suspects that it's a map as well. Or at least he's on the right track with "instructions on how to get into Hogsmeade without passing the Dementors" (286)--and that's *before* he sees the names on the parchment. Once he sees the names, he puts two and two together rapidly and summons Moony, knowing quite well that he's one of the makers but not wanting Harry to know. Neither, of course, does Lupin. The two adults are, IMO, conspiring to conceal that information from Harry. But why? I think, for one thing, that Snape is in no position to say to Harry, "The names on this parchment refer to your father, Sirius Black, Professor Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew, who were a group of troublemakers when I was in school. Whatever this parchment is, it was an aid to their mischief." Harry quite simply won't believe him. His main goal right now, I think, is simply to get the parchment out of Harry's hands, a goal that's accomplished by returning the parchment to Lupin. Either that or Snape knows that it's Lupin's and can't dispute his right to have it. He is also keeping his promise to Dumbledore not to reveal Lupin's secret, which would certainly come out if Harry knew that Lupin was Moony. Snape, I believe, has his own code of honor and he is acting on it here. Also, in giving the parchment *back* to Lupin, he puts the responsibility of turning it in to Dumbledore on Lupin's shoulders. And his not turning it in confirms Snape's suspicions that Lupin is "up to no good." (And of course if Lupin had turned it in as he should have done, he wouldn't have seen PP being dragged into the tunnel in Ron's pocket and gone rushing out on a full moon night without his potion, but that's beyond Snape's vision.) I don't think, BTW, that the nickname Wormtail was common knowledge among the DEs before or after Snape began teaching at Hogwarts. Bella may have known it and told it to her groupies (the Lestrange brothers and Barty Jr.) after LV's vaporization, but I don't think the others knew about the "traitor" who ostensibly tricked LV into vaporizing himself until after Bella noised it around Azkaban. Snape clearly doesn't. Throughout PoA, Snape thinks (with good reason) that Sirius Black is the spy/Betrayer of the Potters (and possibly the SK as well, if DD told him about the Fidelius Charm) and that Lupin is helping the "murderer" into Hogwarts. Like everyone else except Black, he thinks that Pettigrew is dead, murdered by Sirius Black, who had (in Snape's view) shown himself capable of murder at sixteen. Nor does Snape know that WPP are Animagi, a story he first hears in the Shrieking Shack. But that doesn't mean he's never heard the Marauders calling each other by their nicknames or that he doesn't know, after the so-called Prank, exactly who Moony is and how he got that nickname. I believe he calls Lupin into his office knowing full well who made the parchment and that Lupin knows that Snape knows. He and Snape are talking over Harry's head for the remainder of the scene. Carol, still wondering how being an Animagus helped Black to get into the castle (as opposed to the grounds) since there's no link from the tunnel into the school itself From mgrantwich at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 17:29:25 2006 From: mgrantwich at yahoo.com (Magda Grantwich) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 10:29:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Young Snape's cutting curse (Was: LID!Snape rides again) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060404172925.76014.qmail@web53101.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150506 --- justcarol67 wrote: > I am still not convinced that the cutting curse in the Pensieve > scene was Sectum Sempra for reasons that can be found upthread. But > if it was SS, it was a very controlled version. If Severus had > already invented Sectum Sempra, before Sirius Black tried to kill > him, then he could have killed James, or at least hurt him very > badly in retaliation for the cruelty of the Scourgify spell, the > public humiliation of using his own spell against him, and the > unprovoked two-on-one attack. Instead, he merely cut his cheek. > That, in a hurt and angry boy who had already created a potentially > lethal spell, shows remarkable self-control. FWIW, I don't think the cut Snape gave James was a real spell - just a blast of energy from his wand. Had he pointed it at an egg, the egg might have exploded; hitting a living being, it resulted in a cut. I think Snape invented Sectum Sempra after the Prank as a possible way to save himself should Lupin ever "accidentally" get lose during a transformation and come after him. (If he thought the whole thing was a Marauder set-up, it's quite conceivable that he was quite prepared for them to try it again.) It's the equivalent of a teenager bringing a handgun to school to defend himself; if the authorities caught him, they'd rant about his homicidal tendencies and might not realize that to him it's only self-defense. Magda __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 17:28:24 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 17:28:24 -0000 Subject: Martin Miggs The Mad Muggle and other burning questions In-Reply-To: <20060404143449.41452.qmail@web42203.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150507 kchuplis: > >Dean Thomas' background seems like it would be a fascinating story. His dad probably died heroically and here his wife thinks he deserted them. Did she know he was a wizard? Well, because of Dean, eventually, I suppose, but when they got married? > > Peg: > I have the impression from what JKR has said that Dean and his mother still believe his father was a muggle who deserted them. I'd think, if Dean knew the truth about his father, it would have come up during the discussions/arguments about Harry in the boys' dorm in OOTP, but all we hear is that his mother is a muggle and he doesn't tell her about what's happening in the WW. Still, it does seem strange that no one at Hogwarts has talked to Dean about his father... Carol responds: I think that's how it would have played out if JKR had decided to keep the backstory, but as far as canon is concerned, Dean is the Muggleborn he thinks he is. I see no indication to the contrary in the books themselves. ("Me folks are Muggles, mate.") JKR at one point intended for Hermione to have a little sister and for Ron to have a Slytherin cousin, Mafalda (she ended up giving the name Mafalda to a Ministry of Magic employee, I suppose because she didn't want to waste a good name). But as far as I'm concerned, these are abandoned story notes that went the way of having Mr. Granger discover the ruins of Godric's Hollow. So neither the sister nor the cousin exists and Dean is a Muggleborn until canon shows otherwise. (On a sidenote, writers abandon plots and subplots all the time. Look at all of Tolkien's revisions. He was always going back to find out "what really happened." Gollum's ring as a "birthday present" is probably the best-known example.) But, yes, I'd love to see backstories on the characters, at least the important ones, related to incidents that do actually occur in the books--Snape's memories and the fate of Neville's parents would be particularly interesting from my perspective. Carol, who finds JKR's website entertaining and occasionally informative (especially the demolished rumors) but does not regard it as canonical From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Tue Apr 4 17:30:28 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 13:30:28 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Hermione In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060404173029.20141.qmail@web37006.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150508 > Catherine said: "no magic in the corridors between classes". A rule that is rarely upheld. People get jinxed/hexed/cursed all the time in between classes and never get punished for it. They just get trips to the hospital wing. > >> Jen D. responded: Too right. Sometimes HP world reminds me of "Animal Farm." There are some animals who are more equal than others. Catherine again: Hi Jen, I think that the WW just has a very different set of morals and principles than in the RW. Some kids are treated unfairly by some teachers, but on the whole it balances out. Nobody really gets in trouble for jinxing a fellow student ever (until Harry and the Sectum Sempra). Even the adults jinx each other (look at St-Mungos). Nobody seems to call the MoM for such disputes, they go to get it fixed/reversed. I think it's part of the culture being a witch/wizard. I'm just remembering now all the cards that Harry had to rewrite in HBP about Sirius and James' detentions for jinxing/hexing. But considering the previous 5 books, that nobody gets in trouble for it presently; it seems times may have changed. All the detentions Harry gets seem more to be for sass, or for being out of bed after hours. Those "crimes" are much more severely punished than the jinxing. Seems strange to me, but they have very different values. Catherine Before posting to any list, you MUST read the group's Admin File! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin_Files/HBF_Text__MUST_READ Please use accurate subject headings and snip unnecessary material from posts to which you're replying! --------------------------------- YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "HPforGrownups" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: HPforGrownups-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. --------------------------------- __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From celizwh at intergate.com Tue Apr 4 17:22:55 2006 From: celizwh at intergate.com (houyhnhnm102) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 17:22:55 -0000 Subject: Lily/Snape In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150509 katssirius" wrote: > His own prejudice against Sirius may have led him > and led Dumbledore to believe Black was the traitor. > An old grudge blinded him to Pettigrew. Consequently, > Lily died. Severus turns his grief into rage and > directs it at Harry. [...] Adults may also blame the child, houyhnhnm: I agree that Snape may have displaced his guilt over Lily's death onto Harry in the same way that Harry displaced his guilt over Sirius' death onto Snape. The idea that part of Snape's guilt may result from his having allowed his prejudice against Sirius to blind him to the real state of affairs at the time the Potters were threatened is something I hadn't thought of, but it makes sense. katssirius: > Lily's eyes look out at Severus [...]These two are > moving towards a resolution that will bring redemption > to Snape in Harry's eyes and forgiveness for Harry from Snape. houyhnhnm: I think it will be Lily's eyes looking out at Severus that will bring this about. Harry found his father in himself to save his life and that of Hermione and Sirius in PoA, and I think it will be the discovery of his mother in himself that turns things around in the final book. Harry will finally see Snape with his mother's eyes. I think it will be *Harry* who forgives Snape, and this, in turn, will melt Snape's heart. These two things together will create a "love magic" powerful enough to destroy Voldemort. I think maybe it will be an overwhelming manifestation of love in the part of Harry in Voldemort (his blood) that will turn against LV and drive him out of his own body or make him so desperate to escape the hateful feeling that he kills himself. Suicide would be a fitting end for one who was willing to commit any and all evil acts to prolong his own life. From kchuplis at alltel.net Tue Apr 4 18:30:08 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 13:30:08 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Martin Miggs The Mad Muggle and other burning questions References: Message-ID: <003d01c65815$cd141240$b301010a@ConsolidatedTelephone.local> No: HPFGUIDX 150510 ----- Original Message ----- From: justcarol67 To: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, April 04, 2006 12:28 PM Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Martin Miggs The Mad Muggle and other burning questions Carol responds: I think that's how it would have played out if JKR had decided to keep the backstory, but as far as canon is concerned, Dean is the Muggleborn he thinks he is. I see no indication to the contrary in the books themselves. ("Me folks are Muggles, mate.") JKR at one point intended for Hermione to have a little sister and for Ron to have a Slytherin cousin, Mafalda (she ended up giving the name Mafalda to a Ministry of Magic employee, I suppose because she didn't want to waste a good name). But as far as I'm concerned, these are abandoned story notes that went the way of having Mr. Granger discover the ruins of Godric's Hollow. So neither the sister nor the cousin exists and Dean is a Muggleborn until canon shows otherwise. (On a sidenote, writers abandon plots and subplots all the time. Look at all of Tolkien's revisions. He was always going back to find out "what really happened." Gollum's ring as a "birthday present" is probably the best-known example.) But, yes, I'd love to see backstories on the characters, at least the important ones, related to incidents that do actually occur in the books--Snape's memories and the fate of Neville's parents would be particularly interesting from my perspective. Carol, who finds JKR's website entertaining and occasionally informative (especially the demolished rumors) but does not regard it as canonical kchuplis: Well, I didn't really mean to imply it was canon. I really do realize changes of ideas occur and plots and subplots are dropped. I guess to me it seems Dean's back story in a way does still exist though since her intention was for him to *eventually* find out that his father was a wizard and died fighting Death Eaters, but dropped when she was worried it would take away from Neville's importance. I mean, it could have been something found out in Book 7. Since it is not even touched upon, it just means that Dean still thinks both his parents are muggles. I'm always interested in back stories. Even unimportant ones, because it is interesting to see how it "colors" important ones. And besides, as much as I adore the character Snape, I'm just getting a bit weary of talking about him. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From rkdas at charter.net Tue Apr 4 18:39:24 2006 From: rkdas at charter.net (susanbones2003) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 18:39:24 -0000 Subject: Lack of punishment for hexes and jinxes/ was "Hermione" In-Reply-To: <20060404173029.20141.qmail@web37006.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150511 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, catherine higgins wrote: >Snipped, dutifully, one hopes" > Hi Jen, > I think that the WW just has a very different set of morals and principles than in the RW. Some kids are treated unfairly by some teachers, but on the whole it balances out. Nobody really gets in trouble for jinxing a fellow student ever (until Harry and the Sectum Sempra). > > Even the adults jinx each other (look at St-Mungos). Nobody seems to call the MoM for such disputes, they go to get it fixed/reversed. I think it's part of the culture being a witch/wizard. > > I'm just remembering now all the cards that Harry had to rewrite in HBP about Sirius and James' detentions for jinxing/hexing. But considering the previous 5 books, that nobody gets in trouble for it presently; it seems times may have changed. > > All the detentions Harry gets seem more to be for sass, or for being out of bed after hours. Those "crimes" are much more severely punished than the jinxing. Seems strange to me, but they have very different values. > > Catherine > > > Catherine, Come to think of it, when Draco and Harry fought and Hermione got the worst of it (in GOF, the big teeth incident) only Harry and Ron got detentions and that was for as you said "sass!" It's enough to make an underage wizard think that it's okay to take things into one's own hands. But there must be some line because as fowl as he is, Lucius Malfoy doesn't walk out in broad daylight and jinx someone (I know he does worse, but it's undercover most times...) It must all have to do with the fact that most magic is reversable. Then it can all be in fun, perhaps. And again, as for punishments for jinxes/hexes at Hogwarts, it must have ended during Harry's time. The twins discovered the Marauder's Map when in trouble in Filch's office but outside of the muddy footprints, Harry never got into any real trouble with Filch. Those cards Harry was copying seemed to be punishments meted out by Filch, unless I misunderstand. Jen D. > > From willsonkmom at msn.com Tue Apr 4 20:10:52 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 20:10:52 -0000 Subject: Martin Miggs The Mad Muggle and other burning questions In-Reply-To: <003d01c65815$cd141240$b301010a@ConsolidatedTelephone.local> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150512 > kchuplis: > Well, I didn't really mean to imply it was canon. I really do realize changes of ideas occur and plots and subplots are dropped. I guess to me it seems Dean's back story in a way does still exist though since her intention was for him to *eventually* find out that his father was a wizard and died fighting Death Eaters, but dropped when she was worried it would take away from Neville's importance. I mean, it could have been something found out in Book 7. Since it is not even touched upon, it just means that Dean still thinks both his parents are muggles. I'm always interested in back stories. Even unimportant ones, because it is interesting to see how it "colors" important ones. Potioncat: This is a tough one. In my mind, without having actually sat down to work it out, I thought the back story was still valid. That is, Dean and his mother do not know the truth....nor does the casual reader. Because JKR told us herself that she's dropped some back stories, we can consider them as part of her creative process, but not part of the HP "reality." So Malfada didn't get killed off, she never existed. Dean's story line seems different. When I have a bit more time, I'd like to go back and see what exactly JKR said about Dean's parents. To me it was a heartbreaking story and one that gave a good idea of what the first war was like. Dean's father just dropped out of their life! Dean's mother knew nothing about the wizarding world. Here, he was actually a hero or at least a courageous man. Someone upthread wondered why no one has told Dean, what if no one knows? From a_svirn at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 20:57:44 2006 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 20:57:44 -0000 Subject: Political positions of the characters/James reacting to Remus' lycanthropy. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150513 Ceridwen: Just to be sure we're on the same page, I looked up rivalry at dictionary.com. Sometimes, the *feel* of a word is different to different people, so I thought it would be a good precaution. Rivalry can be competing, emulating, or a competitive or antagonistic state (condensed from the various sources). There can be friendly rivalries, and deadly serious rivalries. a_svirn: Yes, that would be my "feel" of the word too. Ceridwen: Someone (Tonks?) mentioned that James doesn't want to fight someone weaker than himself - that would make him look bad. a_svirn: Are we discussing the same James? It was not a wizarding duel we witness in the Pensieve, but a bunch of bullies ganging up on one Snape. And although it *does* look decidedly bad, this is one consideration that did not occur to James. Also Rowling specifically brought to our attention the fact that Snape wasn't James match even when they one-to-one. James reflexes are quicker. Ceridwen: And I think it was the same post that suggested that James got carried away because Snape continued to get up, to come back for more. It appears to me that neither James nor Snape is going to let the other win if he can help it. a_svirn: That's an interesting way of reasoning. So what does a not- antagonistic Dark Arts lover normally do as to prevent a good guy from "carrying away"? Does he fall on his knees upon being assaulted and ask for quarter? Maybe licks his boots for good measure? Oh, wait it sounds more like a DE's norm of etiquette, although I can see how he can get somewhat confused. Ceridwen: That sounds like a rivalry to me. They certainly had an antagonistic state going. a_svirn: True. But it is also a rather mild way of putting it. You can call a world war II "hostilities" or "conflict" for instance and although it wouldn't be a mistake per se, it would not give you the right "feel" of the thing. The scene in Pencieve is too ugly and appalling to be referred as "rivalry". Ceridwen: And, James's dislike for/hatred of/knee-jerk reaction to Snape's supposed expertise in the Dark Arts puts it at an idological level, at least on James's part. a_svirn: If it does than he's no better than those hates. Alla: Yes, "Malfoy lapdog" IS an insult, but when you take an insulting part out of it, you WILL get some factual information from it. What information? That Snape is close with Malfoys for the reason unknown. You are free to disbelieve such information of course, I see no reason to not believe it. I will take emotions, insults out of Sirius statements toward Snape, of course, if there is a factual information left, I believe it. If it is not, well... then of course it is not a factual statement. a_svirn: We don't need to hear this "lapdog" comment to surmise that Snape and Malfoy are closely acquainted. But if you try to scratch it for any more "factual information" you find it misleading, I am afraid. As far as I am aware of there can be two possible interpretation of "lapdog". One is a kind of a servile subordinate, a "yes-man". This interpretation is rather at variance with everything we've learned of Snape so far. Even though he has managed to acquire himself no fewer than two masters, Malfoy is not one of them. Another interpretation is something like "sexual plaything". Well, I really don't think that we need to give it any serious consideration. In truth I do not believe that insults can be treated as "reliable sources" or any sources at all. This "no-smoke-without-fire" attitude is not conductive for sound judgment. Or next we'll have to discuss has Harry or has he not an aversion for bathing, and it there anything peculiar about muggle-borns' blood. Alla: Okay, if you don't see how their mindsets could be affected by war, I really have nothing to say, but agree to disagree. Voldemort is on the rise, their families ARE affected, Hogwarts does not exist in the vacuum, IMO. a_svirn: I do not disagree with the fact that sun rises on the east and sets on the west and that war can affect people. I would like to repeat my question (slightly amended) though: in what way did the war affect the Marauders and James in particular? It's not like his parents (at that point of time) had been killed like Harry's or tortured into insanity like Neville's. It's not like his friends were rotting away in Azkaban, or skulking in caves. No, he and his friends were healthy, sound and not particularly troubled. They were bored, true, but they solved this particular problem in their customary way. As for "mindsets", well, I, fortunately, was spared the experience of war, but I would venture a guess, that in troubled times violent types thrive on violence, while decent people suffer and ... stay decent. Alla: It is NOT an excuse for bullying, it is not, it is not, it is not. I really don't know how to make myself any clearer, sorry. :-) a_svirn: Then what are we arguing about? Alla: What I do disagree with you quite strongly is that hatred of Dark Arts played no part in their relationships. I think it did play a very big one. a_svirn: Like what? The only part we've seen so far was that of a convenient excuse for bullying. But you yourself say that it's not an excuse >a_svirn > And, you know, no one is more affected by the war > than Harry, but we don't see him being *vigilante*, do we? > Valky: Yes we do, he's all over Malfoy like a pool of sick in HBP. ;) a_svirn: I guess that's the difference between being *vigilante* and *vigilant*. He's suspicious about Malfoy but we don't see him condemn him, much less punish him without any prove. From dingo10520 at aol.com Tue Apr 4 02:18:28 2006 From: dingo10520 at aol.com (Dingo10520) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 02:18:28 -0000 Subject: R.A.B In-Reply-To: <8C8256EF50F64F1-1164-7AFB@mblk-d12.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150514 anamariafranco2003 wrote: > I think that maybe Regulus didn't like He Who Must Not Be Named's > horcrux idea so he switched the horcrux and destroyed the real > one. Then He Who Must Not Be Named found out and killed him. This is my first visit to the Forum so probably a zillion people have noticed that in Order of the Phoenix, when they were cleaning the drawingroom in Sirius' house, there was a heavy gold locket on the shelf full of junk. It could still be there, Kreacher could have it, Mundungus could have stolen it etc etc etc. (Mundungus sure has the same description as Crookshanks, bandy legs and all :) ) Dingo10520 From katbofaye at aol.com Tue Apr 4 03:11:26 2006 From: katbofaye at aol.com (katssirius) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 03:11:26 -0000 Subject: lily/snape Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150515 Betsy Hp: " However, I've never gotten the impression Snape had any sort of personal issue with Neville. He gets frustrated with him, and he devotes a bit of personal attention when Neville goes through his third year crises. But it's nothing like the personal level things get to when Harry is involved. At least, IMO." We never see evidence that Snape singles out anyone else except for Harry and Neville. He is irritable with Hermione for being a know it all and grumpy with everyone but his behavior is exceptional in Harry and Neville's case. The only thing they have in common is a prophecy and Snape is one of only three people (not counting Trelawny) who has this knowledge. If Neville had been exceptional Harry would not have had to be. Snape is cruel towards Neville because he is weak. Surely Neville is not the only timid or clumsy student at Hogwarts in their house or even in their year. Snape punishes Neville for not succeeding. Why should he care in particular about Neville? Katssirius From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 03:38:41 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 20:38:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Lily/Snape In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060404033841.18418.qmail@web61319.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150516 Alla wrote: Alla, who thought that she hypnotized herself enough into accepting that Snape/Lily is coming at the end in one way or another, but who realised again just how grossed she is with this ship. Maybe I am lucky enough and JKR will not go beyond Snape/Lily being friends. Sigh. Joe: You know I think there might be a bit of one sided Snape love for Lily come out but is there really much canon for it beyond the fact that she didn't care for James hexing him? So many people assume that this memory is there to set up a Snape/Lily pairing of some sort be it friendship or what but the memory could be there to set up the reasons James and Lily got together as well. Canon wise we have just as much reason to think Hermione/Grawp as Snape/Lily don't we? Both females were nice at some point to unpleasant males and that is about it. From brahadambal at indiatimes.com Tue Apr 4 10:25:23 2006 From: brahadambal at indiatimes.com (latha279) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 10:25:23 -0000 Subject: LV's wand / Re: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150517 > Angie: > > Just curious, are you assuming that whoever might have AK'd LV > from behind did not know about the Horcruxes? Because the way I > read LV's speech to the DEs in the graveyard, they knew about the > Horcruxes ("And then I asked myself, but how could they have > believed I would not rise again? They, who knew the steps I took, > long ago, to guard myself against mortal death?" GOF, U.S. > softcover at 648.). Did that person believe that LV would, in > fact, be killed? Man, that's one spell I wouldn't want to risk > failing on me! No, I am assuming that person who did it from behind did it in full knowledge of what he is going to put everyone through. The one thing he/she failed to understand was that the sixth / seventh part of the soul in LV's body would not be destroyed as easily as the other parts!! Isn't that also surprising now? I thought that each part can be destroyed seperately, doesn't matter in what order. Ummmm, now that gives more room for speculation, no? Brady - her head is reeling now with all the speculation ideas swimming around in her head. From triinum at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 13:02:31 2006 From: triinum at yahoo.com (triinum) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 13:02:31 -0000 Subject: Why advertise the Ring? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150518 Can anyone tell, why did Dumbledore so proudly and publicly wear Marvolo's ring after destroying the soul fragment in it? Wouldn't one want to conceal it from Tom that another one of his horcruxes has been destroyed? Letting him know is extremely dangerous: it will make him a) want to make new horcruxes, this time less elaborate and harder to recognize, and b) guard the remaining ones more closely. There can be two answers to this: 1) This was a hint for the readers (for in a detective story you don't just *tell* people an important plot turn, you have to *hint* first), and we are to *assume* that, luckily, Tom has still no clue that the ring is destroyed, even though Dumbledore has behaved so carelessly. 2) There is a logical reason, why Dumbledore wants to advertise his having the ring. Could it be a signal of something to someone else, rather than Tom? Dumbledore doesn't wear it *all* the time. And further: Tom knows that the diary horcrux is destroyed. How do we know that he hasn't replaced it yet? triinum From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 15:41:35 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 15:41:35 -0000 Subject: R.A.B In-Reply-To: <4431DFB9.40605@pacificpuma.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150519 Jazmyn wrote: I have a different theory. Regalus drank the same potion that Dumbledore later drank to get to the real horcrux and died from it and people simply assumed that Voldemort killed him. Its not like anyone would dare ASK Voldemort 'did you kill Regalus Black?'.... I don't think even Snape would dare ask such questions directly... This is why I feel that Dumbledore was going to die from the poison/potion he drank in the cave, he knew he would die from it after seeing the note left behind by RAB and all Snape did later was put him out of his misery at his request. He likely even suspected that Voldemort would make acquiring the Horcrux deadly to anyone who went after. Unlikely that Volde would ever have to go get it himself, being as there was no need once it was hidden. It was mentioned before that there ARE poisons that there are no antidotes for. Steven1965aaa writes: I don't think Regalus drank the potion. DD made 2 seemingly contradictory statements to Harry re: the cave: (1) Well done Harry, one could not have done it alone, and (2) only 1 adult wizard could have gone in the boat. (I'm paraphrasing). If we assume that RAB is Regalus, and if we further assume that Regalus used the boat as opposed to some other means, someone else must have gone with him. That other person could not have been an adult wizard, so who was it? My vote is for Kreacher. In that case Kreacher would have been the one to drink the potion, on Regalus' orders. In this scenario Kreacher may have some useful information for Harry in Book 7. Another possibility is that someone with a dark mark may have been able to pass his hand through the potion, much like the barrier to the tower, and therefore would not have had to drink the potion. But I doubt this because IMO it is the Death Eaters who Voldemort would have been most afraid of stealing the horcruxes. This has probably all been addressed already, but ... From latoya741988 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 15:39:09 2006 From: latoya741988 at yahoo.com (latoya lynch) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 08:39:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: LV's wand / Re: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060404153910.71533.qmail@web54714.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150520 E.T. > although he wants to kill Harry himself to show the other > DEs that he is the more powerful of the two, I also think he > believes it must be him & no one else. Ceridwen: > I do think he sees this killing as too important to leave > to anyone else. Maybe the DEs don't know the prophecy, either - > it could make LV sound vulnerable, he might not have let them know. Latoya: I agree with Ceridwen, to LV it's more important to kill HP himself than for him to just be dead. I think it's the fact that HP has defeated him every time since the beginning. LV has to show who is more POWERFUL. From latoya741988 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 15:55:21 2006 From: latoya741988 at yahoo.com (latoya lynch) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 08:55:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Lily/Snape In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060404155521.18276.qmail@web54713.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150521 Alla: > who thought that she hypnotized herself enough into accepting > that Snape/Lily is coming at the end in one way or another, but who > realised again just how grossed she is with this ship. > > Maybe I am lucky enough and JKR will not go beyond Snape/Lily being > friends. Sigh. Latoya: It really isn't all about the feelings that Snape has for Lily but the saving of his life by James. As far as Lily and Snape being more than friends........................I don't think JKR wants to go there. LOL From latoya741988 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 16:20:30 2006 From: latoya741988 at yahoo.com (latoya lynch) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 09:20:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Harry's new life Message-ID: <20060404162030.24646.qmail@web54704.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150522 This may be a little off topic but I wonder how the story would have went if Wormtail had never escaped from HP, Sirius, Ron and Hermione in the PA. Maybe Sirius would still be alive, since he died fighting for HP. What if Wormtail had never escaped from Sirius during the "gas leak," maybe it would be Wormtail hiding for his life instead of Sirius. I think maybe Harry would have went to live with Black and bye bye to the Dursleys. What you think? Latoya From foxmoth at qnet.com Tue Apr 4 22:20:06 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 22:20:06 -0000 Subject: Why advertise the Ring? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150523 Triinum > 2) There is a logical reason, why Dumbledore wants to advertise his > having the ring. Could it be a signal of something to someone else, > rather than Tom? Dumbledore doesn't wear it *all* the time. > > And further: Tom knows that the diary horcrux is destroyed. How do we > know that he hasn't replaced it yet? > Pippin: The idea seems to be that Riddle wants to make seven and only seven horcruxes. Making more might weaken the spell, even if some of the orginal seven have been destroyed. The ring was definitely a signal to Slughorn. Dumbledore was letting him know that he hadn't been fooled by the fake memory and allowing him to suspect that he'd found a horcrux despite Sluggy's lack of cooperation. It may have been a way to let Sluggy know he was not going to be safe even if he didn't give up the memory --sooner or later Voldemort was going to realize that Dumbledore knew his secret, and he would probably want Slughorn dead in revenge, whether Slughorn actually gave information to Dumbledore or not. Pippin From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 22:10:37 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 22:10:37 -0000 Subject: Lily/Snape In-Reply-To: <20060404033841.18418.qmail@web61319.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150524 Joe wrote: You know I think there might be a bit of one sided Snape love for Lily come out but is there really much canon for it beyond the fact that she didn't care for James hexing him? [snip] Steven1965aaa: I think there is something to support it, the title "Snape's Worst Memory". I don't think getting taunted and hexed by James would have been his "worst memory" because that probably happened all the time. Even though this was a very embarrassing incident, getting "de- pantsed" in front of all those people, my guess is that this type of humiliation at the hands (wands) of James/Sirius happened to Snape a lot, especially since he was so ready with his wand as James approached. IMO Snape's "worst memory" was calling Lily a mudblood. If he felt unrequited love for her, that was the moment whan he blew any chance which he ever may have thought he had. Even if it was just a matter of Lily being someone who was kind to him, that would also be a particularly bad memory for him, the moment when he said something so hurtful to her that it ended the "friendship". From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Tue Apr 4 22:22:27 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 22:22:27 -0000 Subject: R.A.B In-Reply-To: <4431DFB9.40605@pacificpuma.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150525 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Jazmyn Concolor wrote: Jazmyn: > I have a different theory. > This is why > I feel that Dumbledore was going to die from the poison/potion he drank > in the cave, he knew he would die from it after seeing the note left > behind by RAB and all Snape did later was put him out of his misery at > his request. Geoff: But Dumbledore didn't see the note from RAB.... Harry found it in the locket after he picked it up from the side of Dumbledore's body. From kelley_thompson at sbcglobal.net Tue Apr 4 22:33:06 2006 From: kelley_thompson at sbcglobal.net (Kelley) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 22:33:06 -0000 Subject: R.A.B. Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150526 I pulled up some old messages/discussions from the archives a few days ago to send to a member offlist, and given the thread going on right now, I thought maybe some other folks would be interested in reading them, too: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/132914 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/133009 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/133248 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/133264 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/133276 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/133380 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/133862 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/134064 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/134899 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/137545 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/139168 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/139252 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/139409 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/140667 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/142643 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/143225 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/143229 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/145778 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/146375 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/146780 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/148365 These aren't all the previous RAB/Regulus discussions (I just spent a little time searching RAB in the archives), but I'd guess they cover most of the points discussed. Enjoy! --Kelley From lizzy1933 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 4 23:49:09 2006 From: lizzy1933 at yahoo.com (lizzy1933) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 23:49:09 -0000 Subject: Why advertise the Ring? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150527 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "triinum" wrote: > > And further: Tom knows that the diary horcrux is destroyed. How do we > know that he hasn't replaced it yet? > We don't know, but I'm wondering if he has enough soul left to make another horcrux since the soul fragments from both the ring and diary were destroyed. Lizzie Lilly From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Wed Apr 5 00:38:35 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 20:38:35 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: R.A.B In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060405003835.90064.qmail@web37004.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150528 Steven1965aaa writes: I My vote is for Kreacher. In that case Kreacher would have been the one to drink the potion, on Regalus' orders. In this scenario Kreacher may have some useful information for Harry in Book 7. Catherine adds: In fact, it might also explain Krecher's behaviour. Kind of like Sophia on "The Golden Girls" it degenerated some brain cells and causes him to speak his mind out loud. Doesn't someone decribe Krecher with "addled brains"? --------------------------------- Make free worldwide PC-to-PC calls. Try the new Yahoo! Canada Messenger with Voice [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From Nanagose at aol.com Wed Apr 5 01:05:21 2006 From: Nanagose at aol.com (spotsgal) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 01:05:21 -0000 Subject: Maligning Lupin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150529 >> Christina: >> ...by giving education and jobs, Dumbledore ensures that the >> werewolves can feed themselves. Even if all the werewolves were >> given a wonderful buffet by Voldemort, they'd still be >> knowledge-less and unproductive. > Pippin: > What good is knowing how to fish if they won't let you near the > river? Christina: That's exactly what I'm saying. Lupin may not have had the greatest opportunities for paid work, but he had the education to do it. Without the education, there was no hope at all. Lupin knows how to fish and can only occasionally get to the river. The other werewolves don't know how to fish at all. Lupin has one obstacle to overcome; the werewolves have two. Voldemort is (supposedly) throwing his followers some fish, but he isn't teaching them HOW to fish. That isn't giving freedom, it's taking it away. All he is promising them is a lifetime of revenge and dependency. >> Christina: >> There really *are* people out there who are not passionate people. >> It isn't denying somebody "the full range of human emotion" to >> describe that attribute in a character. It's a character trait. >> And you might think that anger is the way to respond to prejudice, >> but that doesn't mean that everybody does. > Pippin: > I'm afraid your disagreement is with Jo: > > "It's not possible to live with the Dursleys and not hate them," > said Harry. "I'd like to see you try it." -- CoS ch 11 Christina: Harry and Jo aren't the same people, and Harry is most certainly wrong in this instance. I highly doubt Jo meant for his comment to be taken as a fact, as I'm sure there are a great many people who could live with the Dursleys and be perfectly content, just as there are people who could live with Voldemort and with Umbridge and be perfectly content. Jo doesn't seem to have qualms about denying people their "full range of human emotion." Voldemort, for example, has never been loved by anybody. Harry doesn't seem particularly angry about Peter Pettigrew's role as his parents' betrayer (certainly not to the degree that he should be). And hatred and anger are not the same exact thing. They each have connotational meanings. I hate lima beans but I'm not angry at them, I was angry at my mother when she served lima beans but I don't hate her. Nuance is also extremely important. That's why, even as an example, your quote doesn't work. Because applying what you've been saying to this event, Harry should look at Voldemort, who hates Muggles (a class of people that includes the Dursleys), and at Dumbledore, who forced Harry to live with the Dursleys in the first place, and rethink his loyalties a little. But he doesn't. >> Christina: >> I see that as just going to show that even somebody as fair-minded >> as Hermione has deeply hidden prejudices. Does Hermione really >> know anything about the last war? > Pippin: > She's read "Modern Magical History", "The Rise and Fall of the Dark > Arts" and "Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century." (PS/SS > ch 6) Christina: I'd just like to add to what Amontillada said by pointing out that the wizardizing society is very (far)history-focused and isn't very modern. LV's first reign ended about ten years before the series begins - that would be like a modern history textbook today including details of events from 1996. My general American history textbook from three years ago summarized everything from the previous two decades in a paragraph. We've also seen many examples of how difficult it can be to get accurate information about sensitive topics (LV can't find info about Horcruxes, even the Daily Prophet still says "He Who Must Not Be Named"). >> Christina: >> I don't understand how this is any different than the status quo >> explanation. Whether Lupin changes at the full moon or five >> minutes after the full moon or an hour after the full moon, it's >> still a predictable time. > Pippin: > Confronted with this contradiction, JKR answered shortly that the > moon wasn't up when Lupin went out to the shack, evading the > question. As you say, she's only evasive when she's got something > to hide. Why hide that Lupin can predict the time of his > transformations unless it's important to the plot? Christina: I'm still not seeing the difference. Lupin CAN predict the time of his transformations, no matter what. Also, JKR's explanation makes sense unless you can remember the tiny reference of the moon passing between the clouds (or somesuch) while Harry2 and Hermione2 are waiting outside the Shack (while Lupin is in it, and is still untransformed). JKR is never confronted with that contradiction, unfortunately. > Pippin: > Lupin shows a whole lot of remorse, but if it doesn't change his > behavior what good is it? You seem to hope he'll do better next > time, but how many next times is he supposed to get? Christina: It isn't that I think that Lupin will do better "next time," it's that I think he already has. He didn't stand up to Sirius enough when they were children, he feels badly about that, and shows his remorse by restraining Sirius a LOT starting at the end of PoA and continuing through OP. He feels badly about lying to Dumbledore, so he's 100% DD's man in HBP and won't even hear of Harry's doubt about DD's trust in Snape. He does a behavior, feels bad about it, and then does something different. > Pippin: > If Lupin dunnit it isn't just about the Bang. It goes to the heart > of friendship and bravery, and how Harry perceives his own ability > to distinguish good from evil and choose the good, which is what > the story is about. Christina: I'm dismissive of this as a thematic reason for ESE!Lupin because it's a theme that we've seen already - Harry is terrible at figuring out who is good and who is evil, but he's has some lessons. He thinks James is super awesome until he sees him in the pensieve, and Harry must then distinguish in his head between the mean-but-he-grew-out-of-it evil, and the DE!evil. And the seventh book is already steeped in this particular theme with Snape. I don't think that ESE!Lupin is a fizzle, but I think that a bangy Lupin revelation would fizzle everything else, namely whatever JKR has up her sleeve concerning Snape. In the same way that I have no problem with answering cool side questions, but there are more important questions that cannot be overshadowed. Christina From puduhepa98 at aol.com Wed Apr 5 02:43:55 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 22:43:55 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: R.A.B Message-ID: <332.1999d41.316488eb@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150531 Second try :>) Jazmyn wrote: I have a different theory. Regalus drank the same potion that Dumbledore later drank to get to the real horcrux and died from it and people simply assumed that Voldemort killed him. . >Steven1965aaa writes: >I don't think Regalus drank the potion. DD made 2 seemingly >contradictory statements to Harry re: the cave: (1) Well done Harry, >one could not have done it alone, and (2) only 1 adult wizard could >have gone in the boat. (I'm paraphrasing). If we assume that RAB >is Regalus, and if we further assume that Regalus used the boat as opposed to some other means, someone else must have gone with him. That other person could not have been an adult wizard, so who was it? My vote is for Kreacher. Nikkalmati: There are a lot of problems associated with RAB entering the cave and replacing the locket with a dummy. I suggested upthread that he/she switched the locket before it was placed in the cave by LV and LV didn't know it. If it is Regalus, of course, the locket would have to be placed in the cave during WWI, not any earlier. Regalus could have been killed by the locket or by LV for other reasons. If LV found out the locket was missing, and RAB is Regalus, LV would have found it in the Black house. Any thoughts? Nikkalmati [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From gelite67 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 03:28:28 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 03:28:28 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose (Was Re: lily/snape) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150532 ---> > Betsy Hp: > > " However, I've never gotten the impression Snape had any sort of > personal issue with Neville. He gets frustrated with him, and he > devotes a bit of personal attention when Neville goes through his > third year crises. But it's nothing like the personal level things > get to when Harry is involved. At least, IMO." > > > > Katssirius replied: > We never see evidence that Snape singles out anyone else except for > Harry and Neville. Snape is cruel towards Neville > because he is weak. Surely Neville is not the only timid or clumsy > student at Hogwarts in their house or even in their year. Snape > punishes Neville for not succeeding. Why should he care in > particular about Neville? > > Angie here: Well, Snape is quite nasty to Ron, too. I've always thought that his cruelty toward Harry and Neville in particular was at least partially for his own protection -- if LV can always tell if he's being lied to or somehow broke into Snape's mind, wouldn't it be necessary that he see Snape being nasty to Harry and Neville and whoever else supports DD? Wouldn't Snape be expected to be nasty to Neville, in particular, given that Neville's parents supported DD and their torture landed some DEs in Azkaban? I understand that Snape could remove his incriminating memories/thoughts and put them in the Pensieve (certain conversations with DD, I presume, for example) but it would look suspicious if Snape didn't have something to show LV, wouldn't it? As Katsirrius noted, it seems like part of Snape's caustic remarks or insults are also geared toward Harry and Neville's shoddy work. The question is: why does Snape care if Harry and Neville don't learn potions? Because they need to learn it! Granted, Snape's not motivating them in the right way (and really can't), but if they would listen properly and actually apply themselves, Snape just might be able to teach them something that would help them. (Bezoar, anyone?) And I think Snape is trying to do that. For instance, at the end of HBP, even as Snape is trying to make his escape and is arguing with Harry, he still provides Harry instruction on using nonverbal spells. Part of Snape's cruelty toward Harry has also emerged when Harry has acted recklessly and put himself in danger, like in POA and GOF when Harry is wandering around the castle unprotected after hours. Again, though he couldn't express it in a positive way, Snape was still trying to protect Harry, I believe. Don't get me wrong -- I think Snape is either the world's greatest actor or he actually does enjoy taunting them some. But I do think he's trying to help them, as well. Perhaps Snape's impatience is due in part to his belief/knowledge that his own days at HW were numbered and that he had to teach them all he could while he could and they didn't seem to get it? From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 03:31:28 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 03:31:28 -0000 Subject: R.A.B In-Reply-To: <332.1999d41.316488eb@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150533 > Nikkalmati: > There are a lot of problems associated with RAB entering the cave and replacing the locket with a dummy. I suggested upthread that he/she switched the locket before it was placed in the cave by LV and LV didn't know it. If it is Regalus, of course, the locket would have to be placed in the cave during WWI, not any earlier. Regalus could have been killed by the locket or by LV for other reasons. If LV found out the locket was missing, and RAB is Regalus, LV would have found it in the Black house. > Any thoughts? Carol responds: I don't see the problem with Regulus replacing the locket during VW1 if he had Kreacher's help, though I very much doubt that he, a boy of about eighteen, could have destroyed the Horcrux or that he was killed by it. We have the locket that no one can open in 12 GP (or wherever it is now), which is surely the real, undestroyed Horcrux. I very much doubt that Voldie knows the locket is missing; I think he had Reggie killed for other reasons, maybe for refusing to Crucio a Muggle or some such horrible assignment. I proposed some time ago that Bellatrix (on Voldie's orders) placed the locket in the cave with Kreacher's help and that Regulus found out about it, taking Kreacher with him to steal the real Horcrux and ordering Kreacher to drink the potion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/145831 At any rate, it's Regulus, everybody, not Regalus. Like all of the other Blacks of his generation except Narcissa, Regulus is named after a star or constellation, in his case the brightest star in the constellation Leo. The name means "little king." (Hm. Fits nicely with the Half-Blood Prince. Maybe they were friends and Regulus's death had something to do with Severus's change of loyalty in VW1.) Carol, with apologies for pointing out misspellings, but that one was getting on my nerves (as does Hermoine) From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 03:42:03 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 03:42:03 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose (Was Re: lily/snape) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150534 > > Angie here: For instance, at > the end of HBP, even as Snape is trying to make his escape and is > arguing with Harry, he still provides Harry instruction on using > nonverbal spells. Alla: Of course another interpretation of that incident is that Snape is simply gloating here over Harry's inability to perform Unforgivables. Angie: > Part of Snape's cruelty toward Harry has also emerged when Harry has > acted recklessly and put himself in danger, like in POA and GOF when > Harry is wandering around the castle unprotected after hours. Again, > though he couldn't express it in a positive way, Snape was still > trying to protect Harry, I believe. Alla: How was Snape protecting Harry when Harry wanted to see Dumbledore in GoF, stood there , nervous and upset and Snape was taunting him. I don't see anything positive here whatsoever, but that is JMO of course. Angie: > Don't get me wrong -- I think Snape is either the world's greatest > actor or he actually does enjoy taunting them some. Alla: Or another interpretation of course is that Snape enjoys taunting them more than "some" but "a lot", just because that is who he is. JMO, Alla From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 04:03:01 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 04:03:01 -0000 Subject: Lily/Snape/Words have consequences. In-Reply-To: <20060404033841.18418.qmail@web61319.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150535 > Joe: You know I think there might be a bit of one sided Snape love for Lily come out but is there really much canon for it beyond the fact that she didn't care for James hexing him? > > So many people assume that this memory is there to set up a Snape/Lily pairing of some sort be it friendship or what but the memory could be there to set up the reasons James and Lily got together as well. Alla: Well, I agree with you completely. If I would saw only that scene coming, I would not have necessarily thought that it should point to Snape/Lily ship ( yeah, definitely one sided). But as I said earlier, strangely to me the strongest evidence in favor of this ship ( Gah!) to me is the evidence of omission ( although I realize that usually it is weak evidence, but in this case to me it is not), although this scene would play out as possible hint too IMO. Snape NEVER says anything about Lily - never, ever, ever and since I don't think that Snape is acting when he torments Harry, I think he is a vicious bastard, who is totally confused between Harry and James, I am sure that he would have said anything bad about her just to make Harry feel horrible. Just think about it, even when Snape running away after killing Dumbledore, he grabs at the possibility to throw "you and your filthy father" at Harry. I mean, really, I am not quite sure how after this outburst it could be seriously argued that James is not always on Snape's mind, you know. But he is silent about Lily, ALWAYS. I find it highly suspicious and highly unfortunate too :) Joe: > Canon wise we have just as much reason to think Hermione/Grawp as Snape/Lily don't we? Both females were nice at some point to unpleasant males and that is about it. Alla: LOLOL! Now THAT is funny. As I said not too much canon, no, you are right, but too many suspicious hints, IMO Amiable Dorsai: > And Draco is using it. Whether he's thought his actions through, or > just absorbed the technique from Lucius, Draco has picked that weapon > up and fired it straight at the Trio. > > That's why I object to calling Draco a victim--it trivializes his > actions, it diminishes him. Alla: Oh, just wanted to thank you - that is PRECISELY why I object to calling Draco a victim too. Amazing post :) Alla From djklaugh at comcast.net Wed Apr 5 04:11:01 2006 From: djklaugh at comcast.net (Deb) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 04:11:01 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose (Was Re: lily/snape) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150536 (Snip) > Angie here: > > Well, Snape is quite nasty to Ron, too. I've always thought that his > cruelty toward Harry and Neville in particular was at least partially > for his own protection -- if LV can always tell if he's being lied to > or somehow broke into Snape's mind, wouldn't it be necessary that he > see Snape being nasty to Harry and Neville and whoever else supports > DD? Wouldn't Snape be expected to be nasty to Neville, in > particular, given that Neville's parents supported DD and their > torture landed some DEs in Azkaban? > > I understand that Snape could remove his incriminating > memories/thoughts and put them in the Pensieve (certain conversations > with DD, I presume, for example) but it would look suspicious if > Snape didn't have something to show LV, wouldn't it? Deb here: **Applause** for Angie! YES this is what I have been thinking too. Snape >has to< be nasty to Harry and Neville (and Ron and Hermione by extension) just to preserve his undercover spy status with LV. And he can not remove too many memories or LV would surely spot the gaps and dig even deeper into Snape's memories - and probably in ways that would be similar to what he did to poor Bertha. Snape is an excellent actor/Occulmens/master of several magical specialties ... but he also is as human as anyone else in the Wizarding World and his memory/brain works in the same way everyone elses does. I think Snape was very angry and upset when Harry pursuaded the Sorting Hat to put him in Griffindor that first night at Hogwarts... if Harry had gone along with the Sorting Hat Snape's life would have been much much easier!! After all even LV would understand that a House Master has to be nice to his students .... at least once in a while. Just that one little choice of Harry's has caused Snape a whole lot of headache, frustration, and worry. Plus if Snape truly is DDM!Snape (as I strongly suspect he is, though I know others disagree) he could have kept a much closer guard on Harry under the guise of being his House Master. From the night of James and Lily's murders to the time Harry came to Hogwarts Snape had it fairly easy... he could be surly, testy, demanding of his Potions students ... but he could also be a real teacher and reward excellence when he saw it (I doubt that LV was much interested in relatively "ancient history" vis a vis Snape's class room doings prior to Harry coming to Hogwarts)... I keep coming back to the canonical fact that Bill, Percy, and several others from known DD supporting families passed their Potions OWLs with flying colors... and I strongly suspect that F & G were taking NEWTs Potions before they precipitously exited from formal education. And I think that Snape struggles very hard knowing that Harry needs to know Potions but he Snape can not tell him in a kind way ... in a way that Harry will listen to... what he needs to know and why. One of the memories I suspect Snape puts into the Pensieve when he goes to see LV after HBP is the one where Harry actually thwarts his Legilmens attempt by using the Shield Charm. He actually breaks down and says "Well done, Potter"... very OOC for the Snape we know and love or love to hate. > (Angie here) As Katsirrius noted, it seems like part of Snape's caustic remarks or > insults are also geared toward Harry and Neville's shoddy work. The > question is: why does Snape care if Harry and Neville don't learn > potions? Because they need to learn it! Granted, Snape's not > motivating them in the right way (and really can't), but if they > would listen properly and actually apply themselves, Snape just might > be able to teach them something that would help them. (Bezoar, > anyone?) And I think Snape is trying to do that. For instance, at > the end of HBP, even as Snape is trying to make his escape and is > arguing with Harry, he still provides Harry instruction on using > nonverbal spells. Deb again: Not just teaching him still, but still protecting him from himself - preventing him from using an Unforgivable Curse - preventing him from damaging his soul! And if as discussed here Snape has been protecting Harry all along, AND spying on LV for the OOP, AND taking on who knows what other dangerous assignments for DD ... no wonder Snape had his last straw broken - bet he also Penseives the memory of screaming "DON'T CALL ME A COWARD!" >(Angie again) Part of Snape's cruelty toward Harry has also emerged when Harry has > acted recklessly and put himself in danger, like in POA and GOF when > Harry is wandering around the castle unprotected after hours. Again, > though he couldn't express it in a positive way, Snape was still > trying to protect Harry, I believe. > > Don't get me wrong -- I think Snape is either the world's greatest > actor or he actually does enjoy taunting them some. But I do think > he's trying to help them, as well. Perhaps Snape's impatience is due > in part to his belief/knowledge that his own days at HW were numbered > and that he had to teach them all he could while he could and they > didn't seem to get it? Deb again: Yes I agree with you on this too. Deb (aka djklaugh) - who truly wonders who Snape is when he is at home ... without Wormtail around to tell tales. And who thinks Snape's Patronus might just be a chameleon From sherriola at earthlink.net Wed Apr 5 04:32:52 2006 From: sherriola at earthlink.net (Sherry Gomes) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 21:32:52 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose (Was Re: lily/snape) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150537 Deb here: I think Snape was very angry and upset when Harry pursuaded the Sorting Hat to put him in Griffindor that first night at Hogwarts... if Harry had gone along with the Sorting Hat Snape's life would have been much much easier!! After all even LV would understand that a House Master has to be nice to his students .... at least once in a while. Just that one little choice of Harry's has caused Snape a whole lot of headache, frustration, and worry. Plus if Snape truly is DDM!Snape (as I strongly suspect he is, though I know others disagree) he could have kept a much closer guard on Harry under the guise of being his House Master. Sherry now: I'm not even going to respond to the whole Snape had to be a rotten jerk to stay under cover, because obviously, I disagree. I want to deal with the point about the sorting hat. The sorting hat *did not* offer to put Harry into Slytherin. Contrary to what seems to have become canon in a lot of fandom, the hat did not mention Slytherin till Harry said, "not Slytherin". We have no way of knowing where it would have put him or if it was even considering Slytherin. It's obvious to me that Harry has qualities of all four houses, as I suppose most people do. But my take on that whole scene is that Harry was always meant to go to Gryffindor, but when he did his not Slytherin bit, the hat decided to probe more and tempt him a little. And I don't think that had anything to do with poor Sevvy's misery. The hat put Harry in Gryffindor because that's where Harry belonged, not to make Snape's life worse than ever. Someday, Snapey needs to take responsibility for his own miserable actions and stop picking on people who are weaker than he is just for the fun of it. To hate a child because of who that child's father was, as I've said so many times before, is incredibly immature. It's about time he grew up for a change. He is supposedly the adult after all, but he sure doesn't seem to act like one. Sherry From doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 04:59:11 2006 From: doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com (doddiemoemoe) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 04:59:11 -0000 Subject: Why I hate Snape.. Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150538 Something completely not complicated really.... I hate the fact that Snape seems to detract from Harry's story for the most part... The only time Snape's life was truly "center stage" was occlumency lessons... (OMG do I have a DD complex?!?!?! We know from book ONE that Harry..with his friends(at least Hermione) can get around the best Snape had to offer!... So for me the entire "snape" story revolves around... 1. Snape was really trying to save Harry during the quittich match.. or 2. Snape set his "trap/puzzle" so that Harry and Co. could get by... OR and most importantly!!!!!! 3. HOW ON EARTH could Quirrelmort get by ALL the traps, let alone SNAPES (and if he got by Shape's puzzle/trap...how was there enough potion for Harry/Hermione?!?!?) Which leads me to wonder why/how the Voldy got through it all. (all except for DD's) My guess is that Voldy may have had assistance from Snape in book one!(I simply cannot get around the "potion puzzle"..and still have difficulty with Snape's bleeding leg after the Troll incident). This is why I don't think that Snape is "DDM"... If snape was DDM then I believe snape would have known about the mirror... >From reading PS/SS I believe that the mirror was a surprise to both voldie and quirrel....(but I still believe that there is no way that Snape would let Quirrell be voldie's #1.....which leads me down a whole other why snape hates wormtail..and neville and harry too...).. D, Who believes that Spinner's end may have been the most NON-ANGRY honest we've ever seen from Snape!!! From iam.kemper at gmail.com Wed Apr 5 05:41:07 2006 From: iam.kemper at gmail.com (Kemper) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 22:41:07 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: R.A.B In-Reply-To: References: <332.1999d41.316488eb@aol.com> Message-ID: <700201d40604042241n314c6bcbv1ae97f6ff483b12f@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150539 On 4/4/06, justcarol67 wrote: > > > > Nikkalmati earlier: > > There are a lot of problems associated with RAB entering the cave > and replacing the locket with a dummy. ... > Carol responded: > I don't see the problem with Regulus replacing the locket during VW1 > if he had Kreacher's help, though I very much doubt that he, a boy of > about eighteen, could have destroyed the Horcrux or that he was killed > by it. > ... > I proposed some time ago that Bellatrix (on Voldie's orders) placed > the locket in the cave with Kreacher's help and that Regulus found out > about it, taking Kreacher with him to steal the real Horcrux and > ordering Kreacher to drink the potion: ... > > At any rate, it's Regulus ... The name means "little king." (Hm. Fits nicely with > the Half-Blood Prince. Maybe they were friends and Regulus's death had > something to do with Severus's change of loyalty in VW1.) .. . Kemper now: I agree that Kreacher could have played a roll with either Bella or Regulus. Dumbledore's quote from after drinking the potion: The protection was ... after all ... well-designed. One alone could not have done it ... You did well, very well Harry.... But what if Regulus got to the potion and was alone, what would he do? Slughorn seems to think highly of him saying that he had Sirius' brother (Regulus) but would've liked the pair (I'm paraphasing, so I may be off on the correct phasing but I think I got the gist right). To me, this suggests that Slughorn thought highly of Regulus because he, Regulus, was *included* in Slughorns desire (the pair). So... back to lone Regulus and the potion. Is it a stretch for Regulus to conjure a vial and scoop up a bit of the potion, cap it, and return to someone who's a master at potions? Perhaps Slughorn, who seems to understand Golpalott's Third Law about antidotes well enough to teach it, or, if Carol's 'maybe' is correct, the Half-Blood Prince, who didn't need to jot down any notes in the margin of his potions text book regarding Golpalott's Third Law, except for the cheeky "just shove a bezoar down their throats" suggestion. Once an antidote was discovered, Regulus could have gone back to the cave with a jug of the stuff, drink the potion, drink the antidote, write a brief note, switch out the lockets and be out of their lickity split! While Kreatcher stayed at home with his (doting?) mistress. Kemper, who has suggested Slughorn helping out Regulus in the cave previously, but no one responded and who is hoping that more people will respond now with my revised version that includes Snape as a possibility... hmm, has there ever been a post about Snape that no one responded to? From bboyminn at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 06:51:29 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 06:51:29 -0000 Subject: Dean Thomas, the Weasley Cousins, and Character Backstories In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150540 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" wrote: > > > > kchuplis: > > Well, I didn't really mean to imply it was canon. ...edited... > > > Potioncat: > This is a tough one. In my mind, without having actually sat down to > work it out, I thought the back story was still valid. That is, Dean > and his mother do not know the truth....nor does the casual reader. > > ...edited... bboyminn: I consider most of JKR's website and most of her interviews as 'canon-ish'. They have some validity, but we must be care not to regard them as too absolute. Most of the time, on both her website and in JKR's many interviews, she is speaking 'conversationally'. When a person speaks converstationally, they speak in generalities and to the best of their immediate knowledge given the pressure and time constrains of this type of communication. Or, they speak to make a point in either a very narrow or very broad context. This is very true in interview, and somewhat true on her website. This effects the weight that you can give to these statements. So, we have to be carefull not to get too carried away by her casual comments, because they are just that, casual. However, there are times when she is relaying cold hard canon facts, and I believe the backstory of Dean Thomas is one of these cases. This is not backstory revealed in the way the dropped and changed characters are revealed. Dean's backstory is very detailed and very real. These are fact (what I consider facts) that not even the characters in the story know. Dean's mother only suspect that Dean's father might have been a wizard. Dean doesn't know anything at all. But, the framework in which this information is presented seems very factual, and I think we can consider it canon. However, it is useless canon, because it will never appear in the story. JKR has said that she has the life story of every major character worked out in rather substantial detail. It helps her understand their motivations and actions. But despite the very real and detailed backstories, we as readers are not likely to very be priviledge to this information. This is all quite different from story and character changes that JKR had to make in order to get the story to work. The female Weasley cousin was removed from the story, but we don't know for a fact that she ceased to exist. Arthur apparently has several brothers, who are likely married, which means that several Weasley cousins do exist. But since they add no value to the story, we simply don't hear about them. Although, since Bill's wedding is coming up, I suspect we will meet several cousin in the next book, but I also suspect we will only meet them in passing. In a sense, we will be told that they are there, but we will never really meet one face-to-face. Here is an example of how we could meet them without actually meeting them - "One the day of the wedding, the Weasley house was a bussle of activity. The house and garden were filled with countless Weasley uncles, aunts, and cousins. Mrs. Weasley tried to introduce Harry to everyone, but it made him feel uncomfortable the way they stared at his scar. So, Ron, Hermione, and Harry kept to themselves as much as possible trying to stay at the finges of the maddening crowd." And so on and so forth. So, in my imaginary scenario 'countless' new Weasley are introduced, but we never actually get to meet them. Of course, I don't know for sure whether cousin Mafalda still exists or not. Only that her storying line being dropped doesn't necessarily erase her from off-page canon. There is much of the back story of many characters that is canon to JKR, it's just canon we will never know. Sort of like the Lost Books of the Bible. Despite my endless rambling, I think my point is that the manner in which Dean Thomas's backstory is presented on JKR's website makes it canon. JKR give a very detailed account, and that fact that this story will never be presented in the books doesn't invalidate it. However, the manner in which the backstory of cousin Mafalda is presented does to some extent cast doubt on the continued validity of her story. There is a possibility that this particular cousin does not exist despite the likelihood of the existence of other Weasley cousins. Again, I fear I am rambling. Does anyone see the point I'm trying to make here? Steve/bboyminn From siriuslysexy1 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 03:40:16 2006 From: siriuslysexy1 at yahoo.com (siriuslysexy1) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 03:40:16 -0000 Subject: Why advertise the Ring? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150541 triinum: > Can anyone tell, why did Dumbledore so proudly and publicly wear > Marvolo's ring after destroying the soul fragment in it? "siriuslysexy1" writes: My guess is that he couldn't take off the ring for some reason. We know it had a super nasty curse on it. Or perhaps he was just keeping it safe. Also, we know that Voldemort didn't know that his diary was destroyed in CoS until told by Malfoy, so we can guess he hasn't felt this one be destroyed either. From kernsac at earthlink.net Wed Apr 5 04:28:09 2006 From: kernsac at earthlink.net (Peggy Kern) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 21:28:09 -0700 Subject: Wormtail In-Reply-To: <005d01c657af$6994f1a0$6601a8c0@april> References: <4431FB96.00000E.03556@D33LDD51> <005d01c657af$6994f1a0$6601a8c0@april> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20060404212522.02377070@earthlink.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150542 April writes: Snape also doesn't recognize any of the names when the map says Masters, Mooney Padfoot, Wormtail and Prongs present the Marauders Map. This is my first post, so hope I'm doing this right. I'm doing this from memory too, but I think he does recognize the names, because he immediately calls Lupin. Of course he could be calling him because Lupin is the Defense teacher; but I think he recognizes that the parchment and its insults are coming from his old classmates. Peggy From spirittalks at gmail.com Wed Apr 5 04:53:13 2006 From: spirittalks at gmail.com (Kim) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 00:53:13 -0400 Subject: Magic outside of school References: <4431F0A3.000009.03556@D33LDD51> Message-ID: <017801c6586c$d9561f10$6501a8c0@your27e1513d96> No: HPFGUIDX 150543 I have a theory about underage magic being used before school and in Diagon Alley and on the Hogwarts express. Without dragging my sick and exhausted eyeballs through the books to find canon I can remember several instances of kids using magic before entering Hogwarts for the first time. Hermione learning all of her textbooks by heart before even entering Hogwarts and all of her spells working for her. In the Quidditch World Cup a small child was prodding a slug with an engorgement charm before his mom stepped on it. (parent's wand) Yuck! Fred changing a teddy bear into a spider. Ron trying to change his rat's color to yellow. Snape knowing so much magic before even entering school. There may be more. My guess is that until a child enters school he may use magic at his parents' discretion, at their risk. They are responsible for the results because they are the primary teachers and caregivers. But when a child begins that first term at Hogwarts he or she is now goverened by new rules because Hogwarts is now their primary learning field and what they do can be harmful if it isn't learned fully or well. Hogwarts could be in trouble if they messed up, even on vacation, because they are responsible for teaching the magic. Once they enter Hogwarts property again, such as the Hogwarts Express, they are now allowed once again to use magic. Maybe that's because the prefects are there to keep the peace. In Diagon Alley I'm guessing it's like others said, it's a wizard and witch packed place and the very air vibrates with magic so it wouldn't be possible to accurately police kids while they are there. Anyway, those are the feelings I got when I came up with the same questions while reading the books. Kim [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From triinum at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 07:30:17 2006 From: triinum at yahoo.com (triinum) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 07:30:17 -0000 Subject: Why advertise the Ring? And faking death In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150544 > Pippin: > The idea seems to be that Riddle wants to make seven and only seven > horcruxes. Making more might weaken the spell, even if some of the > orginal seven have been destroyed. Yes, this would explain it alright. > The ring was definitely a signal to Slughorn. Dumbledore was letting > him know that he hadn't been fooled by the fake memory and allowing > him to suspect that he'd found a horcrux despite Sluggy's lack of > cooperation. That would mean that Sluggy knew the ring was a horcrux. It's not impossible, they may have discussed it with Dumbledore long ago. This in turn implies that Slug is even more in DD's confidence than immediately obvious. Hm, where was he the night the DEs attacked Hogwarts? Could he have something to do with faking DD's death? (okay, okay, I know probably most people here would say it wasn't faked. I'm not sure either, but I think the matter is worth investigating). The biggest problem I see with faked death scenario is that it needs a third party from Hogwarts to carry out. The most logical one would be Hagrid, for he dealt with the body. But Hagrid's reaction to the news of his death is just so genuine and believable; I can't buy him being *such* a good actor. But what if Sluggy helped him taking care about the body? Filling him in about the scheme sometime before the funeral? Having Hagrid clueless and therefore acting believably could have been part of the plan. And Sluggy does know all about the Draught of Living Death. From finwitch at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 10:54:08 2006 From: finwitch at yahoo.com (finwitch) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 10:54:08 -0000 Subject: Harry's new life In-Reply-To: <20060404162030.24646.qmail@web54704.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150545 > Latoya: > -- I wonder how the story would have > went if Wormtail had never escaped from HP, Sirius, Ron and Hermione > in the PA. Maybe Sirius would still be alive, since he died fighting > for HP. > > What if Wormtail had never escaped from Sirius during the "gas leak," > maybe it would be Wormtail hiding for his life instead of Sirius. > > I think maybe Harry would have went to live with Black and bye bye to > the Dursleys. Yes, I agree - despite Dumbdledore's plan/ancient plan. Because, by the will of Harry's late parents, Sirius is his guardian (in addition to being godfather). Sirius told that to Harry. Had Sirius been cleared in PoA, Harry would have gone with Sirius. And I don't think Dumbledore would have done anything to stop it. Of course, that would changed some things: Sirius would have been with Harry in QWC, most likely - Sirius would have known and possibly figured out a thing or two about Crouch... and quite possibly, even if the Crouch Jr. as Moody- hoax would have happened&all, I very strongly doubt that DUmbridge would have become a DADA-teacher, not when Sirius would have been available! Hmmm... Could Sirius have broken the curse, being as *everyone* came to know his secret as it was? And Harry certainly wouldn't have needed to battle Dementors... BUT would Dumbledore have told Harry 'all', if not for Sirius dying because of Harry's lack of information? How would the 6th year have gone? Finwitch From kchuplis at alltel.net Wed Apr 5 12:21:52 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 07:21:52 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dean Thomas, the Weasley Cousins, and Character Backstories In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2BF3AB9E-54F2-40E5-96BF-36591E6E0417@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150546 On Apr 5, 2006, at 1:51 AM, Steve wrote: > > Again, I fear I am rambling. Does anyone see the point I'm trying to > make here? kchuplis: I do at any rate. I think they are "invisible" backstory, like I said, that colors what is written. I also think that Dean, would indeed, still respond "my parents are muggles" because they are. The father who *raised* Dean is a muggle. He would of course think of his parents as muggles. I like your comparison to "lost stories". They aren't of importance to the main story, but just of piquing curiosity. From willsonkmom at msn.com Wed Apr 5 13:01:47 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 13:01:47 -0000 Subject: Dean Thomas, the Weasley Cousins, and Character Backstories In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150547 > bboyminn: snipping, here and there Arthur apparently has several brothers, who are > likely married, which means that several Weasley cousins do exist. But > since they add no value to the story, we simply don't hear about them. > Although, since Bill's wedding is coming up, I suspect we will meet > several cousin in the next book, but I also suspect we will only meet > them in passing. In a sense, we will be told that they are there, but > we will never really meet one face-to-face. > > Here is an example of how we could meet them without actually meeting > them - > > "One the day of the wedding, the Weasley house was a bussle of > activity. The house and garden were filled with countless Weasley > uncles, aunts, and cousins. Mrs. Weasley tried to introduce Harry to > everyone, but it made him feel uncomfortable the way they stared at > his scar. So, Ron, Hermione, and Harry kept to themselves as much as > possible trying to stay at the finges of the maddening crowd." Potioncat: No, I think it'll go like this: Molly will lead Harry to one corner of the yard where a great number of young people are standing. "Oh, good, you know everyone here!" she says and dashes away before Harry can protest that he doesn't know any of them. Gathering all the courage he can, he holds out his hand and says to the closest one, "Hello, I'm Harry Potter." "Yes, I know. We have Transfiguration together. I'm in Ravenclaw" The next person says, "We're in DADA together, Hufflepuff." The next three or four say something along the line of, " Third year, Gryffindor..." and so on. Seamus has a cousin at Hogwarts--at least that's the way I've reasoned it out from canon--and I've decided it only makes sense that Ron does too. From puduhepa98 at aol.com Wed Apr 5 13:21:35 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 09:21:35 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: R.A.B In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <8C826CAFF7A9B71-C20-264@MBLK-D29.sysops.aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150548 > Nikkalmati: > There are a lot of problems associated with RAB entering the cave and replacing the locket with a dummy. I suggested upthread that he/she switched the locket before it was placed in the cave by LV and LV didn't know it. >Carol responds: >I don't see the problem with Regulus replacing the locket during VW1 >if he had Kreacher's help, though I very much doubt that he, a boy of >about eighteen, could have destroyed the Horcrux or that he was killed >by it. We have the locket that no one can open in 12 GP (or wherever >it is now), which is surely the real, undestroyed Horcrux. >ordering Kreacher to drink the potion: Nikkalmati: Just for starters: Is Regulus a powerful enough wizard to find the boat? Note DD says only a powerful wizard could find it. How did he know he should bring Kreacher and would need his help? I would think he would want to keep as many people out of the loop as possible, especially as Kreacher was sympathetic to LV and Kreacher would not be subject to RAB's orders anyway. RAB was not the head of the household. The potion appears to be a poison. DD is not addled, he is weakened and possibly dying. Kreacher doesn't die. And a biggie - how did RAB get the replacement green potion to fill the basin up? I didn't mean to imply RAB destroyed the horcrux, only that he could have died trying. Query: DD implies that the potion will not kill the drinker immediately because LV would want to know how he had gotten so far past his defenses. Does this mean LV knows the cave has been invaded? Does he have some kind of alarm set up? Nikkalmati Before posting to any list, you MUST read the group's Admin File! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin_Files/HBF_Text__MUST_READ Please use accurate subject headings and snip unnecessary material from posts to which you're replying! Yahoo! Groups Links [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From pegdigrazia at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 13:51:21 2006 From: pegdigrazia at yahoo.com (Peg DiGrazia) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 06:51:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: R.A.B In-Reply-To: <8C826CAFF7A9B71-C20-264@MBLK-D29.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <20060405135121.65794.qmail@web42209.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150549 > Nikkalmati: > There are a lot of problems associated with RAB entering the >cave and replacing the locket with a dummy. I suggested >upthread that he/she switched the locket before it was placed >in the cave by LV and LV didn't know it. Peg: I don't think it's likely that anyone could have switched the locket without LV realizing it. Harry realizes as soon as he sees the locket close up that it's not the same one he saw in the pensieve -- it's too large and the engraved Slytherin mark is missing. I find it hard to believe that Voldemort wouldn't have noticed those details... --------------------------------- Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates starting at 1/min. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From belviso at attglobal.net Wed Apr 5 14:24:09 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (sistermagpie) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 14:24:09 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose (Was Re: lily/snape)/Why I Hate Snape In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150550 Deb here: > > **Applause** for Angie! YES this is what I have been thinking too. > Snape >has to< be nasty to Harry and Neville (and Ron and Hermione > by extension) just to preserve his undercover spy status with LV. Magpie: I have to admit I never understand this reasoning--which sometimes goes along with the idea that he's faking his favor of Slytherins as well, all to preserve his cover. First, there's just no reason he needs to do any of these things. If he's supposed to be a double agent for Dumbledore being nice to Harry--and certainly being nice to random students like Hermione and Neville--would be fine. Look at Moody! He was exactly what Snape is supposed to be and he was friendly to both Harry and Neville and publically humiliated Draco Malfoy. Obviously one can do all those things and still be a very loyal DE. The one time we even hear a DE give someone advice on how to behave towards Harry it's Lucius saying it's "unwise" to appear less than fond of Harry Potter or whatever he says. Did Snape not get the memo? At the very least Snape could be neutral. I don't think he needs years of memories of calling Neville Longbottom a dunderhead to convince LV that he's loyal. Second, if Snape is a good actor, I haven't seen it yet. I've seen scenes where he's covering stuff up--and that alone suggests he's not that great of an actor if I can see it. Sometimes he's even shown trying to cover up some negative thing towards Harry or some positive thing towards, say, Draco, so to suggest he's acting adds another layer (Snape is only pretending to cover up a smile, for instance). I haven't seen anything that suggests that basically his entire personality in canon is an act and so we haven't even met the man yet, really. More importantly, that would be quite a let down and a cheat if, alone of all the characters, Snape is the one person who in the last book just gets his slate wiped clean because any sign of emotion he showed in the past could have been just an act. I think Snape's rotten behavior towards Harry, Ron, Neville and Hermione in particular is covered by the scenes he finds himself in-- you don't even have to look to Voldemort most of the time. In fact, it's probably more interesting if you don't. Deb: I think Snape was very angry and upset when Harry > pursuaded the Sorting Hat to put him in Griffindor that first night > at Hogwarts... if Harry had gone along with the Sorting Hat Snape's > life would have been much much easier!! Magpie: As Sherry pointed out, the Sorting Hat does not want to put Harry in Slytherin, it merely reacts to his own demand to be put anywhere else but by saying he would do well there. It certainly could have been considering Slytherin, but I don't see that that would make much difference to Snape. Deb: After all even LV would understand that a House Master has to be nice to his students .... Magpie: If LV would understand a House Master has to be nice to his students he'd understand a Potions Master should be at best neutral to his students. Who says a House Master would have to be nice anyway? Harry being in Slytherin wouldn't make him any less the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord or any less someone who'd fight with others over the blood supremacy issue. He'd have to "act" even more in that scenario since he'd be dealing more with Harry, be the one to punish him even more often. He might even wind up having to mediate between Harry and other Slytherins. Isn't it much better for him that he has to deal with Harry less? Deb: > at least once in a while. Just that one little choice of Harry's has caused Snape a whole lot of headache, frustration, and worry. Plus > if Snape truly is DDM!Snape (as I strongly suspect he is, though I > know others disagree) he could have kept a much closer guard on > Harry under the guise of being his House Master. Magpie: I really don't think he'd be that much closer to him either way. Deb: > From the night of James and Lily's murders to the time Harry came > to Hogwarts Snape had it fairly easy... he could be surly, testy, > demanding of his Potions students ... but he could also be a real > teacher and reward excellence when he saw it (I doubt that LV was > much interested in relatively "ancient history" vis a vis Snape's > class room doings prior to Harry coming to Hogwarts)... I keep > coming back to the canonical fact that Bill, Percy, and several > others from known DD supporting families passed their Potions OWLs > with flying colors... and I strongly suspect that F & G were taking > NEWTs Potions before they precipitously exited from formal > education. And I think that Snape struggles very hard knowing that > Harry needs to know Potions but he Snape can not tell him in a kind > way ... in a way that Harry will listen to... what he needs to know > and why. Magpie: Students are still passing Potions with flying colors in Harry's years and no one mentions a big change in Snape before Harry shows up. We're told he favors in his own house before Harry even takes his class--and while the Gryffindors who say this might be biased there still is no general idea that he's changed the year Harry shows up. Snape starts the year by saying all students are usually dunderheads--I doubt that before Harry showed up he started the class more like McGonagall or Flitwick, so even that is an act for Harry's sake. Deb: One of the memories I suspect Snape puts into the Pensieve > when he goes to see LV after HBP is the one where Harry actually > thwarts his Legilmens attempt by using the Shield Charm. He actually > breaks down and says "Well done, Potter"... very OOC for the Snape > we know and love or love to hate. Magpie: Actually it doesn't sound OOC to me because he doesn't break down. He grudgingly tells Harry he's done something not completely badly. Which yes, shows that Snape is actually praising Harry for something, and I think it's a good moment looked at that way. It loses something for me if this is supposed to be his real personality coming through. It sounds like he hates complimenting Harry but is doing so because Harry did something right, not like he would love to be complimenting Harry all the time but can't and here he just couldn't stop himself. It's just not written that way, imo. I do think Snape is often trying to protect Harry and is DDM. But I don't think that means his other emotions are an act. That's what makes the books interesting, that we know that whatever the final solution is it will have to take into account all Snape's behavior. That will have to include both his choice to be DDM or LVM as well as his electing to treat certain students the way he does. The Superspy Theory of Everything may seem cool on the surface, but really, imo, it trashes a great if difficult character and leaves nothing in his place. doddiemouse: I hate the fact that Snape seems to detract from Harry's story for the most part... The only time Snape's life was truly "center stage" was occlumency lessons... Magpie: Really? I think Snape's life has been in the background of every single book and he's become more center stage as the series progressed. -m From katbofaye at aol.com Wed Apr 5 04:52:37 2006 From: katbofaye at aol.com (katssirius) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 04:52:37 -0000 Subject: RAB Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150551 Kreacher drank the potion and has never been right since including having problems with reality and memory. Regulus may have asked him to or like Dobby his own loyalty may have put him in harm's way rather than let Regulus be harmed. katssirius relieved someone is correcting the spelling, thanks From h2so3f at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 14:44:45 2006 From: h2so3f at yahoo.com (h2so3f) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 14:44:45 -0000 Subject: R.A.B In-Reply-To: <8C826CAFF7A9B71-C20-264@MBLK-D29.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150552 CH3ed: I think Carol's theory offers the best explanations so far. I also think there must have been a dark mark hovering over Regulus' body the way there was one over Karkaroff's or everybody wouldn't have assumed that he was killed on LV's order. That's the DEs' trademark (and the absence of it is what DD said tipped him off that the scene he and Harry found at Slug's hiding place was faked). CH3ed... still way behind on all the posts, so following by subject at the moment :O) From rdoliver30 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 14:16:12 2006 From: rdoliver30 at yahoo.com (lupinlore) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 14:16:12 -0000 Subject: Snape as infidel/House characteristics In-Reply-To: <442ED1B9.2090602@btopenworld.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150553 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, IreneMikhlin wrote: > The other popular reaction, even scarier for me than the first > one, is the insistence that the only way for Snape character to > achieve satisfactory closure is to have some public humiliation > scene. And as a result, he must acknowledge that Gryffindor ways > are the correct ones. > Oh, absolutely this is, imo, the only satisfactory ending to Snape's story arc, and the one which allows JKR to avoid an abominable and spectacular failure. But I don't know that it has so much to do with Snape acknowledging Gryffindor ways are correct as acknowledging that the Gryffindors are correct, which is a somewhat different thing. The various House characteristics have always struck me as more symbolic than actual. As many have pointed out, Hermione has Ravenclaw traits, Harry Slytherin ones, Neville Hufflepuff qualities, etc. Even the symbolism seems to shift over time, as Slytherin goes from the house of ambition to the house of pure blood and Hufflepuff from the house of hard work to the catch all. The exception to this is, to an extent, Slytherin. I think this is in part due to honest reservations JKR herself has with regard to Slytherin's symbolic house traits -- whether pure blood or ambition. Even in her most positive statement about the dream of house unity she talks of Slytherin as embodying "maybe not the most noble traits." Scarcely a ringing defense. And let's face it, she hasn't shown us any Slytherins who aren't from the wrong side of the moral tracks, be it the unctious and manipulative new potions master, the abusive and unforgiveable old potions master, or the various bullies and losers who dance attendance on Draco (including Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini, upon whom much hope rested). True, we've seen McClaggen and Pettigrew in Gryffindor and Marietta in Ravenclaw -- now we need to see a truly good character in Slytherin (and I don't mean a DDM!Snape, who doesn't qualify as good in any case). But I think the more important reason is for narrative impact. In the early books she needed villains and it worked best for those villains to be grouped together under one banner, i.e. Slytherin. And thus was the house of villainy (or at least venality) born. Lupinlore From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 14:13:25 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 14:13:25 -0000 Subject: R.A.B In-Reply-To: <8C826CAFF7A9B71-C20-264@MBLK-D29.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150554 Nikkalmati wrote: > > There are a lot of problems associated with RAB entering the cave > and replacing the locket with a dummy. I suggested upthread that > he/she switched the locket before it was placed in the cave by LV and > LV didn't know it. Steven1965aaa responds: I agree that there are a lot of problems, i.e. only a very great wizard could've found the boat, how did he replace the potion, etc. But you never know, RAB may have had some useful inside information, maybe there was another person involved, maybe the potion replenished automatically per LV's original spell. Most significantly IMO, as we've seen from Dobby house elves often have unexpected power. But on the other hand, I can't imaging that LV would have been fooled by a switching of the lockets in advance. HArry recognized immediately upon seeing the locket that it was a fake, no slytherin mark, wrong size. The locket was so significant to LV, how could he have failed to notice the obvious differences? IMO house elves are going to have an important role on book 7. Hermione's ethics on this are important, as is Harry's respectful/kind treatment of Dobby. I think Hermione speaks for the author on this issue and that in some way slavery may end and this end will somehow have consequences for both Harry and LV. From iam.kemper at gmail.com Wed Apr 5 15:43:19 2006 From: iam.kemper at gmail.com (Kemper) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 08:43:19 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: R.A.B In-Reply-To: <8C826CAFF7A9B71-C20-264@MBLK-D29.sysops.aol.com> References: <8C826CAFF7A9B71-C20-264@MBLK-D29.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <700201d40604050843m58e692adu91670950627a6172@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150555 > >Carol earlier: > >I don't see the problem with Regulus replacing the locket during VW1 > >if he had Kreacher's help.... We have the locket that no one can open in > 12 GP (or wherever > >it is now), which is surely the real, undestroyed Horcrux. > Nikkalmati responded: Just for starters: Is Regulus a powerful enough wizard to find the boat? Note DD says only a powerful wizard could find it. How did he know he should bring Kreacher and would need his help? I would think he would want to keep as many people out of the loop as possible, especially as Kreacher was sympathetic to LV and Kreacher would not be subject to RAB's orders anyway. RAB was not the head of the household. The potion appears to be a poison. DD is not addled, he is weakened and possibly dying. Kreacher doesn't die. And a biggie - how did RAB get the replacement green potion to fill the basin up? ... Query: DD implies that the potion will not kill the drinker immediately because LV would want to know how he had gotten so far past his defenses. Does this mean LV knows the cave has been invaded? Does he have some kind of alarm set up? .. . Kemper now: Again, I go back to Slughorns comments on the Black brothers. I infer the comments to mean that Slughorn held some kind of regard for Regulus enough so to have wanted the pair of brothers; he did not express wanting one brother over the other. But, again, I'm not ruling out the possibility of Kreacher. Kreacher is a different magical being than Dumbledore, so some kinds of magic may effect him differently than it would Dumbledore. Where Kreacher could be rattled from drinking the potion, Dumbledore is weakened and possibly dying. Kemper, wondering what makes one a 'great' enough wizard to find LV's boat? Was Regulus a great wizard? [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From foxmoth at qnet.com Wed Apr 5 15:43:24 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 15:43:24 -0000 Subject: Why don't we ask why Snape wants Harry and Neville to hate him? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150556 We keep asking why Snape hates Harry and Neville so much, but what if that's the wrong question? What if Snape wants Harry and Neville to hate *him*? Why? Well, of course it helps with his cover. Look how hard it is for us to believe that Snape has their best interests in mind when Harry and Neville have every reason to loathe him. But there's another reason. Neville and Harry are the prophecy boys, and as far as Snape knows, he's the reason they don't have parents. He's not allowed to tell them. But if this is, as Dumbledore says, the greatest regret of his life, how could he bear to have them look up to him or admire him in any way? I wonder if Snape finally found out that the Lestranges knew nothing of the prophecy when they attacked the Longbottoms, and that's why he's no longer picking on Neville in HBP? Pippin From foxmoth at qnet.com Wed Apr 5 16:40:45 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 16:40:45 -0000 Subject: Maligning Lupin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150557 > Christina: > > That's exactly what I'm saying. Lupin may not have had the greatest > opportunities for paid work, but he had the education to do it. > Without the education, there was no hope at all. Lupin knows how to > fish and can only occasionally get to the river. The other werewolves > don't know how to fish at all. Lupin has one obstacle to overcome; > the werewolves have two. Pippin: The problem isn't only the difficulty of getting a magical education, or of persuading people that werewolves can be reliable. Lupin's situation is more like the one in Yentl, if you remember that. It's about a Jewish girl in the old days who disguises herself as a boy in order to become a Talmud scholar. She kind of knows she'll get found out one day, but she's hoping that they'll make an exception for her. Of course they don't. Lupin's in the same sort of situation -- he's got no hope of his chosen career without a revolutionary change in the status of werewolves. Educating werewolves is not enough to bring that aobut. And he's smart enough to realize it. In the movie, Yentl ran off to America. But where can Lupin go ? > > Pippin: > > I'm afraid your disagreement is with Jo: > > > > "It's not possible to live with the Dursleys and not hate them," > > said Harry. "I'd like to see you try it." -- CoS ch 11 > > > Christina: > > Harry and Jo aren't the same people, and Harry is most certainly wrong > in this instance. I highly doubt Jo meant for his comment to be taken > as a fact, as I'm sure there are a great many people who could live > with the Dursleys and be perfectly content, Pippin: Treated as Harry was? I find that hard to believe. It's true that Harry doesn't hate Peter very much, but Peter is already exposed and beaten when Harry realizes what he is. It's no longer necessary to hate him. I don't see a Star Wars style rejection of hatred in canon. Hatred doesn't seem to be the path to the dark side, it's the normal and useful feeling the characters have when they are subjected to injustice. I see nothing in canon to suggest that Harry shouldn't hate the Dursleys, or Umbridge or Snape. Hatred seems to be wrong only when it is displaced from the people whose actions have earned it onto others. So it's okay for Harry to hate Snape when Snape makes a fool out of him at school, but it's not okay for him to hate Snape for the murder of Sirius if Snape is innocent. It's wrong for Malfoy to hate Hermione for being a knowitall or a Muggleborn --he should really hate his father for making impossible demands on him. But that would be dangerous and painful, so he displaces his hate and it becomes bigotry. Christina: > I'm still not seeing the difference. Lupin CAN predict the time of > his transformations, no matter what. > > Also, JKR's explanation makes sense unless you can remember the tiny > reference of the moon passing between the clouds (or somesuch) while > Harry2 and Hermione2 are waiting outside the Shack (while Lupin is in > it, and is still untransformed). JKR is never confronted with that > contradiction, unfortunately. Pippin: But you have to work it out. Canon does not make it obvious, though there's no accounting for the moon's appearance (short of poetic license or error) otherwise. Harry does not seem to know it, and so he has not asked himself why it was that Lupin's transformation came just at the time when it would allow Pettigrew to escape. He's sure it was an accident. But it needn't have been. > > Pippin: > > If Lupin dunnit it isn't just about the Bang. It goes to the heart > > of friendship and bravery, and how Harry perceives his own ability > > to distinguish good from evil and choose the good, which is what > > the story is about. > > Christina: > > I'm dismissive of this as a thematic reason for ESE!Lupin because it's > a theme that we've seen already - Harry is terrible at figuring out > who is good and who is evil, but he's has some lessons. He thinks > James is super awesome until he sees him in the pensieve, and Harry > must then distinguish in his head between the > mean-but-he-grew-out-of-it evil, and the DE!evil. And the seventh > book is already steeped in this particular theme with Snape. I don't > think that ESE!Lupin is a fizzle, but I think that a bangy Lupin > revelation would fizzle everything else, namely whatever JKR has up > her sleeve concerning Snape. In the same way that I have no problem > with answering cool side questions, but there are more important > questions that cannot be overshadowed. > Pippin: But the whole thing about Snape is whether people can do better with second chances, and whether Dumbledore was wise to give him one. Dumbledore does have a weakness of reckless trust, JKR as good as said so. But what does this mean? Does it mean that he should never have given Snape a second chance, or does it mean that second chances are okay but the third or fourth chances which Lupin got are pushing it? If DD's trust in Snape was not misplaced then someone else has to have misled him. If his belief that people should be given second chances is not wrong, then Snape has to have been shown to have made better choices this time. Harry can't really understand that Snape is innocent and redeemed, (if that's the case) unless some other of Voldemort's servants is shown to have more responsibility for the death of Sirius and the catastrophe on the tower than Snape did. He can't forgive Snape for being so bitter (if he does) until he understand that there's more than a schoolboy grudge behind it. Snape can't forgive himself (if he does) until he understands that Voldemort could have learned of the prophecy without him. All of which exposing the real traitor takes care of very nicely. Pippin From BrwNeil at aol.com Wed Apr 5 17:10:14 2006 From: BrwNeil at aol.com (brwneil) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 17:10:14 -0000 Subject: Where will the trio venture? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150558 I've read some really strange and far out guesses as to what is in store for book seven and now I'm about to suggest one of the strangest. Do you think that Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them could give us clues as to where the trio might go in search of parts of Voldemort's soul. I've been using the book as a reference for a fanfic I am writing and have noticed that most of the beasts mentioned in the book have in time shown up in canon. Could those that haven't been mentioned yet be a clue as to the location of a Horcrux? If so, Africa is at the top of the list. Neil From willsonkmom at msn.com Wed Apr 5 17:24:04 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 17:24:04 -0000 Subject: Why don't we ask why Snape wants Harry and Neville to hate him? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150559 Pippin wrote: > > We keep asking why Snape hates Harry and Neville so much, > but what if that's the wrong question? What if Snape wants > Harry and Neville to hate *him*? > > Why? Well, of course it helps with his cover. Look how hard it > is for us to believe that Snape has their best interests in mind > when Harry and Neville have every reason to loathe him. > > But there's another reason. Neville and Harry are the prophecy > boys, and as far as Snape knows, he's the reason they don't > have parents. He's not allowed to tell them. But if this is, as > Dumbledore says, the greatest regret of his life, how could > he bear to have them look up to him or admire him in any way? Potioncat: Think pre-HBP for a moment, or at least think, a DDM!Snape would not have expected to one day kill DD in front of Harry. If the boys never have reason to trust him or to have any fondness for him; he could not be expected to manipulate them in the way Crouch!Moody did. Nor would he have to be as concerned about what LV might be able to Legilimens out of them. Hermione was surprised that Snape wasn't nicer after the summer of reporting to 12GP. I think the last thing he would want is for any of the Trio to have trusting thoughts about him. Yes, of course, if they did, he could say he was "acting" just as C!M had been. But I think he's safer not taking that route. Besides, it fits his nature better. I'm not sure if the next example came up in this thread or another, but someone mentioned the time Snape prevented Harry from seeing DD. (GoF, when Harry is trying to tell DD about Mr. Crouch.) Yeah, Snape was a real pain in that scene. I think he was staying in character and keeping Harry occupied while DD prepared to come down. We know Snape had been reporting to DD about the Dark Mark growing darker; it seems they had been making plans for the eventual summons. I think they had just had a planning session and DD was gathering his thoughts from the Pensieve and was on his way down. Snape came down to keep Harry close by. Yeah, I know. He could have said, "Wait here Potter. The Headmaster will be down in his own good time. He heard you. I dare say, the entire village of Hogsmeade heard you. Goodnight." But where's the fun in that? From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 17:37:26 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 17:37:26 -0000 Subject: R.A.B In-Reply-To: <8C826CAFF7A9B71-C20-264@MBLK-D29.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150560 Carol earlier: > >I don't see the problem with Regulus replacing the locket during VW1 if he had Kreacher's help, though I very much doubt that he, a boy of about eighteen, could have destroyed the Horcrux or that he was killed by it. We have the locket that no one can open in 12 GP (or wherever it is now), which is surely the real, undestroyed Horcrux. Nikkalmati responded: > Just for starters: Is Regulus a powerful enough wizard to find the boat? Note DD says only a powerful wizard could find it. How did he know he should bring Kreacher and would need his help? I would think he would want to keep as many people out of the loop as possible, especially as Kreacher was sympathetic to LV and Kreacher would not be subject to RAB's orders anyway. RAB was not the head of the household. The potion appears to be a poison. DD is not addled, he is weakened and possibly dying. Kreacher doesn't die. And a biggie - how did RAB get the replacement green potion to fill the basin up? > I didn't mean to imply RAB destroyed the horcrux, only that he could have died trying. Query: DD implies that the potion will not kill the drinker immediately because LV would want to know how he had gotten so far past his defenses. Does this mean LV knows the cave has been invaded? Does he have some kind of alarm set up? Carol responds: Evidently you didn't go back to the post I linked to, which provides possible (and IMO plausible) answers to most of those questions. In my scenario, Regulus wouldn't need to be a powerful wizard: Bellatrix had already found the cave and the boat based on LV's descriptions, and Kreacher accompanied her, so he also knew how to enter the cave and summon the boat. (Quite possibly he donated the blood needed to get in and out of the cave as a willing sacrifice to "Miss Bellatrix's" cause. I can't see Bella using her own if she can use his.) Kreacher would not have had to drink the potion when he was with Bellatrix because she was putting it *into* the pensievelike bowl, but he would have had to drink it for Regulus so that Regulus could remove the true Horcrux without dying or becoming incapacitated. After Regulus replaced the Horcrux with a similar locket, the bowl, not knowing the difference, would refill itself. I don't think it matters that Regulus wasn't the head ofthe Black family; Kreacher would still be bound to obey his orders even if it meant betraying his beloved Bellatrix (a niece rather than a son of his master and mistress) and drinking that horrible potion, which would almost certainly have killed Regulus, who would not have trusted Kreacher to steal it for him and keep it out of LV's or Bellatrix's hands if he, Regulus, died in the cave. Granted, *Kreacher* didn't die from drinking the potion/poisoned memory, but the effects may have been different on a House Elf than on a wizard. There is no question that Kreacher is addled, and this scenario provides an explanation for his mental state. As for LV knowing that the cave has been invaded and the Horcrux stolen, AFWK, there's no indication that he does. He didn't even know that the diary had been destroyed, nor does he seem to know about the ring. (Note how carefully Snape keeps the nature of DD's "serious injury" from Bellatrix.) I can only explain DD's words to Harry about the potion not killing the drinker immediately as intended to persuade him to keep on feeding DD the poison. Getting the Horcrux was more important to DD than his own life. (On a side note, DD's sacrifice here, though tragic, is not wasted; Harry would never have known about RAB, his clue to the whereabouts of the real locket, without it.) FWIW, here's my Bellatrix scenario as originally posted in message 145831, with a few additions in square brackets (I'm viewing the potion as a poisoned memory, but that's not essential to the theory): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/145831 "After hearing the Prophecy and realizing that the mere existence of his Horcruxes is not sufficient to guarantee his immortality, Voldemort assigns the fanatically loyal Bellatrix the task of hiding his locket, giving her the exact location of the cave and directions to follow in hiding it and providing her with the potion/memory to place in the pensievelike bowl, which for the sake of simplicity we'll assume is already in the cave. To impress on her the importance of her mission, he actually entrusts Bellatrix with the secret that it's a Horcrux (though not that it's one of six). Bellatrix, feeling honored by this assignment but afraid that she can't do it alone (and well aware of the consequences of failure), borrows her dear aunt's devoted house-elf, Kreacher (whom we know to be devoted to "Miss Bellatrix"), to help her with her task. (Regulus overhears this request.) Trusting entirely to Kreacher's loyalty and not crediting him with intelligence equal to a human's, she lets slip that the thing she's hiding is a Horcrux. "Already having been Crucio'd for refusing to torture or kill a Muggle (or some similar assignment) and knowing that his days are numbered, Regulus is determined to defy Voldemort by thwarting Bellatrix's mission. He questions Kreacher about his excursion and discovers that Bellatrix has hidden a locket in a cave and that she refers to the locket as a Horcrux. After discovering what a Horcrux is (if he doesn't know already), Regulus writes the note to LV, buys a locket superficially similar to the one Kreacher describes, and then orders Kreacher to take him to the cave. The boat [which Kreacherlocates] takes them both across to the island, not sensing the presence of Kreacher (as other posters have already speculated). Regulus orders Kreacher to drink the poisoned memory/potion (which addles his brains permanently), substitutes the locket with the note inside for the Horcrux, and returns home with the Horcrux, which he, being barely a fully qualified wizard and not particularly skilled at curse-breaking, is unable to open and consequently destroy. A short time later, he defies the DEs by refusing to perform an Unforgiveable Curse (or whatever) and is murdered, perhaps by his own dear cousin Bellatrix. Meanwhile, the pensievelike bowl, sensing a locket inside it and unable to detect the substitution, fills up again, renewing its magical protection for the fake Horcrux, and the real Horcrux remains in 12 GP until Sirius tries to throw it out and its retrieved by Kreacher (or Mundungus steals it). "This scenario (I'm not calling it a theory yet) would explain how Bellatrix knew that LV wasn't dead when he was vaporized at Godric's Hollow [she knew LV had a Horcrux that would prevent his death even if his body was destroyed] and how Regulus could know about the locket Horcrux and where to find it [and how to find the boat, etc.]. It also ties in with Kreacher's devotion to Bellatrix, with her words to Snape about being trusted with LV's "most precious" secrets or missions, and with Kreacher's all-too-evident insanity." Again, this is only a scenario and not a theory, but I think it answers the most difficult questions, notably how Regulus found out about the Horcrux in the first place, how he knew where it was hidden and what to do when he got there, how he obtained the Horcrux without drinking the potion/poisoned memory, and how the pensievelike bowl was refilled without his knowing how to prepare the potion himself. (That would make young Reggie a Dark wizard indeed!) Carol, with apologies for the repetition, but we "oldbies" generally prefer to resuscitate our old posts rather than write them again from scratch From willsonkmom at msn.com Wed Apr 5 17:56:21 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 17:56:21 -0000 Subject: Fat Rant Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150561 Potioncat here, a little taken aback by JKR's website. She rants, very appropriately, about the push for girls to be uber-thin. Here's a quote from her piece found in "extras": >>>His bemusement at this everyday feature of female existence reminded me how strange and sick the 'fat' insult is. I mean, is 'fat' really the worst thing a human being can be? Is 'fat' worse than 'vindictive', 'jealous', 'shallow', 'vain', 'boring' or 'cruel'? Not to me; but then, you might retort, what do I know about the pressure to be skinny? I'm not in the business of being judged on my looks, what with being a writer and earning my living by using my brain...<<< I agree fully with JKR, don't get me wrong. And yeah, I know Molly is plump. (She's one of the good guys, for the record.) But really, take a look at how JKR generally portrays overweight people in the series. Dudley? Crabbe? Goyle? Vernon? Umbridge? Yes there are bad thin guys too: Snape, Dark Lord, Petunia... My 10 year old once pointed it out, because at the time he was chubby. One of the bad guys was being made fun because of his weight, not because he was a real jerk. I just wonder if JKR knows she's doing all most the same thing as the media she complains about? Potioncat From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 18:11:23 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 18:11:23 -0000 Subject: Maligning Lupin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150562 Pippin wrote: But you have to work it out. Canon does not make it > obvious, though there's no accounting for the moon's appearance > (short of poetic license or error) otherwise. Harry does not seem to > know it, and so he has not asked himself why it was that > Lupin's transformation came just at the time when it would allow > Pettigrew to escape. He's sure it was an accident. But it needn't > have been. Carol responds: Poetic license, maybe, and the fact that Lupin has been taking his potion for the rest of the week but forgets it at the worst possible time. But we don't need to resort to Lupin's iniquity to explain the situation. There's the DADA curse, simultaneously working to expose Lupin and to aid Voldemort by returning his servant Wormtail to him. IMO, the DADA curse explains everything--why Lupin kept the map rather than turning it in to DD and confessing all his secrets, why Lupin happened to be looking at the map just as Sirius Black/Padfoot was dragging Ron (with Pettigrew in his pocket) into the tunnel, why Lupin left the map open for Snape to see, why Lupin rushed out without his potion on a full-moon night, why Snape arrived two minutes too late to give it to him, why Lupin transformed when he did, allowing Pettigrew to escape and restore LV to "human" form. Coincidence? Not if LV's will in the form of the DADA curse is at work. > Pippin: > But the whole thing about Snape is whether people can do better with > second chances, and whether Dumbledore was wise to give him > one. Carol: Exactly. Pippin: > Harry can't really understand that Snape is innocent and redeemed, (if that's the case) unless some other of Voldemort's servants is shown to have more responsibility for the death of Sirius and the catastrophe on the tower than Snape did. He can't forgive Snape for being so bitter (if he does) until he understand that there's more than a schoolboy grudge behind it. Carol: Setting aside the tower incident, which doesn't require ESE!Lupin for DDM!Snape to have made the only possible choice (the lesser of two evils, etc.), I agree with you that Harry has shifted the blame for Sirius Black's death onto Snape. (IMO, it's because he can't face his own role in bringing Black to the MoM and/or Black's own arrogant recklessness as he fought Bellatrix too near the Veil.) But the servant of Voldemort primarily responsible for Black's death is known to Harry. He saw her murder his godfather. He just prefers to blame Snape--as he himself seems to know but not fully acknowledge. (I can find the quotes if needed.) Carol, agreeing with Pippin that there's more to DDM!Snape than a schoolboy grudge but not that Lupin is ESE! (Ever So Weak, maybe) From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Wed Apr 5 18:39:27 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 14:39:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Where will the trio venture? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060405183927.25661.qmail@web37002.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150563 brwneil wrote: (snipped) Most of the beasts mentioned in the book (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) have in time shown up in canon. Could those that haven't been mentioned yet be a clue as to the location of a Horcrux? If so, Africa is at the top of the list. Catherine: I thought that JKR said in an interview that Harry has been everywhere he needs to know in or by OotP for his hunting. TMR/VDM I think will have hidden them within Britain. Places that are special to him. Maybe somewhere at the orphange, diagon alley/the leaky cauldron, Hogwarts itself.....I think he hid them in places where he learned/did some extreme magic. It doesn't seem in his character to travel the world to hide them. Just as he chooses his objects carefully, I believe he takes as much care to choosing the locations. Catherine Before posting to any list, you MUST read the group's Admin File! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin_Files/HBF_Text__MUST_READ Please use accurate subject headings and snip unnecessary material from posts to which you're replying! SPONSORED LINKS Adult education Culture club Organizational culture --------------------------------- YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "HPforGrownups" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: HPforGrownups-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. --------------------------------- --------------------------------- Share your photos with the people who matter at Yahoo! Canada Photos [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From kchuplis at alltel.net Wed Apr 5 18:58:33 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (kchuplis) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 18:58:33 -0000 Subject: Fat Rant In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150564 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" wrote: > > Potioncat here, a little taken aback by JKR's website. She rants, very > appropriately, about the push for girls to be uber-thin. Here's a > quote from her piece found in "extras": > > >>>His bemusement at this everyday feature of female existence > reminded me how strange and sick the 'fat' insult is. I mean, is 'fat' > really the worst thing a human being can be? Is 'fat' worse > than 'vindictive', 'jealous', 'shallow', 'vain', 'boring' or 'cruel'? > Not to me; but then, you might retort, what do I know about the > pressure to be skinny? I'm not in the business of being judged on my > looks, what with being a writer and earning my living by using my > brain...<<< > > > I agree fully with JKR, don't get me wrong. And yeah, I know Molly is > plump. (She's one of the good guys, for the record.) But really, take > a look at how JKR generally portrays overweight people in the series. > Dudley? Crabbe? Goyle? Vernon? Umbridge? > Yes there are bad thin guys too: Snape, Dark Lord, Petunia... > > My 10 year old once pointed it out, because at the time he was chubby. > One of the bad guys was being made fun because of his weight, not > because he was a real jerk. > > I just wonder if JKR knows she's doing all most the same thing as the > media she complains about? kchuplis: Well, to be honest, I think we are talking about "gluttony" as in "greedy" when it comes to the characters you refer too, which is different than this constant pressure to be Kate Moss that girls undergo and yes, being called FAT at 130 lbs. I believe that her point was what is actually "normal" weight for girls is now often looked upon as being "fat" and that yes, it is something people seem to abhor. Perhaps it is dawning on her now (after all, she is quite the attractive lady, but has now had to fight the battle of age and getting back in shape). Oddly enough, my supervisor related seeing a relative she had not seen in a long time yesterday and the opening comment her relative had was "you look great for your size". Now, my super is maybe 30 lbs overweight. This really is a problem. I have seen it for years (mostly men) saying how this actress or that is FAT when they are skinny. Finally, I have begun to see a bit of turn of tide on the internet for the most part. I now am seeing comments like "feed that girl a hamburger". HOwever, it is a slow tide to turn. I can see the apparent dilemma about her characters in Potterverse and these statements but you also must recall that these characters were conceived a very long time ago. Like everyone else JKR is allowed to grow and learn. I suppose there are more baddies who are described as overweight, but there is also skinny Piers Polkiss and Lucias is certainly urbane and portrayed as slender as well as the Mrs., Draco, Bella, LV himself is always described as slim. So really, she is focusing on the character. THere are plenty of slender villains as well. She may easily become more sensative to that particular part of writing from here on out but I don't seeing as being directly hypocritical. (and I am one of those buxom girls who was thought fat because she was 38-29-38 and not a twig. I know NOW that they were oh so wrong, but I truly believed it in High School). From belviso at attglobal.net Wed Apr 5 20:25:41 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (sistermagpie) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 20:25:41 -0000 Subject: Fat Rant In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150565 > kchuplis: > > Well, to be honest, I think we are talking about "gluttony" as > in "greedy" when it comes to the characters you refer too, which is > different than this constant pressure to be Kate Moss that girls > undergo and yes, being called FAT at 130 lbs. I believe that her > point was what is actually "normal" weight for girls is now often > looked upon as being "fat" and that yes, it is something people seem > to abhor. Perhaps it is dawning on her now (after all, she is quite > the attractive lady, but has now had to fight the battle of age and > getting back in shape). Oddly enough, my supervisor related seeing a > relative she had not seen in a long time yesterday and the opening > comment her relative had was "you look great for your size". Now, my > super is maybe 30 lbs overweight. This really is a problem. I have > seen it for years (mostly men) saying how this actress or that is FAT > when they are skinny. Finally, I have begun to see a bit of turn of > tide on the internet for the most part. I now am seeing comments > like "feed that girl a hamburger". HOwever, it is a slow tide to > turn. Magpie: In my experience "feed that girl a hamburger" has been the standard thing to say for at least 10 years. And rants like JKR's already exist in all the fashion magazines right next to tips about dieting. The weight issue is far more complex than the evil media making girls want to starve themselves. Girls are starving themselves. At the same time in the US, for instance, the average weight has gotten bigger and bigger in the last 20 years, and studies indicate that no, we're not particularly bothered by it. In fact I think advertisers are figuring this out now too. Just as fat is considered taboo, it's also considered just fine. That's what bugs me about easy "that celebrity is anorexic!" stuff. Not that there aren't anorexic celebrities; I'm sure there are, and if someone looks unhealthy or sick you'd expect people to comment on it. But to me it just encourages this swing from one extreme to the other: someone that thin "must" be anorexic, imo, suggests this idea that you're either "normal" (even if normal means unhealthily overweight) or "anorexic." Just as at the other end of the spectrum having breasts is considered fat. You can't do anything about it one way or another, so there's no reason to consider changing. Within canon, for me I don't think there's some line drawn between thin/good people and bad/fat people. But there are scenes where I'm uncomfortably aware of the way fat seems to be portrayed. It's hard for me to just pass an easy judgment on it since okay, if someone is very overweight it shouldn't be out of bounds to suggest that they overeat or whatever. But the pudgier characters do seem often trapped by their gluttony and their size often seems far more surreal than the thinness of the thin people. Dudley's a killer whale who takes up the whole side of the table, Slughorn takes up half a store iirc. Both of them seem like walking garbage disposals who steal and eat anything. (Even Crabbe and Goyle are pranked with laced cakes and pudgy Neville eats the canary cream). And it doesn't seem like their relationship with food is ever treated with any particular compassion or anything. They just like candy. In real life I think I'd find someone like this sad and disturbing rather than anything to laugh at. So I don't know...I've got no problem with the idea that women should be judged on things other than their weight. I quite agree with it. But it still seems about as daring a thing to say as doing a rant about how racism is bad. Weight just seems to have become a huge issue in western society that can't be reduced to thin models and the bad media, or some people being unable to not eat anything put in front of them. -m From hickengruendler at yahoo.de Wed Apr 5 20:16:44 2006 From: hickengruendler at yahoo.de (hickengruendler) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 20:16:44 -0000 Subject: Fat Rant In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150566 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" wrote: > > Potioncat here, a little taken aback by JKR's website. She rants, very > appropriately, about the push for girls to be uber-thin. Here's a > quote from her piece found in "extras": > > > I agree fully with JKR, don't get me wrong. And yeah, I know Molly is > plump. (She's one of the good guys, for the record.) But really, take > a look at how JKR generally portrays overweight people in the series. > Dudley? Crabbe? Goyle? Vernon? Umbridge? > Yes there are bad thin guys too: Snape, Dark Lord, Petunia... > > My 10 year old once pointed it out, because at the time he was chubby. > One of the bad guys was being made fun because of his weight, not > because he was a real jerk. > > I just wonder if JKR knows she's doing all most the same thing as the > media she complains about? > Potioncat > Hickengruendler: As someone who is overweight himself (and right now after the winter to an extent that I definitely need to lose some pounds ;-) ) I was never much bothered by her portrayal of the "fat" characters. The reason for this is, that with one exception, namely Wormtail, the fat villains are caricatures. They are overdrawn on purpose, both in the way they look and the way they act. Petunia's long neck and her skinny bones are the counterpoint to the (literally) heavyness of the male Dursleys. The handsome Lockhart is just as overdrawn as the horribly (and fat) looking Umbridge, and both are repulsive in their own ways. This, like already said, only leaves Wormtail as an overweight (or formerly) villain, who is not a caricature. And there are some sympathetic "fat" people as well: Molly, Neville, Professor Sprout and I would add The Fat Lady, Slughorn and Myrtle to that list. However, they are generally described more carefully than the villains, especially Neville and Molly. It are only the villains or antagonists who call them "fat", while the narrator normally describes Neville (to use him as an example) as round-faced. The villains have no such luck and get often described in the most unflattering terms. Hickengruendler From jsfigiel at aol.com Wed Apr 5 15:47:01 2006 From: jsfigiel at aol.com (jsfigiel at aol.com) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 11:47:01 EDT Subject: Lily/Snape Message-ID: <318.1d56de5.31654075@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150567 Steven1965aaa wrote: IMO Snape's "worst memory" was calling Lily a mudblood. If he felt unrequited love for her, that was the moment whan he blew any chance which he ever may have thought he had. Even if it was just a matter of Lily being someone who was kind to him, that would also be a particularly bad memory for him, the moment when he said something so hurtful to her that it ended the "friendship". Jamie: I really think you've hit it on the head here. I also think that the relationship between James' gang and Snape was never good similar to the way Harry and Draco's gang reacts to each other. If Snape did have a thing for Lily and wanted it to go further it would make sense that doing something to ruin that would upset him. I don't think however that it was reciprocated. I still believe that James did what he could to "attract" attention from Lily and despite her reaction to him in the scene I think her attention opened the door for him just as he wanted. Remember he was popular at school and there are many people who show disdain for the popular kids but secretly want to be a part of the group! I also want to address something in an earlier thread. Am I missing the timeline here? I don't believe PP could have told DD about what happened at GH. He was presumed dead after the incident and going to him would have blown his cover. Only Sirius knew he was still alive and he was wisked away to Azkaban before he could tell anybody. Was there some time in between the incident with Sirius and LV at GH that I am missing? [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From nykaren24 at aol.com Wed Apr 5 18:03:10 2006 From: nykaren24 at aol.com (Karen Jones) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 18:03:10 -0000 Subject: MOM battle in OOTP Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150568 Hi, This is my first post, so please forgive me if this question has already been discussed to death. I was rereading OOTP the other day, and something struck me about the battle at the MOM at the end of the book. Harry starts out at the MOM with Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna and Neville. However, by the time he reaches the Veil Room for the final showdown with the Death Eaters, only he and Neville are left. All of the others have been incapacitated in some way and are in other rooms. I also noticed that Neville didn't make it far in this last battle before being pretty much taken out of commission by the Jelly-Legs Jinx and his broken nose. Of the two of them, only Harry is still standing when the Order members burst in. Knowing what we now know about the prophecy, do you think this was a foreshadowing/hint from JKR? Am I the last person on Earth to notice it? Karen From muellem at bc.edu Wed Apr 5 20:57:26 2006 From: muellem at bc.edu (colebiancardi) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 20:57:26 -0000 Subject: R.A.B. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150569 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Kelley" wrote: > > I pulled up some old messages/discussions from the archives a few > days ago to send to a member offlist, and given the thread going > on right now, I thought maybe some other folks would be interested > in reading them, too: > colebiancardi writes: and here is my pet theory about RAB and Snape....:) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/135011 tooting my own horn, so to speak. colebiancardi From latoya741988 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 13:19:54 2006 From: latoya741988 at yahoo.com (latoya lynch) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 06:19:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Dean Thomas, the Weasley Cousins, and Character Backstories In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060405131954.37510.qmail@web54708.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150570 Potioncat wrote: > No, I think it'll go like this: > > Molly will lead Harry to one corner of the yard where a great number > of young people are standing. "Oh, good, you know everyone here!" > she says and dashes away before Harry can protest that he doesn't > know any of them. > > Gathering all the courage he can, he holds out his hand and says to > the closest one, "Hello, I'm Harry Potter." > > "Yes, I know. We have Transfiguration together. I'm in Ravenclaw" > > The next person says, "We're in DADA together, Hufflepuff." > > The next three or four say something along the line of, " Third > year, Gryffindor..." and so on. latoya: I think it will go like this. Molly will take Ron and Harry to the back before the wedding to tell them their part in the wedding, while doing so a girl walks up to ask a question about where to go and Molly introduces her and before she get the name out Harry will say, " I know who she is, she's in my potions class," and it will continue down the line with more Hogwarts students. From latoya741988 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 13:35:04 2006 From: latoya741988 at yahoo.com (latoya lynch) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 06:35:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: DADA Message-ID: <20060405133504.93208.qmail@web54701.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150571 I mean really, there are plenty of classes taught at Hogwarts, how come it's always something wrong with the Defense Against Dark Arts teachers. Can it really be that hard? latoya From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 21:27:29 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 21:27:29 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose (Was Re: lily/snape) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150572 Betsy Hp: [edited to add] This may be a second post, but I fear Yahoo ate my first one. :( *************** > >>Angie: > > I've always thought that his cruelty toward Harry and Neville in > particular was at least partially for his own protection... > > >>Deb: > > Snape >has to< be nasty to Harry and Neville (and Ron and Hermione > by extension) just to preserve his undercover spy status with LV. > > >>Magpie: > I have to admit I never understand this reasoning--which sometimes > goes along with the idea that he's faking his favor of Slytherins > as well, all to preserve his cover. > > The Superspy Theory of Everything may seem cool on the surface, but > really, imo, it trashes a great if difficult character and leaves > nothing in his place. Betsy Hp: I agree with Magpie. Snape is Snape is Snape. I seem to recall Sydney predicting that when the big reveal of Snape is done, those who've always hated him will continue to do so, and those who've always loved him will continue to do so. He's a character type that can be hard to snuggle up to, but IMO, what makes him prickly makes him so very, very fascinating (and not a little sexy ). There isn't a need for him to be nasty to Neville, and in fact, I'd say he'd be shocked if someone accused him of doing so. Or at least, being nasty for personal reasons. To Snape's mind, he's just doing his job as a teacher. Harry is his own story, and I think there are many different things going on there, yet to be revealed. I suspect Snape isn't sure of what all motivates him with regards to Harry (or he may choose not to examine it too closely). In the end, I think Snape is one of the more honest characters in the Potterverse. He is who he is and, for a spy, he doesn't do much to hide it. > >>Katssirius: > > Snape is cruel towards Neville because he is weak. Surely Neville > is not the only timid or clumsy student at Hogwarts in their house > or even in their year. Snape punishes Neville for not > succeeding. Why should he care in particular about Neville? Betsy Hp: Snape cares about Neville because he's a dedicated teacher, IMO. He does everything he can to drag Neville, kicking and screaming, through Potions. No, Neville is not the first, nor will he be the last challenging student to pass through Hogwarts. But he's the clumsiest student *Harry* sees. There may be a Hufflepuff or a Ravenclaw as terrified of Snape as Neville is, in their year. But Harry will never witness Snape swooping down on their as wrong as it possibly can be potion because he's not in their class. > >>Pippin: > We keep asking why Snape hates Harry and Neville so much, > but what if that's the wrong question? What if Snape wants > Harry and Neville to hate *him*? > Betsy Hp: I really don't think it's ever been personal with Neville. Remember, Neville had to call attention to *himself* in PS/SS (the melted cauldron) for Snape to even start on him. Whereas Snape came gunning for Harry immediately. And not, I think, for purely calculated reasons. > >>Pippin: > I wonder if Snape finally found out that the Lestranges knew > nothing of the prophecy when they attacked the Longbottoms, and > that's why he's no longer picking on Neville in HBP? Betsy Hp: Or, maybe Neville doesn't screw up in DADA as he did in Potions after all his one-on-one training with Harry the year before. IIRC, Snape doesn't pick on Neville that much past PoA, where Neville had his biggest Potions crises and needed the most help. Also, Snape *never* makes it personal with Neville. Never. It is always Neville's abilities as a student, not his crazy parents or his grandmother's disappointment in him, that get brought up. If Snape really wanted to make life hell for Neville, he's ignored some pretty powerful ammunition, IMO. Betsy Hp, who missed talking about Snape and is eyeing all those "too much Snape!" posters with caution From hickengruendler at yahoo.de Wed Apr 5 21:33:16 2006 From: hickengruendler at yahoo.de (hickengruendler) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 21:33:16 -0000 Subject: MOM battle in OOTP In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150573 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Karen Jones" wrote: > > Hi, > This is my first post, so please forgive me if this question has > already been discussed to death. > I was rereading OOTP the other day, and something struck me about the > battle at the MOM at the end of the book. Harry starts out at the MOM > with Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna and Neville. However, by the time he > reaches the Veil Room for the final showdown with the Death Eaters, > only he and Neville are left. All of the others have been incapacitated > in some way and are in other rooms. > > I also noticed that Neville didn't make it far in this last battle > before being pretty much taken out of commission by the Jelly-Legs Jinx > and his broken nose. Of the two of them, only Harry is still standing > when the Order members burst in. > > Knowing what we now know about the prophecy, do you think this was a > foreshadowing/hint from JKR? Am I the last person on Earth to notice it? > > Karen > Hickengruendler: First of all, Welcome. :-) And yes, I do think it was symbolical that Harry and Neville were the last ones standing fighting for the prophecy, seeing that it were them, about whom it could have been. I also think it possible, that the fact that the boys destroyed the prophecy in the end might be some foreshadowing as well, in that they (and Harry especially) take the fate in their own hands. Harry being the last one standing was IMO not some foreshadwoing, but simply logical, since he was the one, who had the most experiences. Hickengruendler From lizzy1933 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 21:02:27 2006 From: lizzy1933 at yahoo.com (lizzy1933) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 21:02:27 -0000 Subject: Why I hate Snape.. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150575 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "doddiemoemoe" wrote: > >> 3. HOW ON EARTH could Quirrelmort get by ALL the traps, let alone > SNAPE'S (and if he got by Shape's puzzle/trap...how was there enough > potion for Harry/Hermione?!?!?) > > Which leads me to wonder why/how the Voldy got through it all. (all > except for DD's) > > My guess is that Voldy may have had assistance from Snape in book > one!(I simply cannot get around the "potion puzzle"..and still have > difficulty with Snape's bleeding leg after the Troll incident). > > This is why I don't think that Snape is "DDM"... > > If Snape was DDM then I believe Snape would have known about the > mirror... I'm not quite clear about this . . . are you saying that Voldemort wasn't smart enough to get to the mirror and actually needed the assistance of Snape? Very likely Snape (or anyone else) didn't know about the mirror because AD didn't tell anyone. I think we've seen that AD isn't necessarily forthcoming about his plans. Lizzie Lilly From coriolan at worldnet.att.net Wed Apr 5 22:02:52 2006 From: coriolan at worldnet.att.net (Caius Marcius) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 22:02:52 -0000 Subject: DADA In-Reply-To: <20060405133504.93208.qmail@web54701.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150576 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, latoya lynch wrote: > > I mean really, there are plenty of classes taught at Hogwarts, how come it's always something wrong with the Defense Against Dark Arts teachers. Can it really be that hard? > In addition to being a superb plot device which allows JKR to introduce a fascinating new character in every book, I'm sure you must recall that Lord Voldemort, stung by Dumbledore's refusal to give him the job some years back, seems to have put a curse on the DADA position - to quote the end of HBP's 20th chapter: "Oh, he definitely wanted the Defense Against the Dark Arts job," said Dumbledore. "The aftermath of our little meeting proved that. You see, we have never been able to keep a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher for longer than a year since I refused the post to Lord Voldemort." - CMC From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 15:28:31 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 15:28:31 -0000 Subject: Snape as infidel/House characteristics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150577 Lupinlore wrote: > The various House characteristics have always struck me as more symbolic than actual. As many have pointed out, Hermione has Ravenclaw traits, Harry Slytherin ones, Neville Hufflepuff qualities, etc. Even the symbolism seems to shift over time, as Slytherin goes from the house of ambition to the house of pure blood and Hufflepuff from the house of hard work to the catch all. The exception to this is, to an extent, Slytherin. I think this is in part due to honest reservations JKR herself has with regard to Slytherin's symbolic house traits -- whether pure blood or ambition. Even in her most positive statement about the dream of house unity she talks of Slytherin as embodying "maybe not the most noble traits." Scarcely a ringing defense. And let's face it, she hasn't shown us any Slytherins who aren't from the wrong side of the moral tracks, be it the unctious and manipulative new potions master, the abusive and unforgiveable old potions master, or the various bullies and losers who dance attendance on Draco (including Theodore Nott and Blaise Zabini, upon whom much hope rested). True, we've seen McClaggen and Pettigrew in Gryffindor and Marietta in Ravenclaw -- now we need to see a truly good character in Slytherin (and I don't mean a DDM!Snape, who doesn't qualify as good in any case). [Much snipped] Steven1965aaa writes: One interesting thing about Harry in this respect is that he has characteristice of each of the houses. This is made clear from the statements of the Sorting Hat in SS right from the outset (not a bad mind - Ravenclaw; you'd do well in Slytherin; if your sure, then its Gyyffindor) (not exact quotes I'm paraphrasing). From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Wed Apr 5 22:29:20 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 18:29:20 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Why I hate Snape.. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060405222920.99974.qmail@web37010.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150578 "doddiemoemoe" wrote: > >> 3. HOW ON EARTH could Quirrelmort get by ALL the traps, let alone > SNAPE'S (and if he got by Shape's puzzle/trap...how was there enough > potion for Harry/Hermione?!?!?) catherine now: Well, obviously there would be enough potion for Hermione to get back through the flames as Quirrelmort went forward through them, so would never have touched that bottle. And the reason Hermione went back was because there was only a small sip left from the bottle to go forwards. I would guess that it wouldn't have been enough to protect a full-grown adult, but just enough left over for a smaller-than-average 11-year-old boy. Catherine --------------------------------- Make free worldwide PC-to-PC calls. Try the new Yahoo! Canada Messenger with Voice [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Wed Apr 5 22:42:12 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 18:42:12 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: the Weasley Cousins, In-Reply-To: <20060405131954.37510.qmail@web54708.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060405224212.62786.qmail@web37009.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150579 latoya: I think it will go like this. Molly introduces her and before she get the name out Harry will say, " I know who she is, she's in my potions class," and it will continue down the line with more Hogwarts students. Catherine now: Except we know that 1) Family names are passed down from the father 2)Mr. Weasley has only brothers. Therefore, any Weasley cousins would also have to be Weasleys. So either they were killed, or moved to other countries and attend other wizarding institutions. Or JKR didn't think ahead this far and now has to write herself out of this little conundrum.... Catherine --------------------------------- Enrich your life at Yahoo! Canada Finance [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com Wed Apr 5 22:48:01 2006 From: irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com (IreneMikhlin) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 23:48:01 +0100 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Snape as infidel/House characteristics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44344921.2010904@btopenworld.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150580 lupinlore wrote: > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, IreneMikhlin > wrote: >> The other popular reaction, even scarier for me than the first >> one, is the insistence that the only way for Snape character to >> achieve satisfactory closure is to have some public humiliation >> scene. And as a result, he must acknowledge that Gryffindor ways >> are the correct ones. >> > > Oh, absolutely this is, imo, the only satisfactory ending to Snape's > story arc, and the one which allows JKR to avoid an abominable and > spectacular failure. But I don't know that it has so much to do > with Snape acknowledging Gryffindor ways are correct as > acknowledging that the Gryffindors are correct, which is a somewhat > different thing. That's exactly the point of view that strengthens my opinion that Rowling has created a story arc not far removed from Shylock. The funny thing is, she could easily do it without ever meaning to. See her rant against "media for anorexia" campaign, when she herself is as full of stereotypes on the issue as any glossy magazine. Irene From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 23:03:20 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 23:03:20 -0000 Subject: Words have consequences / Political positions of the characters In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150582 > >>Amiable Dorsai: > OK, I'm going to try to explain myself with a minimum of > wisecracks, then I'll shut up for a while on the issue (unless I > think of something really funny to post). Pippin, Betsy, anyone > else, here's your chance to get in the last word. > Betsy Hp: I've been accused of always having to have the last word, so I thank you for your kind offer. > >>Amiable Dorsai: > > There's a war on--a trite observation, but a necessary one--and the > Dark's greatest weapon is fear. > > It's a fantastic weapon, it will paralyze the Ministry for a year, > it will force the Order underground, and it will hobble their > every step. > > And Draco is using it. Whether he's thought his actions through, > or just absorbed the technique from Lucius, Draco has picked that > weapon up and fired it straight at the Trio. > That's why I object to calling Draco a victim--it trivializes his > actions, it diminishes him. > Betsy Hp: This is an excellent post, Amiable Dorsai, and for the most part I agree with it. Where I disagree is interesting to me because I do like Draco, and I get the sense you don't, and yet, I think you're giving him too much credit here. Because at this point, especially compared to Harry, Draco *is* a trivial character as the next book takes pains to show. He is diminished in a sense, because to him it's still all about the school-yard and house points. The graveyard has forcibly moved Harry beyond that point, and Ron and Hermione too to an extent. I'd say Harry has been moving in that direction since the end of PS/SS, but GoF really slugs him in the gut with the fact that it ain't kids' games anymore. But Draco hasn't been hit with that particular fact yet. One thing I noticed while participating in this discussion and rereading the scene several times is that Harry doesn't brag about stomping Draco and Crabbe and Goyle. He just does it and moves on. In fact, JKR makes an effort to show Harry *not* thinking about it again. Not even a small amount of gloating. I think that's because he *didn't* just one up his childhood rival; it's really not about that anymore for Harry. Compare that to when the DA members who'd had nothing to do with the DoM battle trounce Draco and friends at the end of OotP. One of them speaks rather ghoulishly, IMO, about Narcissa seeing her ruined boy. Those children are still in the school-yard phase of things, I think. So what your post clarifies for me is how *Harry* is seeing things. It is a war now, for him. And he treats Draco as a solider fighting for the other side. If Draco *were* such a solider, okay, I guess he's not such a victim, because he'd have known the risk he was taking in baiting Harry as he does. But on Draco's side, I don't think he does realize it's a war. I don't think he realizes it until the end of OotP when his father is put in Azkaban. That's the point Draco stops making idle, bragging threats and starts becoming a character that can really contend with Harry. But up until then, Draco was just a sheltered child, raised on his parent's political rhetoric but shielded from the practical ramifications. Until, finally, his parents can shield him no longer. Which leads me to the Marauders and Snape and their political positions. (I tried to find a post to jump off from, I did! ) Ooh, wait, here's a good one from Magpie: > >>Magpie: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150483 > > Actually, now I think about it doesn't he conclude by saying that > James, "however it may have appeared" to Harry in that scene, > hated the Dark Arts? That line could have two meanings. One that > Sirius is saying that maybe it *looked* like James had no good > reasons to hate Snape but there were things about him that were > really bad. But the line could also be taken to be Sirius > saying, "however it may have looked" James hated the Dark Arts > because it may have looked as if James was a Dark Arts fan given > his behavior.;-) > Betsy Hp: That's an interesting twist, Magpie. Lupin and Sirius were well aware of how badly James came off in that scene. I do *not* think James and Snape hated each other because of their political leanings. That relationship struck me as *pure* school- yard. For one, I seriously doubt young, eleven year-old Severus stood on the platfom at Kingscross with an "I love the Dark Arts!" button. Nor do I think James was sporting his "Down with Dark Arts!" button. And we've word he and James hated each other pretty much from the word go. [Frankly, if James was that sort of knee-jerk about his classmate's political leanings, how'd he ever hook-up with Sirius from the Noble House of Black, known Dark Wizards? Whatever he may have thought about his family I can't see Sirius taking to kindly to some kid walking up to him and saying "Your family is evil! Unless you deny them I shall plague you!" But that's just me. ] No, I'm betting Severus's interest in the Dark Arts was just icing on the cake for James. Compare the attack on young Severus with all of the times Harry attacks Draco. There's a distinct lack of passion on the Marauders' part. James and Sirius don't have to psyche themselves up with a "remember what Death Eaters did to young Johnny" or anything of the sort. They just see Severus and it's on. But with Draco, who not only comes from a questionable political family, but openly spouts his support for the Dark Lord almost from the moment he sets foot on Hogwarts property, Harry is *always* in the grip of some passion before he smacks Draco down. As much as Harry thought that he'd treat Draco as his father and godfather treated Severus, I don't buy it. He and Ron never went after Draco out of boredom, or even political spite. There was *always* a reason for their actions. Always. For James, it was because Severus existed. Poor, oddball, emotional Severus, with the wrong accent and shabby clothes, no sense of humor (I'm guessing), and a frustratingly stubborn refusal to submit to his "betters". Nothing political about that. War or no war, those two would have clashed. Betsy Hp [edited to fix a rather silly mistake that turned Sirius into Harry's grandfather.] From coriolan at worldnet.att.net Thu Apr 6 00:26:11 2006 From: coriolan at worldnet.att.net (Caius Marcius) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:26:11 -0000 Subject: FILK: I Taught the Law Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150583 I Taught the Law (HBP, Chap. 18) To the tune of I Fought The Law by Sonny Curtis (later by the Bobby Fuller Four) THE SCENE: Potions Class. Difficulties arise in the teaching of Golpalott's Third Law. SLUGHORN: With Golpalott, you'll stop poisons I taught the Law of the potion I taught the Law of the potion HARRY: I asked the Prince but he stayed mum Don't get the Law of the potion Don't get the Law of the potion HERMIONE: You lost your short cuts and you lost your cheats And out of luck you've run And by this smart girl you will get beat I've wraught the Law of the potion I've wraught the Law of the potion HARRY: Hermy's thinkin' that I'm undone Flat at the Law of the potion Flat at the Law of the potion I looked for a bezoar and I found one I'll beat the Law of the potion I'll beat the Law of the potion HERMIONE: He's pleasin' Sluggy and he gets to gloat Of fairness there is none Just see that bezoar, it gets my goat He cheats the Law of the potion He cheats the Law of the potion - CMC HARRY POTTER FILKS http://home.att.net/~coriolan/hpfilks.htm (updated 04/05/06 with 85 new filks) From richter at ridgenet.net Thu Apr 6 00:35:51 2006 From: richter at ridgenet.net (richter_kuymal) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:35:51 -0000 Subject: Voldemort to Vapormort - How Did They Know? In-Reply-To: <1789c2360604022334ubceecdfxeb4586d468b9061c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150584 Tonks wrote:that does not explain how DD would have known that Lily did not have to die and threw herself in front of Harry. Isn't it amazing how JKR just put these little clues right in front of us and we never notice that something is amiss? I have never really thought about it. But how does DD know? PAR: there were witnesses. First, there was Harry. We know he heard LV tell Lily to "stand aside girl" because he can recall this more than 11 years later when confronted by the dementors. IMO DD's pensieve contains a silvery memory of that night obtained from Harry as a baby. In fact, that might be a partial explanation of where Harry was during the missing hours between GH and Privet drive. Secondly, there are possible OTHER witnesses. There are portraits -- we've seen how that can be very effective at 12GP and at St. Mungo's. It would make sense if there were one at GH. In addition, there are possible MUGGLE witnesses -- we know that GH is not a "wizards' only" area. It's possible that like the Burrow, it was isolated, but it's also possible that it was not -- Muggles would have seen the house collapse without ever having to know anything about who was in there and therefore not destroying the FC. There may have been those who planned to visit Lily and James -- like the FC on 12GP, the charm doesn't apply to those who already have been told the secret. If Harry had been taken in by the ministry, the rumors spreading would have been easy to understand (even at Hogwarts, things like what happened between Harry and Quirrell become "known" within 24 hours). As for "knowing LV was destroyed" either a portrait or the fading of dark marks or even one of those "silver instruments" like DD has on his desk would probably indicate LV was "gone". PAR From bawilson at citynet.net Wed Apr 5 20:04:14 2006 From: bawilson at citynet.net (bawilson at citynet.net) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 16:04:14 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Snape's teaching methods; HE incidents; Voldemort and Love Message-ID: <7946953.1144267454372.JavaMail.SYSTEM@webmail> No: HPFGUIDX 150585 gelite67: "As Katsirrius noted, it seems like part of Snape's caustic remarks or insults are also geared toward Harry and Neville's shoddy work. The question is: why does Snape care if Harry and Neville don't learn potions? Because they need to learn it!" Potions is something that you shouldn't fool around with unless you know exactly what you are doing. Remember what Hermione did to herself with the Polyjuice? That's probably a relatively benign result for a potionmaking error. I remember reading about a nursing student who failed a math test because of a minor error. Her teacher made her write an essay describing what she'd say to the family of a patient she had killed by making the same error in calculating his dosage. Doesn't that seem like something Snape might do? katssirius wrote: >> All the arguments to justify attacking Draco at the end of GOF can be used to make it perfectly fine to attack Harry on the train ride to school in HBP. Harry goes in uninvited, spys on the Slytherins in order to tell on them, gets caught by a boy who is in terrific pain and stress because his father is in prison and his family is under a death threat from Voldemort. << Susan: "Uh, a boy who is in terrific pain and stress because his father is in prison, etc....so he stamps on someone and breaks their nose? Lots of people are under terrible stress, but few break others' noses." The difference is that the hexing of Draco was a spontaneous reaction to his "Diggory was the first" remark--which in a previous post I likened to going into a JCC and saying 'Hitler had the right idea!' or into a San Francisco bar and saying 'Death to faggots!' (If you heard of someone doing either of those things and getting beat up for it, wouldn't you say "He had it coming?")--while Draco's paralyzing Harry and then breaking his nose was a deliberate and calculated act. Magda Grantwich-- "Does he really? I don't get the impression that Voldemort has much love for pureblood wizards, either." Voldemort doesn't love anyone. He never learned how. BAW From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 00:58:57 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 17:58:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Snape's worst memory...you are kidding right? Message-ID: <20060406005858.6551.qmail@web61323.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150586 Here is something that has bothered me for a while. Could the scene in the pensive really be Snape worst memory? A high school(in the US) altercation with a couple of guys he didn't like? Doesn't that sound way to much like those Jerry Springer commercials "Got issues from high school and want to confront your old schoolmate?" That just seems way to lame even for Snape. Now lets say it was because Snape was madly in love with Lilly Evans. Wouldn't the day she married his worst enemy be a worse memory? Or how about the day she gave birth to James Potter's son, the son that should have been his(in his mind)? Honestly, how can that be the man's worst memory? He was a Death Eater, he had to have seen some gruesome things. If we believe he was one of the first people to Godrics Hollow then he saw James and his beloved(maybe) Lilly laying murdered. Shouldn't that be is worst memory? Now I have no love at all for Snape but even I cannot see Snape as so sad and pathetic that the pensive scene really was his worst memory. Joe From xenitesunite2002 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 23:34:35 2006 From: xenitesunite2002 at yahoo.com (Lynn) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 23:34:35 -0000 Subject: Names on Marauders Map (was Re: Wormtail) In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20060404212522.02377070@earthlink.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150587 > April writes: > Snape also doesn't recognize any of the names when the map says > Masters, Mooney Padfoot, Wormtail and Prongs present the Marauders > Map. > > Peggy: > I think he does recognize the names, because he immediately > calls Lupin. Of course he could be calling him because Lupin is > the Defense teacher; but I think he recognizes that the parchment > and its insults are coming from his old classmates. I on the other hand don't think he knows the names. Lupin just happens to be there when he is interrogating Harry. I think if he knew the other name he wouldn't have missed the chance to use it as a degrading way to refer to Lupin and another hint to his being a werewolf. I don't I might be totally off on this. Lynn From miradourz at yahoo.co.uk Wed Apr 5 23:48:45 2006 From: miradourz at yahoo.co.uk (miradourz) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 23:48:45 -0000 Subject: Why don't we ask why Snape wants Harry and Neville to hate him? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150588 Pippin wrote: > We keep asking why Snape hates Harry and Neville so much, > but what if that's the wrong question? What if Snape wants > Harry and Neville to hate *him*? > I agree that Snape finds having Harry and friends hating him quite convenient most of the time. Mainly because if he wants to appear trustworthy to the Deatheaters, tales from their children of him being nice to Harry Potter wouldn't go down too well. Not to mention the fact he knows Voldemort could easily find out if he trusted Snape at their occasional meetings by reading his mind. However, if you believe that Snape is actually on Harry's side and tries hard to protect him, its not surprising that he gets so angry with a child who is so reckless with his life in most of the books that he appears to have a deathwish! Taking a look at HBP p.563/4, Snape is described as having 'a face full of rage' and slaps Harry by means of a spell.Why? Perhaps it's because Snape is furious that someone he has tried so hard to keep alive has put himself in danger yet again by chasing after the Deatheaters alone, then had the foolishness to say "Kill me, then".Talk about ingratitude! "miradourz" From MadameSSnape at aol.com Thu Apr 6 01:56:45 2006 From: MadameSSnape at aol.com (MadameSSnape at aol.com) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 21:56:45 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Names on Marauders Map (was Re: Wormtail) Message-ID: <1ee.4dea647d.3165cf5d@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150589 In a message dated 4/5/2006 9:19:50 PM Eastern Daylight Time, xenitesunite2002 at yahoo.com writes: I on the other hand don't think he knows the names. Lupin just happens to be there when he is interrogating Harry. ------------------------ Sherrie here: Sorry, but that's movie contam, where Lupin just HAPPENS to stroll up while Snape is talking to Harry in a corridor. In the book, they're in Snape's office - and Snape summons Lupin via the fireplace. Now, this MAY be because Lupin is the DADA prof - but the references to Harry getting it "directly from the manufacturers" indicate to me that Snape was perfectly aware that Lupin was somehow involved in the map's creation. Question that just came to me - could it be that the Map posted the insults in the handwriting of the insulters? Snape might have recognized the student handwriting of one or more of his tormentors, if that were the case. Too bad we'll probably never know... Sherrie "Accept no one's definition of your life. Define yourself." - Harvey Fierstein [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 00:41:51 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 17:41:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Fat Rant In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060406004151.77306.qmail@web61322.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150590 > kchuplis: > Well, to be honest, I think we are talking about "gluttony" as > in "greedy" when it comes to the characters you refer too, which > is different than this constant pressure to be Kate Moss that > girls undergo and yes, being called FAT at 130 lbs. Joe: Depending on height and physical conditioning a good many people could be fat at 130lbs. If a person is five feet or less and without significant muscle mass they are probably fat. Kchuplis: > I believe that her point was what is actually "normal" weight for > girls is now often looked upon as being "fat" and that yes, it is > something people seem to abhor. Perhaps it is dawning on her now > (after all, she is quite the attractive lady, but has now had to > fight the battle of age and getting back in shape). Joe: There is no normal weight. We talk about teen girls being too thin in response to societal pressures but the truth is far more young girls (and boys) have overweight issues than they do with other eating disorders. Kchuplis: > Oddly enough, my supervisor related seeing a relative she had not > seen in a long time yesterday and the opening comment her relative > had was "you look great for your size". Now, my super is maybe 30 > lbs overweight. Joe: For most heights for women thirty pounds would be medically obese. Now it was a rude thing to say no doubt. Magpie: >> But to me it just encourages this swing from one extreme to the other: someone that thin "must" be anorexic, imo, suggests this idea that you're either "normal" (even if normal means unhealthily overweight) or "anorexic." Just as at the other end of the spectrum having breasts is considered fat. << Joe: I have to agree but I think it goes even further. Most people are totally focused on their weight as expressed in pounds. The truth is that body fat percentage is far more important than just the pounds you weigh. A person who has 14% bodyfat at 250lbs is going to look and feel better that the person who has 22% bodyfat at 180 lbs. Magpie: >> Within canon, for me I don't think there's some line drawn between thin/good people and bad/fat people. But there are scenes where I'm uncomfortably aware of the way fat seems to be portrayed. But the pudgier characters do seem often trapped by their gluttony and their size often seems far more surreal than the thinness of the thin people. Dudley's a killer whale who takes up the whole side of the table, Slughorn takes up half a store iirc. Both of them seem like walking garbage disposals who steal and eat anything. (Even Crabbe and Goyle are pranked with laced cakes and pudgy Neville eats the canary cream). << Joe: The reason it doesn't bother me is because people like that exist. In fact it would be the mark of a less aware writer if they didn't include people like that. I have to disagee with the thin characters issue though. I think the skinny characters are shown quite accurately as well. Magpie: >> So I don't know...I've got no problem with the idea that women should be judged on things other than their weight. I quite agree with it. But it still seems about as daring a thing to say as doing a rant about how racism is bad. << Joe: I think it is far more complex though than any racial issue. There is no doubt that people should not be judged on their weight. It can be said however that on average overweight people are less productive and require greater utilization of healthcare resources. Also fueling the public debate is the perception, in most cases rightly so, that obesity is controllable. In Harry Potter terms an obese wizard is likely to be a far poorer dueler than a non-obese wizard. I think that might be why we see so few portly wirards and witches. Joe From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 02:15:16 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 02:15:16 -0000 Subject: House characteristics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150591 Lupinlore: > The exception to this is, to an extent, Slytherin. I think this is > in part due to honest reservations JKR herself has with regard to > Slytherin's symbolic house traits -- whether pure blood or ambition. > Even in her most positive statement about the dream of house unity > she talks of Slytherin as embodying "maybe not the most noble > traits." Scarcely a ringing defense. And let's face it, she hasn't > shown us any Slytherins who aren't from the wrong side of the moral > tracks, be it the unctious and manipulative new potions master, the > abusive and unforgiveable old potions master, or the various bullies > and losers who dance attendance on Draco (including Theodore Nott > and Blaise Zabini, upon whom much hope rested). Alla: Right, her statement was something along the lines " they are not all bad" and only after Emmerson suggested ( again from memory) that it is strange to put all kids with such philosophy into one house. But haven't you seen JKR's "fat rant" which is being discussed in another thread? I am not sure how I feel about the main issue of that rant, but what made me laugh is her last sentence ( I think), which reads I want my girls to be Hermiones rather than Pansy Parkinsons. Now, Okay, she likes Hermione, she really likes Hermione, I understand that, so it is understandable that she wants young girls to be like her, but what is so BAD about Pancy Parkinson that she does not want the girls to be like her, except that Pancy is in Slytherin House? I mean, maybe I totally forgot some canon about it ( entirely possible), but so far I do not recall anything about Pancy being stupid or really bad "person" (Well, I suppose one can argue that choosing Draco for boyfriend is not very smart thing to do, but besides that... I don't know), except that Pancy is in Slytherin. Don't give me wrong, I did not need much confirmation that Slytherin is not her favorite house (not that I have problem with it within Potterverse reality), but it WAS funny to see it again. Alla From gelite67 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 02:16:15 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 02:16:15 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose (Was Re: lily/snape) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150592 Angie wrote: > > Part of Snape's cruelty toward Harry has also emerged when Harry > has > > acted recklessly and put himself in danger, like in POA and GOF > when > > Harry is wandering around the castle unprotected after hours. > Again, > > though he couldn't express it in a positive way, Snape was still > > trying to protect Harry, I believe. > > Alla: > > How was Snape protecting Harry when Harry wanted to see Dumbledore > in GoF, stood there , nervous and upset and Snape was taunting him. > I don't see anything positive here whatsoever, but that is JMO of > course. > Angie again: If you're talking about the scene where Harry's trying to get into DD's office after Crouch approached Harry and Krum, then Snape wasn't protecting Harry; he was just seizing another opportunity to taunt him, for no apparent good reason that I can tell, except it would be keeping in character with Snape's general MO. From orgone9 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 02:27:17 2006 From: orgone9 at yahoo.com (Len Jaffe) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 19:27:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: the Weasley Cousins, In-Reply-To: <20060405224212.62786.qmail@web37009.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060406022717.20995.qmail@web80613.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150593 > latoya: > Molly introduces her [ deletio ] > with more Hogwarts students. > > Catherine now: > [ edito sommorro] So either they were killed, or > moved to other countries and attend other wizarding > institutions. Or JKR didn't think ahead this far and > now has to write herself out of this little > conundrum.... Len: Perhaps there are more schools in England, but we only concern ourselves with hogwarts. The idea of other wizarding schools is never broached until Gof, so the idea that the Weasley cousins go to other schools isn't so far fetched. If Hogwarts is Eaton, then surely there's enough wizard kids to support a Smeltings, and maybe even a St. Brutus'. Then again, we only ever meet three or four new characters everybody else at the school are just a bunch of shadows. So they could be there, but not play any role in the parts of Ron's life that get written about. Or maybe the rest of the weasley family shuns the Ottery-St. Catchpole faction. Maybe they're sick of looking at the plug collection :-) Len. From gelite67 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 03:04:29 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 03:04:29 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose (Was Re: lily/snape)/Why I Hate Snape In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150594 > Deb wrote: > > > > **Applause** for Angie! YES this is what I have been thinking too. > > Snape >has to< be nasty to Harry and Neville (and Ron and Hermione > > by extension) just to preserve his undercover spy status with LV. > > Magpie: > I have to admit I never understand this reasoning--which sometimes > goes along with the idea that he's faking his favor of Slytherins as > well, all to preserve his cover. First, there's just no reason he > needs to do any of these things. If he's supposed to be a double > agent for Dumbledore being nice to Harry--and certainly being nice > to random students like Hermione and Neville--would be fine. Look > at Moody! He was exactly what Snape is supposed to be and he was > friendly to both Harry and Neville and publically humiliated Draco > Malfoy. Obviously one can do all those things and still be a very > loyal DE. Angie again: Interesting reasoning, but since Snape has never been nice to anyone that we've ever known, I believe LV would only expect Snape to be nice to Harry & Co if that was necessary to preserve Snape's status with DD -- and it isn't. I believe that DD knowns how nasty Snape is, for the most part. Some of the incidents have occurred in the hallways, in front of the pictures, whom I believe keep DD well informed. As for the classroom incidents, as DD told Harry, he doesn't need an invisibility cloak to become invisible. Seems to me to be an issue of the path of least resistance: it would be easier for Snape to be nasty to Harry, with DD's permission, and to allow LV to consistently "see" that side of Snape, than to be nice to Harry, claiming that's what DD would expect, and have to constantly convince LV that he was still on LV's side. (But as I wrote this, it made me wonder why LV thinks DD puts up with Snape's nastiness??? Surely, LV knows DD well enough to know that he's aware of his teachers' conduct/attitudes toward their students? Hmm....) I don't think the Moody/Snape comparison is convincing, simply because Moody had to do as DD asked to avoid arousing suspicision, but Snape doesn't. Snape can be nasty, unhelpful, whatever, and it would be perfectly consistent with what is expected of him. Moreover, it would be OOC for Snape, who has a bad history with Gryffindors and with Harry's parents and their friends to be "nice" to Harry & Co. At least, from what we've been shown, Snape doesn't appear to be the the type to say, "Oh, that's in the past, I don't blame you for your father's behavior." Even DD acknowledged in OOP (I think) that he misjudged Snape's ability to set aside his schoolboy grudges. I guess part of the reason I am so convinced that DD knows about Snape's nastiness is that I can't imagine that DD would be so out of touch as to not know how his teachers treat their students and I can't see any other reason than "to protect Snape's status as a spy" that would explain why DD allows Snape to be so nasty. Magpie, I'm curious as to your thoughts on why Snape is allowed to be so nasty -- is it b/c you believe DD doesn't know, or some other reason? Magpie also said: The one time we even hear a DE give someone advice on how > to behave towards Harry it's Lucius saying it's "unwise" to appear > less than fond of Harry Potter or whatever he says. Did Snape not > get the memo? Angie again: Good point, but consider the difference in Lucius's status in the WW and Snape's. Lucius had to convince everyone in the WW that he'd been bewitched by LV; Snape didn't. Thanks to DD's endorsement, Snape's position seems secure b/c Snape switched sides before LV's fall; Lucius didn't. So, Snape doesn't have to worry about appearing less than fond of Harry. {BTW, LOL at the "memo" comment, but Snape wouldn't have gotten the memo since the WW thought he switched sides, would he?) Finally, I don't mean to suggest that everything Snape does is an act. Thankfully, he's way too complex a character for that (one of my biggest gripes about the movies is the way they mercilessly reduce his character to "the teacher we love to hate" -- they've got a lot of charcter arcing to do in the next three movies to catch up with canon). I think part of the reason Snape is so nasty is because he's so tormented. Against what seems to be his natural inclination, he's fighting on the side of good, yet he's vilified. And he can't even toot his own horn. And, whether he should or not, he still holds great resentment against The Marauders. Just because Snape knew a lot of Dark Arts as a student doesn't mean he deserved the way The Marauders treated him. After all we don't know who "started it" between them, do we? From kelley_thompson at sbcglobal.net Thu Apr 6 03:09:32 2006 From: kelley_thompson at sbcglobal.net (Kelley) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 03:09:32 -0000 Subject: ADMIN / PSA: Regional Groups Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150595 Hi, everyone-- Wanted to let you all know we have a new regional group in the family for Pennsylvania folks: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP4GU-PA For newer list members who aren't aware, there are several regional HPfGU groups so list members can get to know other HPfGU-ers in their area, organize get-togethers, discuss HP, or just enjoy some general chitchat. The other Regional Groups are: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP4GU-Australia http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP4GU-California http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP4GU-Florida http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP4GU-GreatLakes http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP4GU-Southeast-US http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP4GU-WashingtonDC http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP4GU-Kentucky-Tennesee http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP4GU-PA http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPfGU-Germany http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPfGU-London http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hpfgu-mountainwest http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPfGU-NewYork http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-Texas To explain, the groups are not created or run by the Elves, so if there's not a group for your area and you'd like to start one, please do! Let the elves know and we'll add it to the list. :-) Any questions, just drop us a line: HPforGrownups-owner at yahoogroups.com Kelley, for the Elves From aussie_lol at yahoo.com.au Thu Apr 6 03:22:18 2006 From: aussie_lol at yahoo.com.au (Hagrid) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 03:22:18 -0000 Subject: the Weasley Cousins, In-Reply-To: <20060406022717.20995.qmail@web80613.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150596 --- Len Jaffe wrote: > > > latoya: > > ... and attend other wizarding institutions. > > Len: > Perhaps there are more schools in England, but we only > concern ourselves with hogwarts. The idea of other > wizarding schools is never broached until Gof, so the > idea that the Weasley cousins go to other schools > isn't so far fetched. > > If Hogwarts is Eaton, then surely there's enough > wizard kids to support a Smeltings, and maybe even a > St. Brutus'. ~aussie~ Earlier books do specify Hogwarts when buying School supplies at Diagon Alley. They don't just say "School / College / wherever we send 11 to 17 year olds to get them out of our hair for a year". Rita Skeeter, Rosemerta and others at Hogsmede share memories of school kids coming into the "Three Broomsticks" but not of "When you taught me ". And Dumbledore had to search for Slytherin's descendants, as though Marvolo was never on record at Hogwarts. ~aussie~ From orgone9 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 03:27:35 2006 From: orgone9 at yahoo.com (Len Jaffe) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 20:27:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: the Weasley Cousins, In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060406032735.60714.qmail@web80601.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150597 > --- Len Jaffe wrote: > > If Hogwarts is Eaton, then surely there's enough > > wizard kids to support a Smeltings, and maybe even > > a St. Brutus'. > > ~aussie~ : > as though Marvolo was never on record at Hogwarts. The Gaunts stike me as home-schoolers. :-) Len. From aussie_lol at yahoo.com.au Thu Apr 6 03:39:23 2006 From: aussie_lol at yahoo.com.au (Hagrid) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 03:39:23 -0000 Subject: Norberts egg came from Voldemort Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150598 Aussie says: When Hagrid got his prized Dragon Egg, it was really Voldemort/Quirrel that had it. So where did Voldemort get it from and is that the site of a Horcrux? Because LV feared death, that is how he guarded the locket. If Dragons, Romania is looking better as a Horcrux site aussie From nrenka at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 03:46:27 2006 From: nrenka at yahoo.com (nrenka) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 03:46:27 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose (Was Re: lily/snape)/Why I Hate Snape In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150599 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "gelite67" wrote: > I guess part of the reason I am so convinced that DD knows about > Snape's nastiness is that I can't imagine that DD would be so out > of touch as to not know how his teachers treat their students and I > can't see any other reason than "to protect Snape's status as a > spy" that would explain why DD allows Snape to be so nasty. I can. Dumbledore is canonically quite hands off in many ways and areas--see the post-HBP interview where JKR talks about Dumbledore letting Hagrid stew in his hut by himself before going to talk to him, because he thought Hagrid would be better if he got through it himself. In a similar way, Dumbledore has some idea of what Snape's general demeanor and actions are like. He'd probably like Snape to change (he certainly would have liked, say, Occlumency to work out differently), but he's not going to force him to do it. Force doesn't work with things like that. So he lets Snape be Snape out of a general approach to letting the teachers be themselves: he also lets Trelawney be a flighty fraud, and Binns be a deathly (hee!) bore. Now, if we want to argue about the problems of this approach and whether Dumbledore has mis/underestimated what the effects are to be the target of Snape's nastiness, partially because he himself is much older and comfortably in the superior position, that's another issue. -Nora does the happy dance of awaiting some major travel From zgirnius at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 03:56:05 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 03:56:05 -0000 Subject: House characteristics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150600 > Alla: > I am not sure how I feel about the main issue of that rant, but what > made me laugh is her last sentence ( I think), which reads I want my > girls to be Hermiones rather than Pansy Parkinsons. > > Now, Okay, she likes Hermione, she really likes Hermione, I understand > that, so it is understandable that she wants young girls to be like > her, but what is so BAD about Pancy Parkinson that she does not want > the girls to be like her, except that Pancy is in Slytherin House? > > I mean, maybe I totally forgot some canon about it ( entirely > possible), but so far I do not recall anything about Pancy being > stupid or really bad "person" (Well, I suppose one can argue that > choosing Draco for boyfriend is not very smart thing to do, but > besides that... I don't know), except that Pancy is in Slytherin. zgirnius: Pansy is a very minor character, to be sure, but quite unpleasant in her own way. There's a fansite, http://pansy.frosti.org, devoted to her (Google is amazing, as is how some people choose to spend their time, not that I'm one to talk) which seems to quote every mention of her in the six books, and I would say over half of them have Pansy being actively unpleasant. Just a sampling of the highlights (lowlights?) of Pansy's career: > Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone > Chapter 9 >"Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?" said Pansy Parkinson, a hard-faced Slytherin girl. "Never thought you'd like fat little crybabies, Parvati." zgirnius: So, she's more than just Draco's girlfriend, she's an accomplice of sorts to his bullying of Neville here. > Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban > Chapter 6 > "Hey, Potter!" shrieked Pansy Parkinson, a Slytherin girl with a face like a pug. "Potter! The dementors are coming, Potter! Woooooooooo!" zgirnius: More Pansy joining in Draco's nasty fun... > Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire > Chapter 18 >"Oh very funny," Hermione said sarcastically to Pansy Parkinson and her gang of Slytherin girls, who were laughing harder than anyone, "really witty." (The POTTER SUCKS buttons.) > He forced Hermione to show Snape her teeth - she was doing her best to hide them with her hands, though this was difficult as they had now grown down past her collar. Pansy Parkinson and the other Slytherin girls were doubled up with silent giggles, pointing at Hermione from behind Snape's back. zgirnius: Aha! Pansy has her own girl gang of Slytherins. I bet we would hear more about them if we had any narration from the POV of a girl character... >Chap. 23 >"Stunningly pretty? Her?" Pansy Parkinson had shrieked the first time she had come face-to-face with Hermione after Rita's article had appeared. "What was she judging against - a chipmunk?" zgirnius: Nice, Pansy... >Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix >Chapter 21 >Umbridge did not answer; she finished writing her last note, then looked up at Hagrid and said, again very loudly and slowly, "Please continue teaching as usual. I am going to walk," she mimed walking (Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson were having silent fits of laughter) "among the students" (she pointed around at individual members of the class) "and ask them questions." >"Do you find," said Professor Umbridge in a ringing voice to Pansy Parkinson, "that you are able to understand Professor Hagrid when he talks?" Just like Hermione, Pansy had tears in her eyes, but these were tears of laughter; indeed, her answer was almost incoherent because she was trying to suppress her giggles. "No... because ... well... it sounds... like grunting a lot of the time..." Umbridge scribbled on her clipboard. The few unbruised bits of Hagrid's face flushed, but he tried to act as though he had not heard Pansy's answer. "Er... yeah... good stuff abou' Thestrals. Well, once they're tamed, like this lot, yeh'll never be lost again. 'Mazin' sense o' direction, jus' tell 'em where yeh want ter go -" "Assuming they can understand you, of course," said Malfoy loudly, and Pansy Parkinson collapsed in a fit of renewed giggles. Professor Umbridge smiled indulgently at them and then turned to Neville. zgirnius: This scene I actually would have remembered myself. Hagrid annoys me as a person, I don't think too highly of him as a teacher, but this scene really got under my skin... >Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince >Chapter 21 >"Oh, very good," interrupted Snape, his lip curling. "Yes, it in easy to see that nearly six years of magical education have not been wasted on you, Potter. 'Ghosts are transparent'." >Pansy Parkinson let out a high-pitched giggle. zgirnius: OK, maybe she just has a schoolgirl crush on her Head of House . From djklaugh at comcast.net Thu Apr 6 03:59:43 2006 From: djklaugh at comcast.net (Deb) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 03:59:43 -0000 Subject: Snape's worst memory...you are kidding right? In-Reply-To: <20060406005858.6551.qmail@web61323.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150601 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Joe Goodwin wrote: > > Here is something that has bothered me for a while. Could the scene in the pensive really be Snape worst memory? A high school(in the US) altercation with a couple of guys he didn't like? Doesn't that sound way to much like those Jerry Springer commercials "Got issues from high school and want to confront your old schoolmate?" > > That just seems way to lame even for Snape. > > Now lets say it was because Snape was madly in love with Lilly Evans. Wouldn't the day she married his worst enemy be a worse memory? Or how about the day she gave birth to James Potter's son, the son that should have been his(in his mind)? > > Honestly, how can that be the man's worst memory? He was a Death Eater, he had to have seen some gruesome things. If we believe he was one of the first people to Godrics Hollow then he saw James and his beloved(maybe) Lilly laying murdered. Shouldn't that be is worst memory? > > Now I have no love at all for Snape but even I cannot see Snape as so sad and pathetic that the pensive scene really was his worst memory. > > Joe Deb here: I think that there are several possibilities for the title of "Snape's worst memory" - and reasons why he would consider a particular memory "the" worst. Perhaps he would consider the whole scene from the Penseive as the worse because it was embarassing, or because he insulted Lily when he didn't really mean to, or because it represents a point in time when he made errors in judgement(using a curse to cut James - maybe the Sectumsempra or a variation on it) - - or the "what came next" had dire consequences. Or it is just such a big memory and the emotions associated with it are such that he needs to hide it from LV's Legilmency for some as yet undisclosed reason thus leaving a rather large gap following his DADA OWL exam. JKR is rather quiet on the subject of Snape's emotional reaction to this memory - in the memory itself. I was really struck when I read it that as Snape's memory there was very little emotional aura from him. I think this memory represents a pivotal moment for Snape's psychological development and also was probably a large part of the reason he took Sirius seriously when given the enticement of going through the Whomping Willow to see something interesting. It was this point in time that apparently crystalized his hatred of James and Sirius .... and lead to Snape having to be grateful to James for saving his life (and maybe yes/maybe no having a Life Debt to James) Or maybe his "worst memory" is his reaction - or overreaction - to Harry's dip into the Penseive. Maybe the memory that gets the title of "worst" is Snape losing control and throwing a specimen jar at Harry. Deb (djklaugh) From puduhepa98 at aol.com Thu Apr 6 04:13:04 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 00:13:04 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: R.A.B Message-ID: <320.1b2c9bc.3165ef50@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150602 Carol responds: Evidently you didn't go back to the post I linked to, which provides possible (and IMO plausible) answers to most of those questions. In my scenario, Regulus wouldn't need to be a powerful wizard: Bellatrix had already found the cave and the boat based on LV's descriptions, and Kreacher accompanied her, so he also knew how to enter the cave and summon the boat. After Regulus replaced the Horcrux with a similar locket, the bowl, not knowing the difference, would refill itself. Nikkalmati: Yes, Carol I read the previous messages on this topic. I didn't mean to imply that there is anything wrong with your hypotheses, just to offer an alternative. :-). I do like having Bella plant the necklace in the cave, because that allows me to postulate a switching point. If Bella brought the necklace to the Black family home after LV gave it to her, RAB had the chance to find out the plan from Bella and open the bag or box she brought it in and switch the LV necklace with another similar necklace. Bella would not open the bag until she was in the darkness of the cave and might well not notice the difference. ( Harry did not notice any problem with the necklace even though he must have stared at it a dozen times while he was dipping the potion; however, when he looked at it at Hogwarts he immediately noticed it was not the same as the one he saw in the pensive.) We both have the problem of where the necklace was between the time LV recovered it from B&B and the plan to place it in the cave circa 1980. I don't think Bella had any reason to take Kreacher with her. I'm sure she thought she could do everything herself by just following LV's directions. When she reached the island she would set up the basin, put in the necklace she took out of the bag, and pour in the potion or say the spell that would fill the bowl. That is a good suggestion that the bowl was spelled to refill itself, if it was emptied and another necklace placed in it. However, I don't understand why LV would set it up that way. Once somebody has taken the Horcrux out, there is not much need for the potion. Wouldn't it make more sense for the bowl to be spelled to refill itself every time someone dipped out a bit, so that no one could get to the bottom? And I am not sure there is any basis for speculating that the metabolism of a House Elf is so different from a human's that it would not be poisoned by the green stuff, even if Kreacher came with Bella, showed RAB how to get to the island and drank the potion for RAB and never told anyone about it. I also don't think the problem with the boat is just a matter of finding where it is. I think only a powerful wizard could raise it up and use it. As you say RAB was barely fully qualified. My theory just seems simpler to me. I know it is canon that LV did not know the diary had been destroyed until he was told. However, I presumed DD's statement about the potion not killing immediately so LV could find out how the perpetrator had gotten through his defenses must mean something. The cave is a very elaborate system of protection. If the potion did not kill at once, LV must have some way of finding the thief to identify him and question him. If RAB and Kreacher came to the cave and got away, then, of course, there is no method of detecting intrusion. Once we know RAB was an opponent of LV, we can imagine lots of ways he could have been done in. I agree that some of the DE's knew about the Horcrux (but not haw many), because LV chides them in the graveyard about not searching for him even though they knew he had taken measures to preserve his life. Nikkalmati [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From zgirnius at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 04:16:43 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 04:16:43 -0000 Subject: Snape's worst memory...you are kidding right? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150603 Joe Goodwin wrote: > > > > Here is something that has bothered me for a while. Could the > scene in the pensive really be Snape worst memory? A high school(in > the US) altercation with a couple of guys he didn't like? Doesn't > that sound way to much like those Jerry Springer commercials "Got > issues from high school and want to confront your old schoolmate?" > Deb here: > - or the "what came next" had dire consequences. zgirnius: This reminded me of a theory I've come across elsewhere. The incident occured after the written part of the DADA OWL exam-which means the practical part would have come that afternoon, soon after the incident. Why were we shown the memory starting with the end of the exam? (Well, the point could be to prove to us and Harry that there really was absolutely no proximate action by Snape which could be said to have 'caused' the incident...but never mind.) Perhaps because the timing was relevant. What if Snape, upset over the incident, was so flustered he failed to qualify for NEWT classes in DADA based on a lousy performance on the practical OWL? It's clearly one of his two strongest areas of talent and interest, so this could have closed off his chosen career path(s), as whatever they were, they would have involved DADA. A way the incident would have had a real, 'practical' as opposed to 'merely' emotional impact on his future, and another reason he may view is as a key moment in his descent to becoming a Death Eater. Though, honestly, bad school memories...are just bad. I don't see anything lame about them. When you're that age, it can be hard to believe that school is not the rest of your life. >Deb: > Or maybe his "worst memory" is his reaction - or overreaction - to > Harry's dip into the Penseive. Maybe the memory that gets the title > of "worst" is Snape losing control and throwing a specimen jar at > Harry. zgirnius: That's an interesting thought! Or maybe it is not really Snape's worst memory. Maybe it is one of the two Harry did not see. Or maybe Harry assumes (having seen SWM) that Snape put his worst memories in the Pensieve, but really Snape put in the memories he'd most prefer Harry not see, which is not necessarily the same thing. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 04:20:43 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 04:20:43 -0000 Subject: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150604 Alla wrote: > I am not sure how I feel about the main issue of that rant, but what made me laugh is her last sentence ( I think), which reads I want my girls to be Hermiones rather than Pansy Parkinsons. > > Now, Okay, she likes Hermione, she really likes Hermione, I understand that, so it is understandable that she wants young girls to be like her, but what is so BAD about Pancy Parkinson that she does not want the girls to be like her, except that Pancy is in Slytherin House? Carol responds: I don't really care about Pansy Parkinson one way or the other, but I agree that she's not as bad as, say, Millicent Bulstrode. She (Pansy) does have her human, or maybe I should say feminine, side, really liking the baby unicorns in COMC and trying her best to hide the feeling. But to try to answer your question, she's the leader of a gang of Slytherin girls and before she becomes Draco's girlfriend she's more or less his groupie, screaming with laughter at what passes for his witticisms and yelling out insults at the Gryffindors, primarily Hermione. She's the one who circulated the Witch Weekly article about Hermione.And of course in HBP, she's lets the little DE lie with his head in her lap and strokes his hair, all the while knowing that he's on a mission for Voldemort. When Draco is injured by Buckbeak in PoA, she's one of the first (IIRC) to suggest that Hagrid should be fired, but under the circumstances that's understandable. I assume that she holds the usual Slytherin pureblood ideology, and in OoP she's a member of Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad. (Umbridge tells her to check the girls' restrooms to search for DA members. It's possible that she also goes around docking points like Draco and Montague, but I don't recall her doing so on page.) as for why JKR doesn't want the girls to be like her, maybe she means that girls should use their brains and not spend all their energy shrieking insults at rivals and chasing boys, especially bad boys like Draco. Pansy, BTW, is a flower name like many girls' names in the HP books (Padma, it turns out, means "lotus"), and derives from French "pensee" meaning "thought." ("There is pansies, that's for thoughts," says poor mad Ophelia.) Apparently pansies also relate to memories of a (dead?) loved one, which doesn't bode well for Draco but says nothing bad about Pansy herself. Old Mr. Lawrence in "Little Women" refers to pansies as heart's ease and says that they're his favorite flower. The term is also used for the wild pansy. Just for fun, here's some interesting info on heart's ease (don't know whether it also applies to domesticated pansies with the last name of Parkinson: "HEART'S EASE VIOLA TRICOLOR A strong decoction or syrup of the herb and flowers is an excellent cure for the venereal disease.(!) Also known as the Wild Pansy, the flowers are a beautiful purple variegated with yellow. Where to find it: Fields and gardens. Flowering time: Spring and summer. Astrology: The herb is saturnine, cold, viscous and slimy.(!) Medicinal virtues: Good for convulsions in children and a remedy for the falling-sickness, inflammation of the lungs and breasts, pleurisy, scabs and the itch. The flowers are cooling, emollient and cathartic when used on their own, but it is best to make a syrup of them when they are fresh, as their virtues are lost by drying. Modern uses: The Pansy is mildly laxative, diuretic, diaphoretic and expectorant.(!) It is also considered to be a good blood purifier.(!!) An infusion is recommended for skin eruptions in children, catarrh and asthma. The dose is half a teaspoonful of the powdered leaves in a cupful of boiling water." The site, if anyone is interested, is http://www.magdalin.com/herbal/plants_http://www.magdalin.com/herbal/plants_pages/h/hearts.htm The page links to other herbs and flowers starting with "h" but I couldn't find a main page to look up Lily, Petunia, or Narcissa. Carol, wondering if anyone more familiar with herblore can add something more directly related to Pansy Parkinson From djklaugh at comcast.net Thu Apr 6 04:53:25 2006 From: djklaugh at comcast.net (Deb) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 04:53:25 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose (Was Re: lily/snape)/Why I Hate Snape In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150605 > Magpie: > I have to admit I never understand this reasoning--which sometimes > goes along with the idea that he's faking his favor of Slytherins as > well, all to preserve his cover. First, there's just no reason he > needs to do any of these things. If he's supposed to be a double > agent for Dumbledore being nice to Harry--and certainly being nice > to random students like Hermione and Neville--would be fine. Look > at Moody! He was exactly what Snape is supposed to be and he was > friendly to both Harry and Neville and publically humiliated Draco > Malfoy. Obviously one can do all those things and still be a very > loyal DE. The one time we even hear a DE give someone advice on how > to behave towards Harry it's Lucius saying it's "unwise" to appear > less than fond of Harry Potter or whatever he says. Did Snape not > get the memo? At the very least Snape could be neutral. I don't > think he needs years of memories of calling Neville Longbottom a > dunderhead to convince LV that he's loyal. Deb here: Fake!Moody had to be nice to Harry and other students in order to carry out his assignment for LV. It would have been OOC for Real!Moody to be vicious to Harry, Ron or any other DDM!character! The real Moody is/was an Auror fighting against LV and very much DDM. If Fake!Moody (the only Moody we really see in GOF) had favored Slytherins or any other person who had leanings toward the dark side DD would have known much sooner that Moody was a Fake. Barty Crouch Jr was a good actor. Snape on the other hand can't be nice to Harry et al for much the same reasons IMO - in order to fulfill his mission for DD and spy on LV he has to continue to convince LV that he is on the LV+DE side. And to do that he has to allow LV to use his Legilmency skills to probe his memories (how long do you think anyone of LV's minions would last if they refused the Dark Lord or tried to evade his probing - my hunch would be that LV spent a lot of time once he returned to corporeal form interrogating all of the DEs-LV is after all very paranoid and suspects everyone). Snape is apparently the only person who has ever successfully lied to LV. And again IMO the only way to accomplish that is to keep from making too many memories that he would be worried about LV seeing... And as anyone knows the best way to tell a successful lie is to stick as close to the truth as possible. >(Magpie) Second, if Snape is a good actor, I haven't seen it yet. I've seen > scenes where he's covering stuff up--and that alone suggests he's > not that great of an actor if I can see it. Sometimes he's even > shown trying to cover up some negative thing towards Harry or some > positive thing towards, say, Draco, so to suggest he's acting adds > another layer (Snape is only pretending to cover up a smile, for > instance). I haven't seen anything that suggests that basically his > entire personality in canon is an act and so we haven't even met the > man yet, really. More importantly, that would be quite a let down > and a cheat if, alone of all the characters, Snape is the one person > who in the last book just gets his slate wiped clean because any > sign of emotion he showed in the past could have been just an act. I > think Snape's rotten behavior towards Harry, Ron, Neville and > Hermione in particular is covered by the scenes he finds himself in-- > you don't even have to look to Voldemort most of the time. In fact, > it's probably more interesting if you don't. Deb here: The whole chapter called Spinner's End in HBP demonstrates to me Snape's skills as a Spin Doctor par excellence. He sticks close to the truth when answering Bella's accusations ... he just shades the reason's for his actions... Bella is apparently no slouch at Legilemency herself (Snape guesses she's teaching this to Draco) and he has her convinced by the end that he is LVM all the way. And has Narcissa convinced that he will thwart LV's plans for Draco (and doesn't that actually show he isn't LVM - if he were wouldn't he tell her that The Dark Lord must be obeyed and that she needs to "suck it up" and let Draco get on with it...??) and makes a UV to do so! With Bella as their binder. Now that is acting IMO. > Magpie: > As Sherry pointed out, the Sorting Hat does not want to put Harry in > Slytherin, it merely reacts to his own demand to be put anywhere > else but by saying he would do well there. It certainly could have > been considering Slytherin, but I don't see that that would make > much difference to Snape. Deb here: Yes true but the SH also says when questioning HP's desire to not go into Slytherin "You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin *will* (empasis mine) help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that --". And SH also tells Harry in DD's office that it stands by what it said.. Harry would have done well in Slytherin. I wonder if that one word *will* is a foreshadow, hint, clue that a Slytherin (or Slytherin the House in general) will be instrumental in bringing Harry to his peak of power. > Magpie: > If LV would understand a House Master has to be nice to his students > he'd understand a Potions Master should be at best neutral to his > students. Who says a House Master would have to be nice anyway? > Harry being in Slytherin wouldn't make him any less the one with the > power to vanquish the Dark Lord or any less someone who'd fight with > others over the blood supremacy issue. He'd have to "act" even more > in that scenario since he'd be dealing more with Harry, be the one > to punish him even more often. He might even wind up having to > mediate between Harry and other Slytherins. Isn't it much better > for him that he has to deal with Harry less? Deb here: No I think the difference is in the roles ... House Master is responcible for much more than lessons - a HM also is looking after students physical and emotional well being (I worked as a Resident Director of a college dorm for two years and think the position of Head of House at Hogwarts would be quite similar though *sigh* I didn't get to do magic). The interaction with students is quite different. If McGonagall were not Harry's HM but only his professor I doubt that she would have visited him in the infirmary, or gone to his dorm room to check on him. LV would know that -if Harry had gone into Slytherin House - Snape's role with him would be quite different. And in order for Snape to stay "in character" (ie keep convincing DD that he is DDM while convincing LV he is LVM) in that situation he would have had to be much more involved in Harry's out of class life. Plus he could still be nasty to Griffindor's if that is what he was like before Harry arrived... and could be encouraging, or less critical of Harry because after all he would favor his own House would he not? (Snip - sorry, Magpie I'm yawning so hard I can't read to respond to the rest of your thoughtful posting... I'll try to come back to it later) Deb (aka djklaugh) From anita_hillin at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 13:26:52 2006 From: anita_hillin at yahoo.com (AnitaKH) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 06:26:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Fat Rant In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060406132652.77808.qmail@web36810.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150606 potioncat wrote: Potioncat here, a little taken aback by JKR's website. She rants, very appropriately, about the push for girls to be uber-thin. [akh then sliced and diced] I agree fully with JKR, don't get me wrong. And yeah, I know Molly is plump. (She's one of the good guys, for the record.) But really, take a look at how JKR generally portrays overweight people in the series. Dudley? Crabbe? Goyle? Vernon? Umbridge? Yes there are bad thin guys too: Snape, Dark Lord, Petunia... [more akh pruning] I just wonder if JKR knows she's doing all most the same thing as the media she complains about? Potioncat akh, after ruminating in the shower, replies: Hmm, hmm, hmm, I've been pondering this (see above) and reading others' responses, in part because I was never particularly struck by "fatism" in Rowling's work. I think this is due in part to the fact that she does portray all shapes and sizes. After all, when writing, there are certain shorthand means of visualizing a character, and shape is quick and effective. Molly is plump, Bill and Ron are tall and lanky, Charlie and the twins are stocky. I've always seen Dudley's obesity as an indictment of Vernon and Petunia, who underfed Harry while overfeeding Dudley. By book five, he's no longer fat but has a wrestler's physique, which for me is an entirely different body type. Oh, did I mention I like Slughorn and Hagrid? I would be horrified in real life if I heard one of the children in the private school where I work criticizing another child for being either too fat or too thin (and we have both here). However, in literature that attempts to create realistic characters, insulting other kids' appearance rings true. If that kind of behavior were portrayed as heroic, I'd object. In fact, Hermione, who is generally the voice of maturity, urges the others to ignore insults rather than trade them. I have 30 pounds that need to take a hike, too. I'm perfectly willing to concede a lack of sensitivity, but I'm not offended by Umbridge as long as I have Molly to keep me company. akh, who comes up with brilliant posts in the shower but has forgotten them by the time she dries off and sits down at her computer... --------------------------------- How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger?s low PC-to-Phone call rates. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From quigonginger at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 13:26:33 2006 From: quigonginger at yahoo.com (quigonginger) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 13:26:33 -0000 Subject: Fat Rant In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150607 > Potioncat wrote: , a little taken aback by JKR's website. She rants, very > appropriately, about the push for girls to be uber-thin. > (snip) > I agree fully with JKR, don't get me wrong. And yeah, I know Molly is > plump. (She's one of the good guys, for the record.) But really, take > a look at how JKR generally portrays overweight people in the series. > Dudley? Crabbe? Goyle? Vernon? Umbridge? > Yes there are bad thin guys too: Snape, Dark Lord, Petunia... (snip)> I just wonder if JKR knows she's doing all most the same thing as the > media she complains about? Ginger: Actually, I never really worried about her characterization of fat people. I'm a Two-Ton-Tess myself. Always have been. Back in my high school days, when I was 140 pounds lighter (really!) a guy was going around collecting money for the Save the Whales campaign to remove beached whales back to the ocean. I had just moved there and it was 2 months before one of my friends finally blurted out "How can you stand it when he talks about you like that?" I had 2 choices: admit to being Queen of the Dork-people and tell her that I had no idea he wasn't really talking about aquatic mammels, or pretend I had known it all along. I chose the latter, and said, "Why should I let him bother me? He's just a stupid boy." It was the best save of my life. My friends thought I was So Cool to take it in stride like that. That's when I learned the single most valuable lesson of my life: Your friends are the important people, not some blathering idiot; and if you can laugh at yourself, you'll have an ever-present source of amusement for life. I find the whole thing quite hillarious now. I saw him again at my 20 year reunion. We ate, drank and went bowling and had a fantastic time. He's fat now too. Hah. Back to the Potterverse (now that you know I am truely an expert on blubber). JKR's protrayal of fat people is two-fold. The good ones are simply good people who are overweight. Neville is a good kid who happens to be chubby. Molly is like all the women in my family, what my Grandpa used to call "pleasingly plump". (Except cousin Martha, but she takes after the other side of her family.) I'd be more worried if all the good people were svelt. That, to me, would show a bias against heft that JKR obviously doesn't hold. There are plenty of people out there who have excess weight, but are nonetheless beautiful. I think Delta Burke, Oprah, and Star Jones are among the most beautiful women on the planet, and none of them are bony. Even without good looks, some people who are "gravitationally challenged", as my friend Ann used to say, have the charm or that French phrase that slips my mind that means that they have that "certain something" where they can carry it off. Think of the late Mama Cass Elliot. For all we know, the Fat Lady is pretty. Olympe Maxime, being half- giant, is not small, but she is "handsome", which I think describes her features as well as her demeanor. She is intelligent, charming and brave (treking off to meet giants with Hagrid), and she carries herself with dignity. Much of the same can be said about Mme Bones. The bad characters, on the other hand, are not just overweight, they are grotesque. There's a difference. Trust me. For every Delta Burke, there's a 300+ pound slob who has a problem finding shirts long enough cover her belly, and who eats the whole box of mac-n- cheese straight from the pan if she's had a bad day. But enough about me. Back to the Potterverse. JKR's bad'n'fat characters are not just fat, they are overindulgent or overindulged in other areas. Pre-diet Dudley was not only fed too much, he is given too much of whatever he wanted. Vernon wants to impress the neighbours by having more and better than what they have. Umbridge, possibly the fattest, wants power and more power, and will stop at nothing to feed her gluttony for it. Sluggy, while not a bad guy, is certainly a good example of the corrupting influence greed can have on a person. In all these cases, it is not the weight that is the problem, but rather, that the weight is a byproduct of the problem, and JKR uses the physical description to convey that. In short, the message I got from the books is that good people come in all shapes and sizes, and that greed and overindulgence is bad. Ginger "I'd kill for a Melocreme", back to munching celery. Again. From foxmoth at qnet.com Thu Apr 6 13:58:50 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 13:58:50 -0000 Subject: DADA curse and Re: Maligning Lupin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150608 > Carol responds: There's the DADA curse, simultaneously working to expose > Lupin and to aid Voldemort by returning his servant Wormtail to him. > IMO, the DADA curse explains everything--why Lupin kept the map rather > than turning it in to DD and confessing all his secrets, why Lupin > happened to be looking at the map just as Sirius Black/Padfoot was > dragging Ron (with Pettigrew in his pocket) into the tunnel, why Lupin > left the map open for Snape to see, why Lupin rushed out without his > potion on a full-moon night, why Snape arrived two minutes too late to > give it to him, why Lupin transformed when he did, allowing Pettigrew > to escape and restore LV to "human" form. Coincidence? Not if LV's > will in the form of the DADA curse is at work. Pippin: That's an awful lot of work for one curse. It doesn't seem to act that way with the other DADA teachers either. For each of them, the proximate cause of their departure is a deliberate attack or an attempted attack on a student -- even Snape with his stinging hex, or whatever it was, that incites Buckbeak to chase him. I don't think the curse helps LV either, because if it did, it should have allowed Quirrell to steal the stone and finish off Harry before Dumbledore arrived. Wouldn't it be elegant if all the curse provides is temptation? Back in PS/SS, Hagrid defends Snape by saying that he wouldn't hurt a student because he's a Hogwarts teacher. It sounds like Hagrid thinks all Hogwarts teachers are saints at the time. But what if the spells of protection on Hogwarts provide that a teacher who deliberately endangers or attempts to harm a student will be cast out? It would certainly appeal to Voldemort if he could turn the Founders' magic to his benefit. Of course no magic is foolproof, so Quirrell could admit a troll or hex Harry's broom and use occlumency to hide the knowledge that he's endangering students. Umbridge could force Harry to harm himself with the quill, sincerely thinking it's for his own good, toad that she is, and only trigger the curse when she attempts to crucio him. According to this theory, then, ESE!Lupin triggered the curse when he decided to use his transformation to help Pettigrew to escape, knowing that would put the children in danger. (Even if he had secretly taken his potion, the children were still in danger from the escaping Pettigrew, who hexed Ron.) > Carol: > Setting aside the tower incident, which doesn't require ESE!Lupin for > DDM!Snape to have made the only possible choice (the lesser of two > evils, etc.), I agree with you that Harry has shifted the blame for > Sirius Black's death onto Snape. Pippin: IMO, it requires ESE!somebody to help Draco get the Death Eaters into the castle. Draco is too weak and unreliable an operative to work without supervision nearby. No doubt someone will reply that Draco, like Pettigrew, could be more adept than anyone thinks. That's true. But Voldemort is hardly likely to see it that way. The advantage of ESE!Lupin killing Black instead of Bella is that as long as Harry believes Black's recklessness contributed to his death, he can blame Snape for inciting it. But if Sirius was betrayed, then avoiding known DE's would not have saved him, and Snape is not to blame at all. Pippin From KLMF at aol.com Thu Apr 6 14:31:58 2006 From: KLMF at aol.com (klmf1) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 14:31:58 -0000 Subject: Danger at the Wedding? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150609 Forgive me if this has come up already, but is anyone else out there wondering if the Bill and Fleur wedding isn't going to be a scene of destruction? With Arthur working for the Ministry, Bill as a Curse Breaker, the Weasleys as "blood traitors", and poor Molly's bad dreams ---not to mention the foreshadowing of the whole family pointing at "mortal peril" on her clock, a wedding with all those people together in one place seems a great opportunity to knock off a few pesky muggle-lovers and HP & Co.....Maybe even with the help of Percy who, IMO, has been under the imperious curse for a long time.... On the subject of Percy, I guess even his clock hand is pointed at "mortal peril"...... Karen F From anita_hillin at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 14:40:33 2006 From: anita_hillin at yahoo.com (AnitaKH) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 07:40:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Snape's worst memory...you are kidding right? In-Reply-To: <20060406005858.6551.qmail@web61323.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060406144033.11076.qmail@web36808.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150610 Joe Goodwin pointed out: Here is something that has bothered me for a while. Could the scene in the pensive really be Snape's worst memory? A high school (in the US) altercation with a couple of guys he didn't like? Doesn't that sound way too much like those Jerry Springer commercials "Got issues from high school and want to confront your old schoolmate?" [snippage] Honestly, how can that be the man's worst memory? He was a Death Eater, he had to have seen some gruesome things. If we believe he was one of the first people to Godrics Hollow then he saw James and his beloved(maybe) Lilly laying murdered. Shouldn't that be is worst memory? akh responds: I admit, my first reaction when I read that scene was, "If that's the worst thing that ever happened to you, Sonny, thank your lucky stars!" However, I'm presuming it's more of a worst memory because that scene acted as a catalyst. Others have suggested that the incident we see led Snape to dog (yeah, I know, it's a pun) the quartet and take Sirius up on his "prank." If this was the first step toward DE-hood, it might be the day he regrets most bitterly. Take a real-life example: my fiance (now my ex-husband) called me in the middle of the night to say he could wait no longer, and that we had to get married immediately. His mother got on the phone to encourage me to say yes, so despite my reservations, I agreed to a hasty wedding. Now, on the surface, this is hardly a horrible memory. If things had worked out, it would have been a pleasant memory, even. However, given how terribly wrong everything went from then until the ugly demise, it's painful to recall. The short-winded version of this reply is: context is everything. On the surface, Snape's memory could hardly be the worst of his life, given his status as DE, spy and traitor to someone (name your camp). However, if it led directly to his blighted life, he would consider it "worst" in retrospect. akh, who has a bevy of candidates for "worst memory"... --------------------------------- How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger?s low PC-to-Phone call rates. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Thu Apr 6 15:23:55 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 11:23:55 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Fat Rant In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060406152355.46306.qmail@web37007.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150611 Ginger: (snipped a lot of a really good post) JKR's bad'n'fat characters are not just fat, they are overindulgent or overindulged in other areas. In all these cases, it is not the weight that is the problem, but rather, that the weight is a byproduct of the problem, and JKR uses the physical description to convey that. Catherine: And to add another point. JKR doesn't describe all the weightier characters as lazy and underproductive slobs, as is our stereotype in the RW. In fact, Dudley is very well-groomed despite his size, it's Harry who is viewed as the slob. The large characters in the books aren't fat because JKR protrays "fat people" a certain way. In my opinion, the characters are very much the weight of their personailties. Aunt Petunia is so filled with nervous energy and so uptight, the by-product of her personality is how skinny she is. Molly on the otherhand, is very much like my italian grandmother who demonstrates her love with food. The by-product of her personaily is that she'a a little plump. Dudley is fat because his parents always overindulged him with food, not so much as Molly does to demonstrate love, I see it more as a substitute for nurturing. I actually think that JKR has really thought about every aspect of her characters personalities and their outward consequences, that it very much rings true to me. I'm not saying that it's not possible for a skinny mother to be nurturing or a fat mother to be "pinched" (a word I like to use to describe Petunia). But that one's lifestyle does sometimes have quite the influence on your weight/physique, as does genetics and many other factors as well. catherine Whose father taught her to never trust a skinny chef. He being a rather round cook himself ;-) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From chnc1024 at earthlink.net Thu Apr 6 16:11:45 2006 From: chnc1024 at earthlink.net (chnc1024 at earthlink.net) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 09:11:45 -0700 Subject: W.O.M.B.A.T. results... Message-ID: <410-22006446161145661@earthlink.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150612 FYI, Jo now has a WOMBAT card located at the top of her site. When you click on it, you are asked for your student I.D. code. This brings up a Weasley type of a clock that points to tests being marked. The other 2 parts of the clock state "results in the post", and "results delivered". Chancie [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From belviso at attglobal.net Thu Apr 6 16:12:27 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (sistermagpie) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 16:12:27 -0000 Subject: Fat Rant In-Reply-To: <20060406004151.77306.qmail@web61322.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150613 > Magpie: > >> But to me it just encourages this swing from one extreme to > the other: someone that thin "must" be anorexic, imo, suggests this > idea that you're either "normal" (even if normal means unhealthily > overweight) or "anorexic." Just as at the other end of the spectrum > having breasts is considered fat. << > > Joe: > I have to agree but I think it goes even further. Most people are > totally focused on their weight as expressed in pounds. The truth is > that body fat percentage is far more important than just the pounds > you weigh. A person who has 14% bodyfat at 250lbs is going to look > and feel better that the person who has 22% bodyfat at 180 lbs. Magpie: Oh yes, I agree. I think my own body (as well as many peoples') falls outside of whatever is supposed to be "right" pound-wise. Actually, I just recently took some silly internet quiz about what my weight was and it was sixty pounds off. Not sure what it was basing it on, but that seemed quite a bit off. > Joe: > I think it is far more complex though than any racial issue. There is > no doubt that people should not be judged on their weight. It can be > said however that on average overweight people are less productive > and require greater utilization of healthcare resources. Also fueling > the public debate is the perception, in most cases rightly so, that > obesity is controllable. Magpie: Yes, that's where I absolutely agree-well, that this is complex. I brought up racism because I thought that was very complex as well. That's partly why I think we should move beyond the whole "the media pressures girls to be thin and that makes them anorexic!" idea because I just hear it so much and I don't think it's accurate. Yes, thin is celebrated in the media and that's something that should be discussed as well, but as you said, obesity is a much more widespread problem at the moment. And eating disorders, even anorexia, are not about conforming to Hollywood's idea, they are about control. Many eating disorders don't even result in super- thinness or starvation. So I think I've gotten to the point where this pov seems like a distraction to me. And also it tends to encourage people to start talking about how "real women" look a certain way and "who wants to look like a pre-pubescent boy?" or whatever which imo is counterproductive. It's not about women or girls being self-confident, it's just more cattiness on the other side, tearing down the other body type. It connects to this for me: Alla: Now, Okay, she likes Hermione, she really likes Hermione, I understand that, so it is understandable that she wants young girls to be like her, but what is so BAD about Pancy Parkinson that she does not want the girls to be like her, except that Pancy is in Slytherin House? Magpie: It just seems like JKR makes it very clear which types of girls or girlish behavior are good or bad--Hermione as a character is very judgmental of other women, which is fine because it's in character for her, but she doesn't get called on it too much. Luna does, but then with Luna Hermione is more disagreeing with the stuff she says. But I feel like Lavender and Parvati sometimes are being judged because of their giggling and interest in make up and boys. Pansy is sometimes aggressively rude, but it seems like in the fat rant JKR is referring to Pansy's being interested in looks being her problem, she's being held up as a type, not a specific character. But I think a girl can be both a Hermione and a Pansy. Hermione keeps saying Pansy's dumb but she doesn't seem dumb to me, just catty and mean. And for all the talk about Hermione not wanting to be judged on her looks, JKR still writes an over the top Cinderella moment for her where she comes to the ball and of course looks very pretty, prettier than Pansy. There's plenty of stuff that Pansy does that people shouldn't do, but it's not a case of growing up to be one girl or the other. There's things to learn not to do by watching Hermione too. -m From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 16:55:54 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 16:55:54 -0000 Subject: The Pensieve and Occlumency (Was:Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150614 Deb wrote: > > > Snape can not remove too many memories or LV would surely spot the gaps and dig even deeper into Snape's memories - and probably in ways that would be similar to what he did to poor Bertha. Snape is an excellent actor/Occulmens/master of several magical specialties ... but he also is as human as anyone else in the Wizarding World and his memory/brain works in the same way everyone elses does. > One of the memories I suspect Snape puts into the Pensieve when he goes to see LV after HBP is the one where Harry actually thwarts his Legilmens attempt by using the Shield Charm. He actually breaks down and says "Well done, Potter"... very OOC for the Snape we know and love or love to hate. Carol responds: Setting aside Snape and his motives for once, we seem to have some differences here regarding Occlumency, Legilimency, and the Pensieve. You seem to be viewing Legilimency as something akin to mind-reading, with Voldemort's mind roaming freely through Snape's thoughts every time he sees him and Snape forced to put the (many) memories he doesn't want LV to see into a Pensieve every time he goes to see Voldemort because Occlumency itself isn't an adequate shield. Forgiveme if I'm misreading you and arguing against a straw man here, but I don't see it this way at all. To begin with, Snape doesn't have a Pensieve of his own, he uses Dumbledore's during the Occlumency lessons. He certainly cannot have rushed up to DD's office, Draco in tow, removed the memory of his grudging but IMO genuine praise of Harry during the Occlumency lesson (IIRC, it wasn't "well done, Potter" but "For a first attempt, that wasn't as bad as it might have been") or any other memory. He just prevents a DE from Crucioing Harry (a much more dangerous memory, IMO), makes sure that Draco and the DEs are off the grounds, and shows Harry exactly *why* he, Snape, thinks that Harry had really better start learning, quickly, how to shut his mouth and his mind when he's duelling with DEs. In the single other instance when we know that Snape went directly to Voldemort himself rather than "finding out what Voldemort is telling his Death Eaters" via the DEs, Snape again leaves Hogwarts in a hurry with no time to deposit his thoughts in a Pensieve. He has been with Dumbledore at the TWT and then fetching Winky and the Veritaserum to help expose the imposter pretending to be Moody. When Dumbledore says "If you are ready, if you are prepared" and Snape says "I am," I don't think DD means, "If you've I placed your incriminating memories in a Pensieve." He means "If you've come up with your cover stories for the various instances of disloyalty Voldemort is about to confront you with." Snape says that he's ready and prepared--he has his cover stories--and we see some if not all of them in "Spinner's End." Just as Legilimency is not mind reading ("The mind, Potter, is not a book to be perused at will," quoted from memory), Occlumency is not the removal of memories for temporary storage in a Pensieve (though I think that only a person skilled at both Legilimency and Occlumency can acquire this particular skill). It's more a matter of shutting your mind magically so that it can't be magically penetrated. An amateur Occlumens like Draco can close his mind, but he can't do so without detection. Snape immediately knows that someone, probably Aunt Bellatrix, has been teaching Draco Occlumency. But to practice such crude Occlumency against Voldemort would dangerous, perhaps even fatal. a "superb Occlumens" like Snape can practice Occlumency undetected, hiding his emotions and his lies by masking them with some other memory, real or false, that conceals the lie. In Snape's own words, "The Dark Lord, for instance, almost always knows when somebody is lying to him. Only those skilled at Occlumency are able to shut down those feelings and memories that contradict the lie, and to utter falsehoods in his presence without detection" (OoP 24). Clearly, what LV sees when he looks into Snape's eyes is not a blank wall or a tunnel or any other obvious sign of Occlumency but some sort of (rigged) evidence that he's telling the truth. This tactic would be most easily accomplished, IMO, using partial truths--showing the part of the memory that supports the lie and concealing the rest--which is perhaps why partial truths seem to be one of Snape's (and DD's) favorite tactics. One more thought--what the Legilimens normally sees is probably the thought floating nearest the surface, the one of most immediate concern to the victim (Legilimensee?) such as the HBP's Potions book when Snape Legilimenses Harry in HBP. (If he used Legilimency on Narcissa in "Spinner's End," he would probably have seen Draco's imagined death at the hands of Death Eaters. Clearly that fear was uppermost in her mind.) On a side note, I don't think that Snape has directly confronted (or been directly confronted by him) all that frequently since LV's return at the end of GoF. He's usually at Hogwarts and can attend DE meetings, etc., only during the summer and perhaps during Christmas break. At a guess, he receives most of his information through DE contacts, mostly Lucius Malfoy until Malfoy's arrest at the end of HBP. We know of only one definite instance (at the end of GoF) and one probable instance (at the end of HBP). But in those and any other instances, his protections would be his superb skills at Occlumency and at lying (more accurately, perhaps, telling half-truths)--not placing his memories in a Pensieve before the encounter. With regard to Pensieves, I've seen posts on this list in which the poster seems to regard the Pensieve as a permanent memory holder. As I understand it, DD uses his Pensieve to mix together related thoughts, e.g., those connected with the TWT and any person who might have put Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire, to sift them (Pen SIEVE) and sort them to make new connections. (That's how he eventually made the connection between Barty Jr. and the Fake Moody.) He also uses it as a teaching tool for Harry, using his own and other people's memories temporarily placed in it before returning them to his own mind or their respective bottles. Snape merely borrowed the empty Pensieve and temporarily placed three memories in it (an like everyone else, I hope we learn what the other two were!) to protect them in case Harry actually managed a Shield Charm. What we would have seen in place of the crying child, the boy on the broom, and the teenager swatting flies is Snape had not protected those memories is anybody's guess. But at any rate, when he's finished with the Occlumency lessons, he puts them back into his head. IMO, he can protect those and any other memories from Voldemort's Legilimency, but not against a Legilimency *spell* had Harry thought to cast one or against a Protego (Shield Charm) that bounces his own Legilimency spell back onto him. That required him to pull himself together and shout "Enough!"--hardly a tactic he could use on Voldemort--or would ordinarily need to use in Legilimency via eye contact. At any rate, the Pensieve is not a long-term storage container. It has specific uses, primarily as a means of studying objective memories in relation to one another or visiting the past via an objective memory, but also, secondarily, storing memories that an Occlumency teacher doesn't want his pupil to see should the pupil accidentally or deliberately use a spell that might reveal them. It is not a permanent storage container, and it's extremely unlikely that Harry will find any interesting memories stored in the Pensieve. What he may find is bottled memories, perhaps Dumbledore's own or even one or two of Snape's. I would be delighted it the other two memories that Snape placed in the Pensieve were there in labeled, dated bottles on a shelf above the Pensieve in Dumbledore's, or rather McGonagall's office. Too bad the argument in the forest won't also be there, or at least, I doubt that it will. Carol, noting that she's not so much arguing with Deb as using Deb's thoughts as a take-off point for her own views on Occlumency, Legilimency, and Pensieves From xenitesunite2002 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 15:45:50 2006 From: xenitesunite2002 at yahoo.com (Lynn) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 15:45:50 -0000 Subject: The whole map thing Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150615 O.K. I knew I was messing something up too much movie with my daughter. But I really don't think he had any idea. I think it was more of a way to smear Lupin with the belief that he had no right to the job that he wanted. He feels he is the only one qualified to teach the dark arts. The dislike between Lupin and Snape knows no bounds on Snape's side. Just my view of Snape. Lynn From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 16:57:44 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 16:57:44 -0000 Subject: Snape's Worst Memory Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150616 Having reflected a little more after reading these posts, I think the really significant question is why Snape is concerned to prevent Harry from seeing this particular memory. Any thoughts? steven1965aaa From gloworm419 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 16:00:23 2006 From: gloworm419 at yahoo.com (Gloria R. Hernon) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 09:00:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Danger at the Wedding? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060406160024.25792.qmail@web50410.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150617 Karen wrote: > Forgive me if this has come up already, but is > anyone else out there > wondering if the Bill and Fleur wedding isn't going > to be a scene of > destruction? With Arthur working for the Ministry, > Bill as a Curse Breaker, the > Weasleys as "blood traitors", and poor Molly's bad > dreams ---not to mention > the foreshadowing of the whole family pointing at > "mortal peril" on her clock, > a wedding with all those people together in one > place seems a great > opportunity to knock off a few pesky muggle-lovers > and HP & Co.....Maybe > even with the help of Percy who, IMO, has been under > the imperious curse for > a long time.... > > On the subject of Percy, I guess even his clock hand > is pointed at "mortal > peril"...... Well I'm hoping JKR lets a beautiful wedding happen. Seeing a magical wedding in progress would be wonderful! I think they'll have a LV-free day; but maybe they'll learn more about his whereabouts and how to help Harry. I'm really hoping that Percy has been under the Imperious Curse for some time now..I'd hate to think of the alternative. Anyone agree? Gloria From spirittalks at gmail.com Thu Apr 6 17:39:58 2006 From: spirittalks at gmail.com (Kim) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 13:39:58 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] DADA curse and Re: Maligning Lupin References: Message-ID: <005601c659a1$2097bde0$6501a8c0@your27e1513d96> No: HPFGUIDX 150618 Pippin theorizes: Back in PS/SS, Hagrid defends Snape by saying that he wouldn't hurt a student because he's a Hogwarts teacher. It sounds like Hagrid thinks all Hogwarts teachers are saints at the time. But what if the spells of protection on Hogwarts provide that a teacher who deliberately endangers or attempts to harm a student will be cast out? It would certainly appeal to Voldemort if he could turn the Founders' magic to his benefit. Kim replies: This is an interesting theory, and one I like. But I have one problem with it. Remember when Barty!Moody transifigured Malfoy into a ferret and bounced him around? That definately should have triggered such such a protection spell, I'd think. I can't check the book right now, it's loaned out. I am not sure if he was bounced around just in the movie or if it was in the book too. Maybe just a transfiguration of a student wouldn't cause a protection spell to jump in but I would hope it would. Kim... who thinks every school should have such a spell. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 18:05:39 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 18:05:39 -0000 Subject: Danger at the Wedding? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150619 Karen F. wrote: > Forgive me if this has come up already, but is anyone else out there > wondering if the Bill and Fleur wedding isn't going to be a scene of > destruction? With Arthur working for the Ministry, Bill as a Curse Breaker, the Weasleys as "blood traitors", and poor Molly's bad dreams ---not to mention the foreshadowing of the whole family pointing at "mortal peril" on her clock, a wedding with all those people together in one place seems a great opportunity to knock off a few pesky muggle-lovers and HP & Co.....Maybe even with the help of Percy who, IMO, has been under the imperious curse for a long time.... > > On the subject of Percy, I guess even his clock hand is pointed at "mortal peril"...... Carol responds: I've wondered about this, too, but I think the problem can be avoided if the Weasleys keep the wedding private and secret. It's not exactly unusual for all of the Weasleys (minus Percy), along Harry, Hermione, Fleur, Tonks, and Lupin to be gathered together at the Weasleys. Adding Fleur's mother and little Gabrielle won't make that big a difference as long as no one's spying on them. (If Lupin is ESE!, we're in trouble. Winks at Pippin.) I think there may be a row over whether to invite Percy, which may lead to trouble later whether he's invited or not, but JKR has said in an interview that Percy is not under the Imperius Curse. A lot depends on when the wedding occurs (before or after Harry's blood protection ends) and whether the blood protection extends beyond 4 Privet Drive. I don't think it does. ("As long as you can call home the place where your mother's blood dwells, *there* he cannot harm you.) In any case, I think that the first attack will occur at the Dursleys' house at midnight as the date shifts from July 30 to July 31, Harry's seventeenth birthday--at which point I expect Petunia to chuck him out, accompanied by Ron and Hermione. What will happen then is anybody's guess, though I personally expect Mrs. Figg to behave heroically and to "manage in desperate circumstances to do magic quite late in life" http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/1999/0399-barnesandnoble.html As for the clock's hands all pointing to "mortal peril," I'm quite disappointed that they were already doing so in HBP. What good is that? What happens if one of the Weasleys is actually attacked, like Bill by Fenrir Greyback, and there's no difference between his clock hand and, say, George's, yet George is (relatively) safe in Diagon Alley and Bill is lying in a pool of his own blood? I used to envision all the hands in their normal positions and Percy's moving to "mortal peril" as Molly watched. The thought still sends chills up and down my spine even though I don't think it will happen that way now. But Molly loves her third son even if no one else in the family does, and I do think that Percy will be among the characters who redeems himself through his death, perhaps the only one who does so if Snape lives or is already redeemed. (I do expect a Weasley to die, maybe more than one, but to start off the book with a Weasley bloodbath would be too much for younger readers. OTOH, I don't think Molly's fears for her family as illustrated so graphically through her Boggart are groundless.) How about a double wedding, Fleur/Bill and Tonks/Lupin, as a happy beginning to the book, foreshadowing another double wedding, Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione, in the epilogue, with the deaths (and there will be deaths, I'm sure) at intervals throughout the intervening chapters. At any rate, I'm sure that Harry will need Bill's expertise as a curse breaker at some point before he resorts to accepting help from a certain Dark Arts and potions expert (with surprising healing powers) who won't be invited to the wedding(s), so Bill will survive his own wedding. (Wonder if Viktor Krum will be there? That should be fun.) Carol, wondering whether lightning will strike twice in the same place, meaning that a Weasley who has already faced death (Ginny, Arthur, Ron, Bill) might die or if we should expect the death(s) among those who have not had near-misses (Molly, Percy, Charlie, Percy, the Twins, Percy, and did I mention Percy?) From belviso at attglobal.net Thu Apr 6 18:23:19 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (sistermagpie) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 18:23:19 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose /Why I Hate Snape/Snape's Worst Memory In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150620 > Deb here: Fak!Moody had to be nice to Harry and other students in > order to carry out his assignment for LV. It would have been OOC for > Real!Moody to be vicious to Harry, Ron or any other DDM!character! > The real Moody is/was an Auror fighting against LV and very much > DDM. If Fake!Moody (the only Moody we really see in GOF) had favored > Slytherins or any other person who had leanings toward the dark side > DD would have known much sooner that Moody was a Fake. Barty Crouch > Jr was a good actor. Magpie: Barty Crouch doesn't hate Harry, period. And yet he's a loyal DE. He does hate Snape and the Malfoys. Iow, he's not always acting. Fake!Moody isn't just trying to not show favor to the Slytherins, he's acting out his own real feelings about Snape and Malfoy. He isn't pretending to favor Harry, he really does want Harry to win the Tournament. His story includes these little moments where we know there's some explanation beyond what we already know, and later it's explained. With Snape we're talking about the opposite as far as I can see, because there is not one moment I can think of that would be explained better by Snape faking his behavior to Harry, Neville and Hermione. Instead this explanation explains away what's actually there. Deb: > Snape on the other hand can't be nice to Harry et al for much the > same reasons IMO - in order to fulfill his mission for DD and spy on > LV he has to continue to convince LV that he is on the LV+DE side. Magpie: Why can't Snape be nice to Harry et al for much the same reasons Moody can-in order to fulfill his mission for DD and spy on LV? Snape is supposed to be a double agent on both sides. There's nothing out of the ordinary about LVM!Snape sucking up to Harry and the good guys when he has the chance. Frankly, it's what a good double agent would do, imo. It's what LV would do too. Snape's behavior towards Harry drives Harry away from him, so I don't see how it proves him a good DE. And why does he have to be impatient and biting to Neville or say Hermione's a know-it-all? Deb: > And to do that he has to allow LV to use his Legilmency skills to > probe his memories (how long do you think anyone of LV's minions > would last if they refused the Dark Lord or tried to evade his > probing - my hunch would be that LV spent a lot of time once he > returned to corporeal form interrogating all of the DEs-LV is after > all very paranoid and suspects everyone). Snape is apparently the > only person who has ever successfully lied to LV. And again IMO the > only way to accomplish that is to keep from making too many memories > that he would be worried about LV seeing... And as anyone knows the > best way to tell a successful lie is to stick as close to the truth > as possible. Magpie: Yes, the best way to tell a successful lie is to stick as close to the truth as possible. But that's not what you're describing. You're describing a Snape who comes up with this completely different character for himself, one who is infuriated by Harry because he looks like his father, who is annoyed by Hermione's know- it-all-ness and Neville's ineptitude, and having to play that part for all its worth so as to stick to it. But I don't see why Snape has to be this person or create this elaborate persona. Nor do I see how it sticks close to the truth, since really Snape apparently isn't infuriated by these kids. Sticking to the truth would mean Snape acting fairly close to his regular self. Deb: > The whole chapter called Spinner's End in HBP demonstrates to me > Snape's skills as a Spin Doctor par excellence. He sticks close to > the truth when answering Bella's accusations ... he just shades the > reason's for his actions... Magpie: Exactly. But also exactly what he's *not* doing at Hogwarts if his behavior towards Harry is an act. Snape in Spinner's End isn't putting on fake emotional displays that I can see. Deb: Bella is apparently no slouch at > Legilemency herself (Snape guesses she's teaching this to Draco) and > he has her convinced by the end that he is LVM all the way. Magpie: I wouldn't be so sure he's got her convinced of that all the way by the end, actually. Deb: And has > Narcissa convinced that he will thwart LV's plans for Draco (and > doesn't that actually show he isn't LVM - if he were wouldn't he > tell her that The Dark Lord must be obeyed and that she needs > to "suck it up" and let Draco get on with it...??) and makes a UV > to do so! With Bella as their binder. Now that is acting IMO. Magpie: It's not acting at all. The vow is real, it's not an act. He hasn't just convinced Narcissa he's going to thwart Voldemort's plans for Draco he's taken a vow that he must try to do that or die. Whatever convincing he's done for Bella he's done through that action, not his acting skills. > Deb here: > Yes true but the SH also says when questioning HP's desire to not > go into Slytherin "You could be great, you know, it's all here in > your head, and Slytherin *will* (empasis mine) help you on the way > to greatness, no doubt about that --". And SH also tells Harry in > DD's office that it stands by what it said.. Harry would have done > well in Slytherin. I wonder if that one word *will* is a > foreshadow, hint, clue that a Slytherin (or Slytherin the House in > general) will be instrumental in bringing Harry to his peak of > power. Magpie: Yes, that hat does say he'd do well there and a Slytherin could be instrumental in bringing Harry to his peak of power, I agree. But that's a side issue and doesn't prove that Harry was supposed to be in Slytherin or that it would have changed his entire relationship with Snape if he was. I've seen no sign Snape wanted Harry in Slytherin, which I think we would see if it was so important. > Deb here: > No I think the difference is in the roles ... House Master is > responcible for much more than lessons - a HM also is looking after > students physical and emotional well being (I worked as a Resident > Director of a college dorm for two years and think the position of > Head of House at Hogwarts would be quite similar though *sigh* I > didn't get to do magic). The interaction with students is quite > different. If McGonagall were not Harry's HM but only his professor > I doubt that she would have visited him in the infirmary, or gone to > his dorm room to check on him. LV would know that -if Harry had gone > into Slytherin House - Snape's role with him would be quite > different. And in order for Snape to stay "in character" (ie keep > convincing DD that he is DDM while convincing LV he is LVM) in that > situation he would have had to be much more involved in Harry's out > of class life. Plus he could still be nasty to Griffindor's if that > is what he was like before Harry arrived... and could be > encouraging, or less critical of Harry because after all he would > favor his own House would he not? > Magpie: I don't think RD of a college dorm and HoH are quite similar. We've seen the HoH at Hogwarts. McGonagall's relationship to Harry would be different if she wasn't his HoH, but not that different. Not in a way I see it changing Snape's problem. And not in a way that I can see why Snape can't just use this same argument to explain why he's not picking on Harry as his Potions Master. Yes, he could explain favoring Harry as house favoritism if he were in Slytherin, but that doesn't mean he must disfavor him because he's a Gryffindor or that his personal disfavor of him is an act. I'm still stuck with the same basic premises that don't work for me: 1. That Voldemort requires Snape to pick on Harry, Neville, Hermione and occasionally Ron by association to prove he's loyal to Voldemort. 2. That Voldemort makes a big distinction in his mind between Potions Master and Head of House, seeing one as a position in which less than malicious treatment is a sign of disloyalty, but the other a position that requires the feigning of personal affection. And then an even bigger problem is, if this theory is true and all of Snape's harsh or insulting words to Harry and his friends were an act to convince LV he's a loyal DE should he ever have returned...who is Severus Snape? What is his personality outside of what he fakes for a job? How does he really feel about these people and where are the moments when he shows it in canon? Barty Crouch, as I said above, is not acting throughout GoF. He's pretending to be Alastor Moody, but the real Barty is the one always looking out through the mask. His most emotional moments, especially, are real-- they're just owed to different things that we thought we were when he was Moody. So what about Snape? How does the idea that this has all been an act fit his actions *more* than the idea that his emotional states came from something real inside him? That's how these recognition solutions work throughout the books. We'd have to see scenes that brought up all these ideas in order for the end reveal to turn on them. But there's nothing in canon that brings any of this up that I can see. Canon, on the contrary, keeps revealing other stuff instead, stuff that suggests Snape's hatred of Harry and general bitterness is personal and connected to his own personal emotional past. Joe: Here is something that has bothered me for a while. Could the scene in the pensive really be Snape worst memory? A high school(in the US) altercation with a couple of guys he didn't like? Doesn't that sound way to much like those Jerry Springer commercials "Got issues from high school and want to confront your old schoolmate?" Magpie: Yes--and Snape would fit in really well on Jerry Springer.:-) Snape has a lot of issues about respect. He demands it and seems to hold it as more important even than love. In this scene he's completely helpless, emasculated and ridiculous. I absolutely think he would have more trouble with it than anything he'd seen as a DE. As a DE he might not be proud of what he'd done but at least it was something he'd chosen to do, a place where he was in control. People are funny about what humiliates them. I suspect many people's worst memories are something others would not see as such a big deal. -m From bboyminn at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 18:41:15 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 18:41:15 -0000 Subject: DADA curse ... Curse, Jinx, and Hex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150621 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" wrote: > > > Carol responds: > There's the DADA curse, simultaneously working to expose > > Lupin and to aid Voldemort by returning his servant Wormtail > > to him. IMO, the DADA curse explains everything--why Lupin > > kept the map rather than turning it in to DD and confessing > > all his secrets, why Lupin happened to be looking at the map > > just as Sirius Black/Padfoot was dragging Ron (with Pettigrew > > in his pocket) into the tunnel, why Lupin left the map open > > for Snape to see, why Lupin rushed out without his potion on > > a full-moon night, why Snape arrived two minutes too late to > > give it to him, why Lupin transformed when he did, allowing > > Pettigrew to escape and restore LV to "human" form. > > Coincidence? Not if LV's will in the form of the DADA curse > > is at work. > > Pippin: > That's an awful lot of work for one curse. ...edited... > > I don't think the curse helps LV either, because if it did, it > should have allowed Quirrell to steal the stone ... bboyminn: As usual, I'm going to ramble off on a tangent. I think in this discussion we/you are using the term 'curse' in the wrong context. I think the DADA job is not cursed, but Jinxed. This is somewhat confused because the various 'spell words' overlap and in the right context each can mean the other. For example, you can curse someone with a Jinx, or you can jinx someone with a curse, or you can Hex someone with either a Jinx or a Curse. Though I hate to do it, let me post the dictionary definitions of Hex, Jinx, and Curse. Hex - n. 1. An evil spell; a curse. 2. One that brings bad luck. Hex tr.v. Hexed, Hex?ing, Hex?es. - 1. To put a hex on. 2. To bring or wish bad luck to... Jinx - Informal. n. 1. A person or thing that is believed to bring bad luck. 2. A condition or period of bad luck that appears to have been caused by a specific person or thing. Jinx tr.v. jinxed, jinx?ing, jinx?es. - To bring bad luck to. Curse - n. 1.a. An appeal or prayer for evil or misfortune to befall someone or something. b. The evil or misfortune that comes in or as if in response to such an appeal: bewailed the curse of ill health. 2. One that is accursed. 3. A source or cause of evil; a scourge... Curse v. Cursed or Curst (k?rst), Curs?ing, Curs?es. --tr. 1. To invoke evil or misfortune upon; damn. 2. To swear at. 3. To bring evil upon; afflict... They key point to note is that /Curse/ is related to Evil, and /Jinx/ and /Hex/ are related to Bad Luck. Again, even I admit that I'm making, or about to make, a very thin point here. I think the DADA Job is /Jinxed/ in that who ever takes the job will suffer a string of specific (yet general) purpose-directed bad luck that will lead to them having to leave the job. So, while I would say that the Job is cursed with a Jinx, I would not say that the job is Cursed. Again, I admit to a subtle difference. If the job is Jinxed with purpose-directed bad luck then the sequence of events outlined by Carol at the top of the post is very likely. Fate or destiny would conspire to mold events into a chain that would ultimately lead to the downfall of the DADA Professor. However, the Jinx does not make those specific events occur. It only sets up the bad luck that allows those specific events to occur. The events themselves are irrelevant. The bad luck could have manifested itself in any number of ways as long as that bad luck is working toward a specific goal. In a sense, the Jinx only controls the outcome, and not the specific events that lead to the outcome. As Pippin points out, that sequence of events is a lot of work for a curse (or Jinx, or Hex), and, that is the point I'm making. The Jinx does not cause those specific events. It sets up a general atmosphere of bad luck, that allows the characters to make a random (or seemingly so) series of mistakes and bad choices that when combined lead to the goal of the Jinx itself which is for the DADA teacher to be gone in a year, usually in a state of disgrace. Again, it's a very subtle difference. I think it the DADA job was truly curse in the most absolute sense of the word, then each DADA Professor would not have met with bad luck, but would have met with an evil end. Now some will argue that Quirrel and Barty!Moody met with evil ends, but I think their evil ends were caused by their evil lives and not by the Jinx on the DADA job. The DADA Jinx served it's purpose and brought each DADA teacher to a state of disgrace that would have resulted in their removal. However, not every event is controlled by that Jinx. Their own evil lives took them that additional step and resulted in Quirrel's death and Barty!Moody being Dementor Kissed. Bad Luck is bad enough, but when combined with evil, it is a dark and deadly force. So, I can't say that the Jinx didn't contribute to the retribution of an evil life. It probably did, but I think the direct affect of the Jinx had run it's course and done it job before each character met his evil end. Why does this subtle point matter? I think too many people are taking the concept of 'curse' too literally. You are speaking of a curse in the sense that a cast curse is applied, and trying to make that concept fit the events. But, I feel the DADA position if only cursed in the most broad and general sense, and that we are far better served by viewing that curse in the context of purpose-directed bad luck (a jinx). Purpose-directed bad luck can explain a lot of events without the need for directly controlling those events. As in Carol's example, it's difficult to see a cast curse precisely affecting so many complex events, but in the context of bad luck affecting the character, that sequense of events seem more plausable. In conclusion, I feel like I've done a lot of talking, but I'm not sure if I actually said anything. Once again, the distinction I am making is without question very subtle. So, I can't help but ask, does anyone see the point I'm trying to make here? Just a thought. Steve/bboyminn From kchuplis at alltel.net Thu Apr 6 18:51:03 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 13:51:03 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Snape's Worst Memory References: Message-ID: <001001c659ab$0e50bdd0$b301010a@ConsolidatedTelephone.local> No: HPFGUIDX 150622 ----- Original Message ----- From: steven1965aaa Having reflected a little more after reading these posts, I think the really significant question is why Snape is concerned to prevent Harry from seeing this particular memory. Any thoughts? kchuplis: Because I would think that seeing him humiliated (which is IMO why it IS Snape's worst memory. Humiliation to anyone is perhaps the most vivid and sometimes gut churning thing let alone I-Would-Never-Wear-My-Heart-on-My-sleeve Snape) especially a STUDENT seeing that, especially HARRY seeing that....well. Now, if he had a memory that showed James in that bad a light without the Snape humiliation, I bet he would have been happy for Harry to see it. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 18:25:37 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 18:25:37 -0000 Subject: Danger at the Wedding? In-Reply-To: <20060406160024.25792.qmail@web50410.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150623 Gloria R. Hernon" wrote: I'm really hoping that Percy has been under the Imperious Curse for some time now..I'd hate to think of the alternative. Anyone agree? Gloria Steven1965aaa replies: I doubt it. As far as I can recall he hasn't really done anything harmful to anyone (except emotionally with regard to his family of course), he's just been a real jerk. To paraphrase Sirius, the world is not divided between well-acting people and those under the imperious curse. My guess is that he'll come around by the end of the story. Steven1965aaa From lealess at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 19:54:35 2006 From: lealess at yahoo.com (lealess) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 19:54:35 -0000 Subject: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150624 --- "justcarol67" wrote: > > I don't really care about Pansy Parkinson one way or the other, but > I agree that she's not as bad as, say, Millicent Bulstrode. She > (Pansy) does have her human, or maybe I should say feminine, side, > really liking the baby unicorns in COMC and trying her best to hide > the feeling. > > Pansy Parkinson is a very minor character, yet she hasn't been brought to our attention as having imprisoned someone in a jar, or sent attack creatures after someone, or lectured anyone on how they should live their life, or demeaned a classmate's father's articles, or shoved her hand in the air time and time again to show everyone how much smart she is. Pansy is just catty, with a pug face. She adores a boy, but she is not acting particularly destructive over him or seeming to lie for him. She might not be the nicest person, but she seems to have always had friends. She comments on others' physical appearance, but apparently she isn't one to talk, which might even form some of her motivation, that and the fact that Draco has trouble with Hermione's besting him in class. Her picking on Hermione probaby means she is either sticking up for Draco or is threatened by Hermione in some unacknowledged way. I wouldn't automatically prefer Hermione to her, but I am not the author, who must perforce know her characters better than I do... right? I kind-of like Millicent, by the way. Go figure. lealess From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 21:20:04 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 21:20:04 -0000 Subject: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150625 > >>Alla: > > > > Now, Okay, she likes Hermione, she really likes Hermione, I > > understand that, so it is understandable that she wants young > > girls to be like her, but what is so BAD about Pancy Parkinson > > that she does not want the girls to be like her, except that > > Pancy is in Slytherin House? > > > >>Magpie: > It just seems like JKR makes it very clear which types of girls or > girlish behavior are good or bad--Hermione as a character is very > judgmental of other women, which is fine because it's in character > for her, but she doesn't get called on it too much. > > But I feel like Lavender and Parvati sometimes are being judged > because of their giggling and interest in make up and boys. Pansy > is sometimes aggressively rude, but it seems like in the fat rant > JKR is referring to Pansy's being interested in looks being her > problem, she's being held up as a type, not a specific character. > Betsy Hp: At one point JKR said that all children have experienced a Pansy or a Draco in their lives, and frankly, it confused me. Or, not so much confused me, because I thought I knew what she was getting at, but made me think that she feels she's been clearer on Pansy's "type" than she actually has been. Pansy is supposed to be the "mean girl". And if this were really a school days genre story, she'd have a bigger role to play as Hermione's opposite. But, while the flavor is there, JKR is concentrating more on other aspects of the story and Hermione gets beyond Pansy by, well, day one almost. (And even then, Ron was more Hermione's "mean girl". He's the one who had her crying in the girls' room.) And that's where JKR falls down, I think, on really showing us what makes Pansy a bad type. So we know Pansy's a bad sort because she doesn't like Harry and friends and does like Draco. She also tends to have more girlfriends than boyfriends, which JKR seems to use as a short-cut for either "shallow" or "mean", with her female characters. [An Aside: Which leaves the "popular" Ginny with no friends her age that the reader can see. It made me think that JKR must be changing her view of Pansy when we saw Pansy without her girlfriends and hanging with the boys in HBP. And it's a big part of the reason I think Lily and Snape were friends. JKR will not leave Lily with girls as her closest friends, IMO, unless she's going to turn Lily bad.] But Pansy never does much to fill the "mean girl" role. She doesn't steal, or try to steal, a boy from Hermione. She stays loyally interested in a boy Hermione is not interested in. She also doesn't seem to be going for the "most popular" boy of her class or of Hogwarts. Again, she sticks with Draco, who is popular (it seems) with Slytherins but not all of Hogwarts. She stays with him even after his father is publically shunned. (And privately shunned amongst the Death Eaters.) Just as Draco really doesn't give Harry any competition (Harry is richer, more famous, more athletic, and better connected) Pansy doesn't have any power over Hermione. They're the school-days mean kids, but without any teeth. > >>Lealess: > I wouldn't automatically prefer Hermione to her, but I am not the > author, who must perforce know her characters better than I do... > right? Betsy Hp: The funny thing is, I doubt Hermione would have much time for me, if we were in school together. I got downright giggly about boys (still do, sometimes). I'm not sure Pansy and I would have gotten along, either, but yeah, JKR did not do enough, IMO, to paint Pansy as a bad egg that young girls would do best to avoid emulating. > >>Lealess: > I kind-of like Millicent, by the way. Go figure. Betsy Hp: I recall someone, somewhere (not this list, I think) pointing out that the one time Millicent and Hermione dueled, Millicent wisely decided to forget magic, where Hermione would excell, and go for the physical attack which gave her the win. There's something admirable about that, IMO. Plus, a half-blood in Slytherin has got to have some extra jolt in her juice I'd think. Betsy Hp From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 21:28:51 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 21:28:51 -0000 Subject: DADA curse ... Curse, Jinx, and Hex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150626 Carol earlier: > > There's the DADA curse, simultaneously working to expose Lupin and to aid Voldemort by returning his servant Wormtail to him. IMO, the DADA curse explains everything--why Lupin kept the map rather than turning it in to DD and confessing all his secrets, why Lupin happened to be looking at the map just as Sirius Black/Padfoot was dragging Ron (with Pettigrew in his pocket) into the tunnel, why Lupin left the map open for Snape to see, why Lupin rushed out without his potion on a full-moon night, why Snape arrived two minutes too late to give it to him, why Lupin transformed when he did, allowing Pettigrew to escape and restore LV to "human" form. Coincidence? Not if LV's will in the form of the DADA curse is at work. bboyminn (Steve): > I think in this discussion we/you are using the term 'curse' in the wrong context. I think the DADA job is not cursed, but Jinxed. > Carol again: We don't know that, however. Neither word in used with regard to the HBP scene in which we see Riddle/Voldemort do something with his wand and DD verifies that Voldemort has indeed made it impossible for him to retain a DADA teacher for more than a year. All we know is that LV has placed some sort of spell on the position, with the implication that it's intended as revenge on Dumbledore and that the consequences for the teachers who have held the job range from serious to fatal (worse than death in the case of Barty Jr., who admittedly was not hired by DD but nevertheless taught the subject). True, the students believe that the post is "jinxed." Percy repeats this rumor as early as SS/PS. However, when Harry later (OoP) recites the fates of those who have held the post since he's attended at Hogwarts, it would appear that they've suffered something a bit beyond bad luck. To paraphrase: One dead, one's memory obliterated, one sacked (and unable to find new employment), one trapped in his own trunk for ten months, and that's not including Fake!Moody having his soul sucked out. It also predates Umbridge (also sacked, not to mention whatever trauma she underwent with the Centaurs) and Snape with his UV and its consequences. (Harry hopes that this so-called jinx will kill Snape. I can't remember which word he uses, but if this is a jinx, it's an evil one.) Steve: > This is somewhat confused because the various 'spell words' overlap > and in the right context each can mean the other. For example, you can curse someone with a Jinx, or you can jinx someone with a curse, or you can Hex someone with either a Jinx or a Curse. Carol: Yes, I made exactly that point in an earlier post. Logically, hexes and jinxes ought to be minor, short-lived or easily reversed curses, with jinxes perhaps applied to objects and hexes to people. Unfortunately, JKR doesn't follow that logic and there's little or no consistency in her use of the terms. She seems to prefer alliteration when possible: Hurling Hex, placed on a broom and capable of killing or seriously injuring the rider; Confundus Curse for a minor hex (by my definition) that merely confuses the victim momentarily and seems to clear up on its own. IIRC, she seems to consider Ginny's Bat-Bogey Hex a jinx in OoP since the term "jinxed" occurs much more frequently than "hexed" in that particular book. Apparently, it's a distinction without a difference. At any rate, jinxes and hexes *are* curses (spells intended to cause harm, as distinct from Transfiguration spells or Charms) and most of them require a countercurse to reverse them. Nor can we say that curses, as opposed to jinxes and hexes, are Dark, which might offer another explanation for the use of specific terms. Neither the Confundus Curse nor the Conjunctivitis Curse (which Sirius Black intended to suggest to Harry for use against the dragon in GoF) qualifies as Dark (IMO) though the Unforgiveables and Sectumsempra certainly do. (Not that JKR has made the meaning of "Dark" exactly clear, either, but I digress.) I would argue that to call a spell that can kill or utterly destroy the holder of a particular teaching position a "jinx" is to underestimate the power and darkness of that spell--exactly as Percy does before the curse has destroyed, or rather killed, Quirrell. (Percy, of course, doesn't know that the spell was placed on the position by Voldemort himself of he probably wouldn't use that term.) Granted, all of the DADA teachers so far have experienced bad luck, but it goes far beyond that. They have in essence destroyed themselves through bad choices and/or having their own character traits turned against them. And usually, the DADA curse in some way benefits Voldemort, sending Wormtail to him in PoA, killing Dumbledore in HBP, sending Harry to LV in GoF. Fake!Moody wrought his own destruction by sending Harry to Voldemort. It is not the curse's fault that LV failed to kill Harry. > Steve: > Though I hate to do it, let me post the dictionary definitions of Hex, Jinx, and Curse. > > Hex - n. 1. An evil spell; a curse. 2. One that brings bad luck. > Hex tr.v. Hexed, Hex?ing, Hex?es. - 1. To put a hex on. 2. To bring > or wish bad luck to... Carol: So, interchangeable terms, then. A hex, like a jinx, can bring bad luck (definition 2). "An evil spell; a curse" (definition 1)--a hex *is* a curse with no distinction. The problem here, of course, is that by that definition Ginny's Bat-Bogey Hex is evil. Steve: > Jinx - Informal. n. 1. A person or thing that is believed to bring > bad luck. 2. A condition or period of bad luck that appears to have > been caused by a specific person or thing. > Jinx tr.v. jinxed, jinx?ing, jinx?es. - To bring bad luck to. Carol: The problem with this definition is that it doesn't apply to spells at all, only to a person or thing that brings bad luck (a "Jonah" on a sailing ship? a broken mirror?) or to the bad luck itself. To jinx something is to bring bad luck to it--nothing about a spell. (I always feel that if I talk about something good before it happens, I'll jinx it and cause it not to happen.) > Curse - n. 1.a. An appeal or prayer for evil or misfortune to befall > someone or something. b. The evil or misfortune that comes in or as if in response to such an appeal: bewailed the curse of ill health. Curse --tr. 1. To invoke evil or misfortune upon; damn. 2. To swear at. 3. To bring evil upon; afflict... > Carol: Okay, no mention of a spell here, either, but surely the appeal for evil or misfortune to befall the DADA teacher is applicable, as is the verb form, to invoke evil or misfortune upon (1) or to bring evil upon (3). Rather than convincing me that the spell that Voldemort placed on the DADA position is a mere jinx, just a bit of bad luck, you've further persuaded me that it's a curse. Without question, evil or misfortune afflicted all of the DADA teachers, some admittedly more than others. And Voldemort, being the epitome of evil in the books and enamored of the Dark Arts, would not fool around with a temporary bit of bad luck. Not even Dumbledore, who had to hire a new DADA teacher every year, could remove the spell, as he certainly could have done if it were a mere jinx in the sense that you're using the term. Since in the Potterverse hexes and jinxes *are* curses and since the terms *tend* to be used for minor or temporary or easily reversed spells, noneof which applies to the curse that Voldemort placed on the DADA position, and since the dictionary definition of "curse" fits better than that of "jinx," I will continue to refer to the DADA curse. Ask Snape or Lupin if they think that the position was merely jinxed. I doubtthat they would concur. > They key point to note is that /Curse/ is related to Evil, and /Jinx/ and /Hex/ are related to Bad Luck. Carol: Um, no. Look again. Steve: So, while I would say > that the Job is cursed with a Jinx, I would not say that the job is > Cursed. Carol: So the job is cursed. At least we agree on that. And I think that the survivors of the position would agree as well. Without the DADA curse, IMO, Wormtail would not have escaped to resurrect Voldemort and both Cedric Diggory and Dumbledore would be alive. Carol, whose original point that the DADA curse neatly explains the sequence of apparent coincidences leading to the escape of Wormtail has gotten lost in the semantic shuffle From tonks_op at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 21:49:15 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 21:49:15 -0000 Subject: Mothers in HP Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150627 I was thinking about a theme that I have noticed and wondering what it means. First we have LV's mother who dies to give him life. Then Harry's mother who dies to save Harry from death. And Barty Jr's mother who died in her son's place. It is always a mother dying for her son. Do we see a father dying for a child? Do we see anyone dying for a daughter? I can't remember but if not, then there seems to be a theme here. But what is it, and why? I hope this doesn't mean something bad for our beloved Molly. Tonks_op From anita_hillin at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 21:56:19 2006 From: anita_hillin at yahoo.com (AnitaKH) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 14:56:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060406215619.99083.qmail@web36808.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150628 > >>Alla began with: Now, Okay, she likes Hermione, she really likes Hermione, I understand that, so it is understandable that she wants young girls to be like her, but what is so BAD about Pancy Parkinson that she does not want the girls to be like her, except that Pancy is in Slytherin House? Magpie continued with: It just seems like JKR makes it very clear which types of girls or girlish behavior are good or bad-- [which akh ruthlessly snipped] Betsy Hp followed up with: [snip!] Pansy is supposed to be the "mean girl". And if this were really a school days genre story, she'd have a bigger role to play as Hermione's opposite. But, while the flavor is there, JKR is concentrating more on other aspects of the story and Hermione gets beyond Pansy by, well, day one almost. [got the shears out this time] But Pansy never does much to fill the "mean girl" role. [akh plays mean girl by snipping a perfectly respectable post] akh now: Perhaps JKR is relying on the much larger role Pansy played in Goblet of Fire to stir up trouble in order to make her point. Pansy is the one quoted in Rita Skeeter's columns that results in Hermione's painful bout with bobotuber pus and even Molly's rather shabby treatment of her until Harry sets her straight. I think she used the term "ugly" too, which hardly makes her an innocent little thing. If I remember correctly, she always seems to be around to snicker at Hermione's misfortunes in that book, too. If she's more concerned about status than science, of course she'd have to make her mark with the Slytherins, who have the pureblood cachet that the other houses lack. Is Pansy the worst girl one could possibly meet? No, but she's taken part in some mean-spirited acts throughout the series, and what we haven't seen is her redeeming value. I don't count being unable to hide one's interest in baby unicorns a character about-face. akh, who can't believe she's just hit her posting limit. --------------------------------- How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger?s low PC-to-Phone call rates. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From stevejjen at earthlink.net Thu Apr 6 21:58:19 2006 From: stevejjen at earthlink.net (Jen Reese) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 21:58:19 -0000 Subject: DADA curse ... Curse, Jinx, and Hex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150629 Steve bboy: > However, the Jinx does not make those specific events occur. It > only sets up the bad luck that allows those specific events to > occur. The events themselves are irrelevant. The bad luck could > have manifested itself in any number of ways as long as that bad > luck is working toward a specific goal. In a sense, the Jinx only > controls the outcome, and not the specific events that lead to the > outcome. Jen: We've called it the DADA curse on here so long it's hard to revert to calling it a jinx! I think it pretty much works as you said above and is essentially the reverse of how Felix works. Where a person under the influence of Felix sees the next right action to take or an action in his/her best interest, the person under the influence of the DADA thingy sees the wrong action to take. I think with both there's still a choice involved, neither one magically compels a person to take a right or wrong action. Going further with this analogy, both Felix and the DADA act on things particular to the person involved. So Harry, whom Dumbledore felt was the only person Slughorn would give that memory to, already had the necessary qualifications to get the memory if only he could find the right combination of strengths to present to Slughorn. The DADA curse would then work in reverse of that, bringing a person's weaknesses to the forefront in a particular combination peculiar to each DADA professor. So as events during the year present themselves and require a choice, the DADA prof sees the wrong thing to do or even overlooks warning signs. Steve: > I think it the DADA job was truly curse in the most absolute sense > of the word, then each DADA Professor would not have met with bad >luck, but would have met with an evil end. Now some will argue that > Quirrel and Barty!Moody met with evil ends, but I think their evil > ends were caused by their evil lives and not by the Jinx on the > DADA job. Jen: I think it could work as a curse in the sense that each DADA meets a fate which is the worst possible for that particular person, essentially destroying the future of each one. Hey, I wonder if that's what Dumbledore was referring to in the MOM when he said "we both know that there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom." I think that's certainly the fate Dumbledore sees for Tom, brought down by his own weakness of fearing death and underestimating love. Jen R. From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 6 22:03:31 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 22:03:31 -0000 Subject: House characteristics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150630 > >>Lupinlore: > > The various House characteristics have always struck me as more > > symbolic than actual. > > > > Even the symbolism seems to shift over time, as Slytherin goes > > from the house of ambition to the house of pure blood > > and Hufflepuff from the house of hard work to the catch all. Betsy Hp: Is that the direction of the shift, though? The Sorting Hat gives us the *history* of the Founder's ideals, but how the Sorting Hat ends up sorting the students is up to the Sorting Hat. And the Sorting Hat looks for ambition and cunning for Slytherin, and hardwork and loyalty for Hufflpuff. Never mind that Ms. Hufflepuff stated that she didn't want to weed *any* students out, and never mind that Mr. Slytherin said that pure-bloods only need apply. (Mr. Gryffindor had "chivalry" added to his request for the brave students, and Ms. Ravenclaw had "wit" added to her request for intelligence.) We already know that Slytherin house is not made up of those with purest blood, and we know that Hufflepuff is not a catch-all. So I think the Sorting Hat has been shifting the houses' characteristics a tad as the years have gone by. Though, as we've seen, the various houses aren't turning out little clones either. Neville is nothing like Lavender; Draco isn't much like Blaise; Luna and Cho barely exist on the same planet; Ernie is quite different from Cedric. So there's a starting point, and probably differing emphases made in each house, but it's not a indoctrinating thing. Usually. > >>Lupinlore: > The exception to this is, to an extent, Slytherin. I think this > is in part due to honest reservations JKR herself has with regard > to Slytherin's symbolic house traits -- whether pure blood or > ambition. > > True, we've seen McClaggen and Pettigrew in Gryffindor and > Marietta in Ravenclaw -- now we need to see a truly good character > in Slytherin (and I don't mean a DDM!Snape, who doesn't qualify as > good in any case). > Betsy Hp: That'll be Draco, I'm sure. Though, rather than a shiny Slytherin, I think Harry will finally acknowledge their humanity. I mean, there's not a golden Gryffindor, nor a sparkly Hufflepuff, nor a shiny Ravenclaw. Harry just likes some of the students in houses not Slytherin, so he doesn't smush them all into one catch-all stereotype, as he's been doing with Slytherin from day one. > >>Steven1965aaa: > One interesting thing about Harry in this respect is that he has > characteristice of each of the houses. > Betsy Hp: That's the thing: everyone does. They just choose to go, or are more inclined towards, one direction. Slughorn, for example, obviously has Slytherin tendencies of ambition and cunning. But he also works hard to keep his network flowing (Hufflepuff), he's well informed, even in more esoteric areas like the Horcrux (Ravenclaw), and he doesn't back down if at first he doesn't seem to be succeeding (Gryffindor). Hogwarts doesn't have a "bad" house. Just as it doesn't have a "good" house. The houses just are. Betsy Hp From renata_souza_e_souza at yahoo.com.br Thu Apr 6 18:26:02 2006 From: renata_souza_e_souza at yahoo.com.br (Renata Souza) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 13:26:02 -0500 Subject: Snape's Worst Memory Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150631 steven1965aaa: >> Having reflected a little more after reading these posts, I think the really significant question is why Snape is concerned to prevent Harry from seeing this particular memory. Any thoughts? << Because he is too proud and that situation was really embarrassing! And the last person he would want to show this memory is Harry because he is the son of the guy who did that to him, and because Snape hates Harry! For me this fact is totally clear and I don`t believe there is something else hidden in it. Renata From kchuplis at alltel.net Fri Apr 7 00:11:48 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 19:11:48 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9D920BBD-038A-4843-A998-FAD3DF02F821@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150632 On Apr 6, 2006, at 4:20 PM, horridporrid03 wrote: > > > > And that's where JKR falls down, I think, on really showing us what > makes Pansy a bad type. So we know Pansy's a bad sort because she > doesn't like Harry and friends and does like Draco. She also tends > to have more girlfriends than boyfriends, which JKR seems to use as > a short-cut for either "shallow" or "mean", with her female > characters. kchuplis: I don't see where you read this. Because of Pansy and Draco on the train? I don't recall Hermione disparaging Pansy's girl gang anwhere and frankly, we don't know enough about Pansy to make that kind of statement. But maybe I missed that the first 4 or so times through the books. I think JKR uses statements such as were reproduced earlier from the Pansy site as to why Pansy is "shallow" and "mean". I mean, OK, she tried to suppress a smile over baby unicorns. That's about the only pleasant thing we've seen out of her. horridporrid: > > [An Aside: Which leaves the "popular" Ginny with no friends her age > that the reader can see. It made me think that JKR must be changing > her view of Pansy when we saw Pansy without her girlfriends and > hanging with the boys in HBP. And it's a big part of the reason I > think Lily and Snape were friends. JKR will not leave Lily with > girls as her closest friends, IMO, unless she's going to turn Lily > bad.] > kchuplis: Again, how much do we see Ginny? The stories are from Harry's POV. Ginny hangs out with Hermione when she is a bit older. Hermione is only a year older, so I'd say that's her age. She knows Luna who isn't even in her house. Just because in the later books she is dating does that mean she doesn't have girl friends? horridporrid: > But Pansy never does much to fill the "mean girl" role. She doesn't > steal, or try to steal, a boy from Hermione. She stays loyally > interested in a boy Hermione is not interested in. She also doesn't > seem to be going for the "most popular" boy of her class or of > Hogwarts. Again, she sticks with Draco, who is popular (it seems) > with Slytherins but not all of Hogwarts. She stays with him even > after his father is publically shunned. (And privately shunned > amongst the Death Eaters.) kchuplis: Errr....."stealing boys" is not necessarily the sole definition of "being mean". Pansy's mouth seems to take care of that if you ask me. But that is just my opinion I guess. horridporrid: > > Just as Draco really doesn't give Harry any competition (Harry is > richer, more famous, more athletic, and better connected) Pansy > doesn't have any power over Hermione. They're the school-days mean > kids, but without any teeth. kchuplis: Does that make it less mean somehow? I remember unkind things from my childhood more than any other type of event. And, really, Harry is richer? The Malfoys seem to have plenty of dross, a big house, servants, Lucius would appear to be better connected politically (if you were of the general wizarding public. Actually, "better connected" is a really subjective thing. Depends on if you are worried about LV or worried about DD taking over the ministry and having too much influence) really and therefore Draco. They are at least even. Yeah, Harry might be the better athlete, but that's all I give you on that one. > > Betsy Hp: > The funny thing is, I doubt Hermione would have much time for me, if > we were in school together. I got downright giggly about boys > (still do, sometimes). I'm not sure Pansy and I would have gotten > along, either, but yeah, JKR did not do enough, IMO, to paint Pansy > as a bad egg that young girls would do best to avoid emulating. kchuplis: Soooo, she would have to, like, kill kittens or something to be "really mean". From quick_silver71 at yahoo.ca Fri Apr 7 01:08:36 2006 From: quick_silver71 at yahoo.ca (quick_silver71) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 01:08:36 -0000 Subject: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150633 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" wrote: > Betsy Hp: > At one point JKR said that all children have experienced a Pansy or > a Draco in their lives, and frankly, it confused me. Or, not so > much confused me, because I thought I knew what she was getting at, > but made me think that she feels she's been clearer on > Pansy's "type" than she actually has been. > > Pansy is supposed to be the "mean girl". And if this were really a > school days genre story, she'd have a bigger role to play as > Hermione's opposite. But, while the flavor is there, JKR is > concentrating more on other aspects of the story and Hermione gets > beyond Pansy by, well, day one almost. (And even then, Ron was more > Hermione's "mean girl". He's the one who had her crying in the > girls' room.) I think that part of the problem of Pansy's character comes from the fact that we only really see one point of view, Harry's (a male). Harry simply does not observe to closely or care about the interactions of say Hermione and Pansy or Pansy and any other girl it appears. What's more I think that Pansy, to Harry at least, comes across as being Draco's "groupie" (that's not exactly what I'd call it but I can't think of a better word). She's the girl who backs Draco up, laughs at his jokes, hangs out with him, has her friends back his little mission (the badges in GoF?), etc. She sort of comes across as a female Peter. Quick_Silver From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 01:09:06 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 01:09:06 -0000 Subject: Pansy/ Re: House characteristics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150634 > > Alla: >> > Now, Okay, she likes Hermione, she really likes Hermione, I > understand > > that, so it is understandable that she wants young girls to be like > > her, but what is so BAD about Pancy Parkinson that she does not want > > the girls to be like her, except that Pancy is in Slytherin House? > > > > I mean, maybe I totally forgot some canon about it ( entirely > > possible), but so far I do not recall anything about Pancy being > > stupid or really bad "person" (Well, I suppose one can argue that > > choosing Draco for boyfriend is not very smart thing to do, but > > besides that... I don't know), except that Pancy is in Slytherin. > > zgirnius: > Pansy is a very minor character, to be sure, but quite unpleasant in > her own way. There's a fansite, http://pansy.frosti.org, devoted to her > (Google is amazing, as is how some people choose to spend their time, > not that I'm one to talk) which seems to quote every mention of her in > the six books, and I would say over half of them have Pansy being > actively unpleasant. Just a sampling of the highlights (lowlights?) of > Pansy's career: > > > Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone > > Chapter 9 > >"Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?" said Pansy Parkinson, a hard- faced > Slytherin girl. "Never thought you'd like fat little crybabies, > Parvati." > > zgirnius: > So, she's more than just Draco's girlfriend, she's an accomplice of > sorts to his bullying of Neville here. Alla: Hey, thanks for the quotes Zara. :) I left in the only one which to me could somehow explain why JKR does not want the girls to be like her. You see, all other quotes you brought up show to me that Pancy can be insulting, which is not good indeed, not in my book anyway. But she does not DO anything IMO, moreover, she does not talk along the lines of the "pureblood philosophy", which I personally find ( and IMO JKR does too) the most disgusting feature of the Slytherin House. Pansy just insults whoever Draco would insult ( without actually calling Hermione "mudblood"). Now, her insult of Neville is related to JKR's "fat rant" I suppose ( as someone also pointed to me off list yesterday), so maybe that is why JKR made this comparison? Again, do not get me wrong, I have NO problem whatsoever with JKR within fictional reality preferring Gryffindors in general over Slytherins. I do NOT believe that with one book left she would pull the rug completely, I have the feeling that she thinks that in destroying stereotypes she did enough by giving us one bad Gryffindor and maybe one good Slytherin? And again I am fine with it, because she made the Gryffs flawed, that is for sure, but I don't think anybody would be able to convince me that we saw flawed but GOOD characters in Slytherin house so far. I mean, among the adults we have whom .... Regulus and Slughorn? I deliberately leave out Snape of course, since to me his loyalties are.... how we put it questionable? But forget about adults, because IMO kids are what matters and among the Gryffindors we of course have Trio, Neville. Dean Thomas, Seamus, Ginny, Twins, etc.... and among Slytherins we have whom? Right, so I just think that JKR gave us more confirmation that at the end ( if the Houses will stand, I always said and still do that IMO Houses will dissappear by assimilating good qualities of each other and minimising bad ones, thus achieving real unity of Hogwarts) Slytherin house will be the house of one or two "good" students at most and by "good" I sure don't mean perfect, but those who will fight with Harry at the end. JMO, Alla. From zgirnius at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 01:23:41 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 01:23:41 -0000 Subject: Pansy/ Re: House characteristics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150635 > Alla: > > Hey, thanks for the quotes Zara. :) I left in the only one which to > me could somehow explain why JKR does not want the girls to be like > her. > > You see, all other quotes you brought up show to me that Pancy can > be insulting, which is not good indeed, not in my book anyway. > > But she does not DO anything IMO, moreover, she does not talk along > the lines of the "pureblood philosophy", which I personally find ( > and IMO JKR does too) the most disgusting feature of the Slytherin > House. zgirnius: You must have missed the quotes from OotP, when Umbridge was observing Hagrid's class. In it Pansy does not display any 'pureblood supremacist' views, but she certainly plays right along with Umbridge's bigotry against the sentient non-human magical creatures. (Which in my opinion is an equally objectionable form of bigotry, I see no evidence that Olympe Maxime or Hagrid are of sub-normal intelligence or unusually prone to violence). It is at this point public knowledge that Hagrid is half-giant. And Pansy tells Umbridge that she can't understand Hagrid's explanations in class because he 'grunts'. I'd say this is displaying a form of bigotry. Or exploiting it, at any rate, which I find equally objectionable. From puduhepa98 at aol.com Fri Apr 7 01:28:22 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 21:28:22 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Snape's Worst Memory Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150636 >From: steven1965aaa Having reflected a little more after reading these posts, I think the really significant question is why Snape is concerned to prevent Harry from seeing this particular memory. Any thoughts? >zgirnius: Or maybe it is not really Snape's worst memory. Maybe it is one of the two Harry did not see. Or maybe Harry assumes (having seen SWM) that Snape put his worst memories in the Pensieve, but really Snape put in the memories he'd most prefer Harry not see, which is not necessarily the same thing. Nikkalmati: Ok somebody has to say this for the purpose of discussion. What zgirnius says above (and maybe this is what z was alluding to) made me think that Snape put in the Pensieve the 3 memories that would do the most harm to Harry. In other words, he was protecting him. Now the memory Harry saw did shake him up. Maybe he wasn't supposed to know what his father was like as a kid or maybe there was something else to that memory that Harry didn't get to see which would have been even more damaging. In any case, SS failed again in following orders and keeping Harry safe. Now before anyone jumps on this, I want to say I don't mean SS likes Harry or that he isn't mean etc. I mean he has a job to do and he is trying, as part of his role, to keep Harry in one piece so Harry can fulfill his role of getting rid of LV. I would argue that SS wouldn't think he needed to put his memories away to safeguard his own privacy because he would not believe Harry could get into his mind. It is kind of an accident when Harry does break in. He reverses SS's own spell against him. It is one of those uncontrolled flashes of power we see emanating from Harry when he is under stress. I repeat what I said before, I don't think SS told DD what Harry had done and of course Harry never told him. When DD said SS could not teach Harry because SS could not forgive James, he was speculating on inadequate information. IMO Nikkalmati [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 01:54:16 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 01:54:16 -0000 Subject: Pansy/ Re: House characteristics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150637 > zgirnius: > You must have missed the quotes from OotP, when Umbridge was > observing Hagrid's class. In it Pansy does not display any 'pureblood > supremacist' views, but she certainly plays right along with > Umbridge's bigotry against the sentient non-human magical creatures. > (Which in my opinion is an equally objectionable form of bigotry, I > see no evidence that Olympe Maxime or Hagrid are of sub-normal > intelligence or unusually prone to violence). It is at this point > public knowledge that Hagrid is half-giant. And Pansy tells Umbridge > that she can't understand Hagrid's explanations in class because > he 'grunts'. I'd say this is displaying a form of bigotry. > Or exploiting it, at any rate, which I find equally objectionable. > Alla: Of course I did not miss the quote, but maybe I did dismiss it a bit too fast by counting it among the examples of "Pansy just insults whoever Draco insults'. I mean, sure it IS objectionable, no question about it. But again, my main thing as to JKR's preferences just won't go away :). Like if you would ask me to make such comparison Hermione v any other less "sympathetic" ( if this is even a good objective here) female heroine, I think the first name which would come to me would NOT be Pansy Parkinson or any other girl from Slytherin house. Probably the first name which would come to me would be Marietta's, whose one act of treachery IMO was much MORE objectionable than anything Pansy did so far. JKR on the other hand chose rather minor character who IMO shares the worst traits of Slytherin house, but for the most part by association. Again, let me repeat, I think that the comparison IS valid if for no other reason but Pansy choosing Draco as her boyfriend :)), but still... IMO she is just minor nuisance so far on the big scheme of things. JMO, Alla From belviso at attglobal.net Fri Apr 7 01:58:07 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 21:58:07 -0400 Subject: Snape's Cruelty has purpose/Pansy Parkinson References: Message-ID: <014901c659e6$b7c37cf0$be72400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 150638 > Angie again: > > Interesting reasoning, but since Snape has never been nice to anyone > that we've ever known, I believe LV would only expect Snape to be > nice to Harry & Co if that was necessary to preserve Snape's status > with DD -- and it isn't. I believe that DD knowns how nasty Snape > is, for the most part. Some of the incidents have occurred in the > hallways, in front of the pictures, whom I believe keep DD well > informed. As for the classroom incidents, as DD told Harry, he > doesn't need an invisibility cloak to become invisible. > > Seems to me to be an issue of the path of least resistance: it would > be easier for Snape to be nasty to Harry, with DD's permission, and > to allow LV to consistently "see" that side of Snape, than to be nice > to Harry, claiming that's what DD would expect, and have to > constantly convince LV that he was still on LV's side. (But as I > wrote this, it made me wonder why LV thinks DD puts up with Snape's > nastiness??? Surely, LV knows DD well enough to know that he's aware > of his teachers' conduct/attitudes toward their students? Hmm....) Magpie: I think we're actually agreeing here. I wasn't honestly suggesting that Voldemort must have ordered Snape to be nice to Harry. I'm just saying that I see no reason to think that when Snape is aggressively mean to Harry or other students, when he rants about Harry being just like his father or whatever, he's putting on an act to convince Voldemort he's loyal to him. I gave the example of Voldemort ordering him to be nice to him just to point out one of my many problems with the scenario. It just seems silly for Voldemort to need to see Snape being mean to Harry or else he'll doubt his loyalty given that Snape is a spy. I mean, how silly would that be: Voldemort: I saw your memories! You nodded when you looked at his Potion! You gave him an A on his Potions test! You didn't pick on him in class! You're not really on my side! Snape: My lord, we've been over this. If I tell Harry I want him to die for destroying my beloved master and for having a Mudblood mother who polluted the line of our people, even Dumbledore might suspect I'm not really on their side... As to the other question, I think Dumbledore does know about Snape's behavior and considers it acceptable for one of his teachers. He's pretty hands-off when it comes to his teachers doing stuff. He probably would like him to forgive and forget and move forward, but doesn't think he can force it. kchuplis: > > I don't see where you read this. Because of Pansy and Draco on the > train? I don't recall Hermione disparaging Pansy's girl gang anwhere > and frankly, we don't know enough about Pansy to make that kind of > statement. Magpie: I think Betsy's referring to the fact that girls who are "other" and threatening to Harry are often accompanied by giggling gangs. Pansy in earlier books was often shown with a gang. horridporrid: >> >> [An Aside: Which leaves the "popular" Ginny with no friends her age >> that the reader can see. It made me think that JKR must be changing >> her view of Pansy when we saw Pansy without her girlfriends and >> hanging with the boys in HBP. And it's a big part of the reason I >> think Lily and Snape were friends. JKR will not leave Lily with >> girls as her closest friends, IMO, unless she's going to turn Lily >> bad.] >> > kchuplis: > > Again, how much do we see Ginny? The stories are from Harry's POV. > Ginny hangs out with Hermione when she is a bit older. Hermione is > only a year older, so I'd say that's her age. She knows Luna who > isn't even in her house. Just because in the later books she is > dating does that mean she doesn't have girl friends? Magpie: She doesn't seem to have girlfriends because we don't see them. We see her friends with Hermione and being nice to Luna. If she has friends they're invisible to her boyfriend, unlike Cho's friends and Pansy's friends. Perhaps the idea is that of course Ginny is totally popular with everyone, but as a character she only exists insofar as she is attached to Harry. But from reading it I get the impression that Ginny has one girlfriend, Hermione. She talks about lots of other people, but they're people she doesn't like. > kchuplis: > > Errr....."stealing boys" is not necessarily the sole definition of > "being mean". Pansy's mouth seems to take care of that if you ask me. > But that is just my opinion I guess. Magpie: I think you're misunderstanding what Betsy means by "mean girl." I don't think she's claiming Pansy isn't mean when she insults people etc. She's saying she's not fulfilling the traditional "mean girl" role-and she's not (just as Draco never seemed to really be playing the role of the bully, and now we know that wasn't his role). The "mean girl" role is traditionally the girl who's more popular than the plucky heroine, and perhaps prettier because she's more sophisticated, and she threatens to steal her true love. But Pansy is never described as attractive, she and Hermione don't compete much. She makes catty remarks about her in the Witch Weekly but they don't directly compete for anything (and Hermione rants about her as well). There's only one scene where they compete for beauty and there Hermione is Cinderella with the Prince and Pansy is an also-ran. This isn't an inversion of what has gone before--Hermione has always been the one in the spotlight with Pansy being resentful. So yes, Pansy is a mean girl, but her role in the story doesn't seem to be "mean girl" to Hermione's heroine. She's more just an extension of Draco, imo. -m From MadameSSnape at aol.com Fri Apr 7 02:08:29 2006 From: MadameSSnape at aol.com (MadameSSnape at aol.com) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 22:08:29 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Danger at the Wedding? Message-ID: <1ba.1860167.3167239d@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150639 In a message dated 4/6/2006 2:05:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time, gloworm419 at yahoo.com writes: I'm really hoping that Percy has been under the Imperious Curse for some time now..I'd hate to think of the alternative. Anyone agree? ---------------------------- Sherrie here: Unfortunately, JKR has already shot this idea down - when she was asked if Percy was acting of his own accord, she replied that, unfortunately, he was. Sherrie "Accept no one's definition of your life. Define yourself." - Harvey Fierstein [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From kchuplis at alltel.net Fri Apr 7 02:29:50 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 21:29:50 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Pansy Parkinson In-Reply-To: <014901c659e6$b7c37cf0$be72400c@Spot> References: <014901c659e6$b7c37cf0$be72400c@Spot> Message-ID: <556FAA0C-D2CF-4CC9-A9BA-A7B48ACC8CB3@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150640 On Apr 6, 2006, at 8:58 PM, Magpie wrote: > > kchuplis: > > > > I don't see where you read this. Because of Pansy and Draco on the > > train? I don't recall Hermione disparaging Pansy's girl gang anwhere > > and frankly, we don't know enough about Pansy to make that kind of > > statement. > > Magpie: > I think Betsy's referring to the fact that girls who are "other" and > threatening to Harry are often accompanied by giggling gangs. > Pansy in > earlier books was often shown with a gang. kchuplis: To me, that is just generalization though. Our focus is through Harry and Harry hangs with Hermione and Ron, but I in no way see that as an aspersion that "girls with giggly gangs" are all necessarily shallow. IMO, there just isn't proof of that. I hung out with several boys through out high school. I also had two good girl friends. But, we didn't all hang out together. My point is that I don't believe there is enough information to extrapolate this. > > > > kchuplis: > > > > Again, how much do we see Ginny? The stories are from Harry's POV. > > Ginny hangs out with Hermione when she is a bit older. Hermione is > > only a year older, so I'd say that's her age. She knows Luna who > > isn't even in her house. Just because in the later books she is > > dating does that mean she doesn't have girl friends? > > Magpie: > She doesn't seem to have girlfriends because we don't see them. kchuplis: See the above. Because WE don't see her hanging out with them does not mean they don't exist. Magpie: > We see her > friends with Hermione and being nice to Luna. If she has friends > they're > invisible to her boyfriend, unlike Cho's friends and Pansy's friends. kchuplis: "Her boyfriend" I assume we mean Harry? Well, since that all happened within one month or so of the end of HBP, probably not. Young new love with half of Harry's free time being spent with Snape isn't going to leave her hanging with the girls all the time. I guess it is only my experience, but when I fell in love, particularly in the beginning, I was pretty one track minded. It doesn't mean they didn't talk about it, but is JKR going to spend a bunch of dialogue talking about Ginny's girl friends? (Although there was the tatoo thing, does that count?) Not sure exactly what you mean about Cho and Pansy. Sorry, guess I am thick. magpie: > Perhaps the idea is that of course Ginny is totally popular with > everyone, > but as a character she only exists insofar as she is attached to > Harry. But > from reading it I get the impression that Ginny has one girlfriend, > Hermione. She talks about lots of other people, but they're people > she > doesn't like. kchuplis: I'll pay more attention to this aspect next time through, but I simply don't have that impression. It sounds like Ginny is a back biting little .... well... I never got that impression. She's pleasant enough with Luna whom everyone else seems to dislike. I can't believe that is the only other person that she is pleasant with other than Hermione. Again, an author *does* have to choose the most germane points to stick with and honestly, I wouldn't think twice about this stuff normally. I guess I am a shallow reader. And, yes, there is also the fact that Ginny was raised with 6 brothers. It probably does tend to make her more naturally comfortable with boys than girls. But for some reason, I am beginning to get the feeling this is seen as some kind of writing flaw by JKR in her presentation of character. I just don't agree with that. > > > kchuplis: > > > > Errr....."stealing boys" is not necessarily the sole definition of > > "being mean". Pansy's mouth seems to take care of that if you ask > me. > > But that is just my opinion I guess. > > Magpie: > > > So yes, Pansy is a mean girl, but her role in the story doesn't > seem to be > "mean girl" to Hermione's heroine. She's more just an extension of > Draco, > imo. > kchuplis: Ah, like Jennifer Warner's "friend" in 13 Going on 30. Cute movie. But, honestly, isn't that a little pedestrian? Pansy is a mean girl but not a "mean girl". I missed that distinction. I see more and more how I just am not very scholarly in my reading. To be quite honest, I think in the statement about Pansy, JKR just picked ONE of the unpleasant female personalities to use as an example. I don't think she meant, "my character Pansy P is the most vile personification of a feminine jerk and I'd rather be Hermione." It's got to be hard to be JKR when every statement is picked to atoms. But I also think Pansy is sure getting a bit of a free pass here! She's a little twit and toady and very unpleasant. Marietta is indeed worse (or at least the consequences of her transgression were worse), but oh yes, she was a victim of that malicious Hermione also. I know, I'm being too sarcastic but honestly! it seems like the good guys in these books need some defending at times! I've never known protagonists to be so .... well..... picked on! (and yes, I'm over my posting limit. But if I don't respond now I never will. That would probably be better as I quite feel like the interloper here. But I never was one to shut my mouth if I had an opinion. And at least it isn't a Snape thread). From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 02:55:59 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 02:55:59 -0000 Subject: Pansy Parkinson/ and some other stuff In-Reply-To: <556FAA0C-D2CF-4CC9-A9BA-A7B48ACC8CB3@alltel.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150641 > kchuplis: > To be quite honest, I think in the statement about Pansy, JKR just > picked ONE of the unpleasant female personalities to use as an > example. I don't think she meant, "my character Pansy P is the most > vile personification of a feminine jerk and I'd rather be Hermione." Alla: Oh, that is probably the answer I like the most so far. :) kchuplis: > It's got to be hard to be JKR when every statement is picked to > atoms. Alla: Snort, indeed. But at least as you said this is not a Snape thread. I tried to do my share in starting not about him conversation:) I am sure that when JKR started her work she had no idea that us would look for clues in every word of her writing. I am sure she did not think about small inconsistencies and such, but on the other hand, isn't it a HUGE sign of her success that we do hang to her words trying to guess what is going to happen next. kchuplis: But I also think Pansy is sure getting a bit of a free pass > here! She's a little twit and toady and very unpleasant. Alla: Yes, of course she is and she is from Slytherin house too. :) kchuplis: Marietta is > indeed worse (or at least the consequences of her transgression were > worse), but oh yes, she was a victim of that malicious Hermione also. Alla: Bad Hermione, very very bad, how dare she tried to protect her comrades in the time of war against the treachery. Nah, if only Hermione would have been less bossy, I would love her character without limits. It had been said many times that Hermione is a good influence on Harry and Ron. I think Harry and Ron are also a very good influence on her. :) kchuplis: > I know, I'm being too sarcastic but honestly! it seems like the good > guys in these books need some defending at times! I've never known > protagonists to be so .... well..... picked on! Alla: Of course they do need defending :) If only we could agree on who the bad guys really are besides Voldemort , but then where would be the fun in all this? Alla, who has a feeling that if she rereads her post, she would find it a bit weak on content, therefore she does not. From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 02:56:31 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 02:56:31 -0000 Subject: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics) In-Reply-To: <9D920BBD-038A-4843-A998-FAD3DF02F821@alltel.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150642 > >>Betsy Hp: > > > > She also tends to have more girlfriends than boyfriends, which > > JKR seems to use as a short-cut for either "shallow" or "mean", > > with her female characters. > >>kchuplis: > I don't see where you read this. > Betsy Hp: Pansy is described as having a "gang" of Slytherin girls she leads around. Lavander and Parvati are best friends; Cho and Marietta are best friends. All five girls are either shallow or mean or seen as lacking somehow. It's not a written in stone thing, but on the flip side Hermione's best friends are boys, and Ginny doesn't have a female best friend. It's a tone thing, I guess, and frankly I doubt it's anything JKR did on purpose. > >>kchuplis: > I think JKR uses statements such as were reproduced > earlier from the Pansy site as to why Pansy is "shallow" > and "mean". I mean, OK, she tried to suppress a smile over baby > unicorns. That's about the only pleasant thing we've seen out of > her. Betsy Hp: I'm impressed by her loyalty to Draco, myself (her dislike of Hagrid is something I see as a positive, YMMV ). But yeah, I do get that she's rude and very open about her dislike of Harry and his friends. But it's the *type* JKR is claiming for Pansy that I have issue with. I don't think she's shown Pansy in that light. Not enough to be an example of how not to be for young girls. > >>kchuplis: > > Ginny hangs out with Hermione when she is a bit older. Hermione > is only a year older, so I'd say that's her age. She knows Luna > who isn't even in her house. Just because in the later books she > is dating does that mean she doesn't have girl friends? Betsy Hp: No one close enough for Ginny to consistently hang out with. I'm sure she has tons of friends, but going with how JKR writes her favorite girls, I would be surprised if Ginny had an invisible to Harry best friend. That Ginny's boyfriends get a mention but no girlfriends do suggests to me that she doesn't have a best girlfriend. > >>Betsy Hp: > > But Pansy never does much to fill the "mean girl" role. > > > >>kchuplis: > Errr....."stealing boys" is not necessarily the sole definition > of "being mean". Pansy's mouth seems to take care of that if you > ask me. But that is just my opinion I guess. Betsy Hp: It's an important part of being a "mean girl" type though. Pansy should, if she's to be that sort of girl, be trying to date the most powerful guy in the school. She should be trying to become the most powerful girl in the school, and she should be making Hermione's life a living hell. And... well, she doesn't. > >>Betsy Hp: > > Just as Draco really doesn't give Harry any competition (Harry is > > richer, more famous, more athletic, and better connected) Pansy > > doesn't have any power over Hermione. They're the school-days > > mean kids, but without any teeth. > >>kchuplis: > Does that make it less mean somehow? > Betsy Hp: Doesn't make them any less snarky or mean when they're being mean. But Pansy barely effects Hermione's life. Draco is a bit more of a presence in Harry's life, but not as the "school-days" bully. They both lack the power to play the type of character JKR seems to expect us to see them playing. > >>kchuplis: > And, really, Harry is richer? > Betsy Hp: Than Draco? Yes. If Harry wanted to buy that Hand of Glory back in CoS, he wouldn't have to beg someone for it, he'd buy it. Draco doesn't have that sort of cash flow. (He may in the future, but not at the moment.) > >>kchuplis: > ...Lucius would appear to be better connected politically... Betsy Hp: I'm going to say Dumbledore trumps Lucius, though Lucius might protest . But Harry is also better known than Draco. > >>kchuplis: > > Yeah, Harry might be the better athlete, but that's all I > give you on that one. Betsy Hp: Which, in and of itself, takes away Draco's ability to play the "big man on campus" role he'd have played if this were a school-days story. Just as Pansy's lack of power over Hermione means she is not a "mean girl", though she can be mean. > >>Quick_Silver: > I think that part of the problem of Pansy's character comes from > the fact that we only really see one point of view, Harry's (a > male). Betsy Hp: That's very true. This isn't a tale that supports the presence of a "mean girl", so it's a bit strange, IMO, for JKR to start talking like she's got such a creature in her books. > >>Quick_Silver: > Harry simply does not observe to closely or care about the > interactions of say Hermione and Pansy or Pansy and any other girl > it appears. > Betsy Hp: Mm, I think Harry would notice if Pansy were making Hermione's life hell. But yeah, Pansy could well be the meanest of mean girls in the Slytherin common room, setting who's hot, who's not, and who should be hating the fact they were ever born. And that invisible life might be what JKR is thinking of. But we've seen none of it, so again, it's hard to see what she's talking about when she acts like we should all recognize Pansy's type. > >>Quick_Silver: > She sort of comes across as a female Peter. Betsy Hp: Except she gets the guy she's panting after. Betsy Hp (who checked the list and could have just said, yeah, what Magpie said, but darn it, I've worked hard on this, so I'm posting, ) From belviso at attglobal.net Fri Apr 7 04:11:15 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 00:11:15 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Pansy Parkinson References: <014901c659e6$b7c37cf0$be72400c@Spot> <556FAA0C-D2CF-4CC9-A9BA-A7B48ACC8CB3@alltel.net> Message-ID: <01f001c659f9$6011dcf0$be72400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 150643 > kchuplis: > > To me, that is just generalization though. Our focus is through Harry > and Harry hangs with Hermione and Ron, but I in no way see that as an > aspersion that "girls with giggly gangs" are all necessarily shallow. > IMO, there just isn't proof of that. I hung out with several boys > through out high school. I also had two good girl friends. But, we > didn't all hang out together. My point is that I don't believe there > is enough information to extrapolate this. Magpie: I didn't say they were, I was just saying that I think Betsy is talking about the impression she gets from the giggling girl thing. It is a generalization and a shorthand for Cho and Pansy having girlfriends that JKR chose to include as part of the characterization of these minor characters, whom we see through Harry's eyes. >> Magpie: >> She doesn't seem to have girlfriends because we don't see them. > > kchuplis: > > See the above. Because WE don't see her hanging out with them does > not mean they don't exist. Magpie: Yes, I see what you mean and I assumed you would say it, but for me I have to say that no, I see no reason to assume they exist. I of course assume that Ginny has a life outside of when we see her, but given the amount I have seen her and what I hear her say, I find it hard to imagine that she's got this group of girlfriends or a best friend. I suspect JKR just didn't feel the need to imagine actual girls for Ginny, but it leads to my feeling I know the really important people in Ginny's life and I don't need to imagine a group of girlfriends for her any more than I should be imagining them for Hermione or Neville. > kchuplis: > "Her boyfriend" I assume we mean Harry? Well, since that all happened > within one month or so of the end of HBP, probably not. Young new > love with half of Harry's free time being spent with Snape isn't > going to leave her hanging with the girls all the time. I guess it is > only my experience, but when I fell in love, particularly in the > beginning, I was pretty one track minded. It doesn't mean they didn't > talk about it, but is JKR going to spend a bunch of dialogue talking > about Ginny's girl friends? (Although there was the tatoo thing, does > that count?) Not sure exactly what you mean about Cho and Pansy. > Sorry, guess I am thick. Magpie: As I said, it could just be a bi-product of JKR not wanting to spend time creating these girlfriends for Ginny, which is fine with me. But the fact remains that as a reader I feel like I've gotten plenty of lines about how Ginny spends her time, and enough focus on her by Harry that I don't feel any need to make up a girlfriend(s) for her that she must have. I think if JKR had come up with them we'd have seen them naturally by now, even in passing. You're free to imagine that they exist, and anyone is free to create them in fanfic, but to me the character seems fairly complete the way she is. Just as I feel no need to imagine more boyfriends for her that we haven't seen. > > kchuplis: > I'll pay more attention to this aspect next time through, but I > simply don't have that impression. It sounds like Ginny is a back > biting little .... well... I never got that impression. Magpie: I didn't think I was giving an impression. I was saying what what I remember of Ginny's lines from the book. I was talking about what we know about Ginny and thinking about signs of other people she knows outside the main characters, and while we don't follow her around we do hear her make references to other people. They're often negative. I'll have to re-read the book to be completely accurate, but off the top of my head that's pretty much what comes to mind, Ginny talking about people she doesn't like, not making references to friends. You mentioned the tattoo comment earlier and no, I didn't see that as Ginny talking about her girlfriend. I thought she and Ginny weren't really friends and they were having a laugh over her obsession with Harry. It's not something Ginny needs to be defended over, I was just saying that yes, I remembered Ginny shown to know people on her own, but no, I couldn't remember any particular lines that indicated any of these people being great friends of hers. Often they were just random people. kchuplis: Ah, like Jennifer Warner's "friend" in 13 Going on 30. Cute movie. But, honestly, isn't that a little pedestrian? Pansy is a mean girl but not a "mean girl". I missed that distinction. I see more and more how I just am not very scholarly in my reading. Magpie: I don't think being scholarly or pedestrian has anything to do with it (it's not like JKR is allergic to the kind of stuff you'd see in a "cute movie"). I didn't think Betsy was saying that JKR had gotten Pansy wrong by not having her fulfill this role, she was just saying that there were things about her that made her think maybe she was going to be that character, but she wasn't. Karen: She's > pleasant enough with Luna whom everyone else seems to dislike. I > can't believe that is the only other person that she is pleasant with > other than Hermione. Magpie: I didn't say she wasn't ever pleasant to anyone else, I said I don't imagine her having a best friend or good girlfriends that are important in her life. Karen: I guess I am a shallow reader. And, yes, > there is also the fact that Ginny was raised with 6 brothers. It > probably does tend to make her more naturally comfortable with boys > than girls. But for some reason, I am beginning to get the feeling > this is seen as some kind of writing flaw by JKR in her presentation > of character. I just don't agree with that. Magpie: I don't think it has to be a flaw. If it is a flaw I don't think saying the reader is supposed to fix it in their heads would solve it. I'm just saying what I see in the books, that I don't see any sign that JKR has come up with a network of important girlfriends or a good girlfriend for Ginny outside Hermione. I think if she had we'd have had a couple of references to her that just came naturally--we do have one reference to Ginny being "hailed" by fellow fourth-years once in OotP. So there we see evidence that she's known and spoken to by other people in her year, we also get references to the boys she's dating. > kchuplis: > To be quite honest, I think in the statement about Pansy, JKR just > picked ONE of the unpleasant female personalities to use as an > example. I don't think she meant, "my character Pansy P is the most > vile personification of a feminine jerk and I'd rather be Hermione." > It's got to be hard to be JKR when every statement is picked to > atoms. Magpie: I'm sure it is difficult but let's face it, on this list it doesn't take much to inspire a detailed character analysis discussion. I thought she was just using Pansy and Hermione for shorthand to say "I hope my girls are smart girls instead of stupid girls." Karen: But I also think Pansy is sure getting a bit of a free pass > here! She's a little twit and toady and very unpleasant. Marietta is > indeed worse (or at least the consequences of her transgression were > worse), but oh yes, she was a victim of that malicious Hermione also. Magpie: I like both Pansy and Hermione (but no, I don't likethe sneak hex) without, imo, giving Pansy a free pass. I can like her as a character in lots of ways without approving of what she does. I try to avoid pitting characters against each other, though I don't always succeed. In fact, one of the things about what JKR is saying that strikes me is that she's saying she wants her girls to be "Hermiones" rather than "Pansies" when I think many times they exist in the same girl. At least how I think of the types in my head. Karen: > I know, I'm being too sarcastic but honestly! it seems like the good > guys in these books need some defending at times! I've never known > protagonists to be so .... well..... picked on! Magpie: I tend to pull everybody apart the same way, characters I like and characters I don't. I rarely come up with characters I think are 100% awful, even ones that I personally have a really negative reaction to--that way lies character wars. But in general this to me is just regular fandom stuff. In this particular fandom some of my favorite characters are totally hated by many (in HP fandom every character has fans and people who hate his/her guts) so I may have built up a tolerance. More than once I've been accused of picking on a character that I actually loved, so the way I show my love may just be rough. -m From djklaugh at comcast.net Fri Apr 7 05:47:49 2006 From: djklaugh at comcast.net (Deb) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 05:47:49 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose /Why I Hate Snape/Snape's Worst Memory In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150644 > Magpie: > Barty Crouch doesn't hate Harry, period. And yet he's a loyal DE. > He does hate Snape and the Malfoys. Iow, he's not always acting. > Fake!Moody isn't just trying to not show favor to the Slytherins, > he's acting out his own real feelings about Snape and Malfoy. He > isn't pretending to favor Harry, he really does want Harry to win > the Tournament. His story includes these little moments where we > know there's some explanation beyond what we already know, and later > it's explained. With Snape we're talking about the opposite as far > as I can see, because there is not one moment I can think of that > would be explained better by Snape faking his behavior to Harry, > Neville and Hermione. Instead this explanation explains away what's > actually there. Deb: Barty Crouch Sr is the Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation and hates the Malfoys and hates all persons who side with LV Barty Crouch Jr (aka Fake!Moody) is LVs "most loyal servant" and probably likes all DEs as long as he thinks they are loyal to his Lord and Master, LV. But when he drinks Polyjuice and becomes Fake! Moody he has to take on the persona and attitudes and behaviors of - Alastair Moody - the real one - who is an Auror and yes *he* hates the Malfoys, is suspicious of Snape and isn't convinced like DD was that Snape has truly renounced his DEness. Soooo BCjr has to be a very good actor in order to impersonate Auror Moody for nearly a whole school year and give voice to things and do things that are contrary to what he really believes. > Magpie: > Why can't Snape be nice to Harry et al for much the same reasons > Moody can-in order to fulfill his mission for DD and spy on LV? > Snape is supposed to be a double agent on both sides. There's > nothing out of the ordinary about LVM!Snape sucking up to Harry and > the good guys when he has the chance. Frankly, it's what a good > double agent would do, imo. It's what LV would do too. Snape's > behavior towards Harry drives Harry away from him, so I don't see > how it proves him a good DE. And why does he have to be impatient > and biting to Neville or say Hermione's a know-it-all? > > Deb: Because it would be out of character for him to be nice to Harry etal... it would not fit the "role" he has taken on to make LV believe that he is still a loyal DE. > Magpie: > Yes, the best way to tell a successful lie is to stick as close to > the truth as possible. But that's not what you're describing. > You're describing a Snape who comes up with this completely > different character for himself, one who is infuriated by Harry > because he looks like his father, who is annoyed by Hermione's know- > it-all-ness and Neville's ineptitude, and having to play that part > for all its worth so as to stick to it. But I don't see why Snape > has to be this person or create this elaborate persona. Nor do I > see how it sticks close to the truth, since really Snape apparently > isn't infuriated by these kids. Sticking to the truth would mean > Snape acting fairly close to his regular self. Deb: I didn't say Snape had become a whole different person by assuming this role. We have never in all 6 books (IMO) seen the REAL Snape. But I suspect that even when he is not acting a part he is a prickly, caustic, and difficult man to be around. He probably will never be a warm fuzzy kind of person. But I doubt that he is actually a cruel person behind the facade. Stern, demanding, sarcastic perhaps, but cruel, no I don't think so. The only time we see Snape showing anything like conventional social skills is at Spinners End when Bella and Narcissa show up. Though from brief glimpses that we see of Snape interacting with his fellow professors it appears he gets along OK with them. As I see it Snape exaggerates some of his natural tendencies in his behavior toward the trio - the easiest role to assume after all is one that is close to one's true nature. (snip) > Magpie: > It's not acting at all. The vow is real, it's not an act. He > hasn't just convinced Narcissa he's going to thwart Voldemort's > plans for Draco he's taken a vow that he must try to do that or > die. Whatever convincing he's done for Bella he's done through that > action, not his acting skills. > > > Deb here: The vow is real yes. But his acting is in his Spin Doctoring - in his shading of nuance of meanings when he is answering Bella's accusations and when he is agreeing to help Narcissa thwart LV's plans for Draco. Isn't that some trick to say in front of Bella that he will protect Draco when all three of them suspect LV believes that Draco will fail - and maybe even hopes he will fail - and that LV will kill him if he does? Yet Bella a very staunch LV supporter agrees to be binder for this Vow ... against LV's interests! In the space of a few pages he turned Bella from a Snape hater (or at least a disbeliever in the DEness of Snape) to a Snape supporter and one who agrees to help her sister and Snape go against LVs wishes. I think that in taking this Vow Snape also is strengthening promises he made to DD - to protect not only Harry but all Hogwarts students from committing such a serious magical offense that it would send them to Azkaban ("no Unforgiveable Curses for you, Potter") or damage their souls through the act of murder. > Magpie: > I don't think RD of a college dorm and HoH are quite similar. We've > seen the HoH at Hogwarts. McGonagall's relationship to Harry would > be different if she wasn't his HoH, but not that different. Not in > a way I see it changing Snape's problem. And not in a way that I can > see why Snape can't just use this same argument to explain why he's > not picking on Harry as his Potions Master. Yes, he could explain > favoring Harry as house favoritism if he were in Slytherin, but that > doesn't mean he must disfavor him because he's a Gryffindor or that > his personal disfavor of him is an act. > > I'm still stuck with the same basic premises that don't work for me: > 1. That Voldemort requires Snape to pick on Harry, Neville, Hermione > and occasionally Ron by association to prove he's loyal to > Voldemort. 2. That Voldemort makes a big distinction in his mind > between Potions Master and Head of House, seeing one as a position > in which less than malicious treatment is a sign of disloyalty, but > the other a position that requires the feigning of personal > affection. Deb here: I never said that LV "required" Snape to pick on the trio and their friends. I said Snape had to maintain a role that would convince LV that he was still a loyal DE. The role that Snape adopted involves showing disdain for them, ridiculing them, and acting in a mean way to them so that if/when LV scans/legilimens's Snape it appears that he dislikes them. I think that LV would expect that any loyal DE would "hate" the person who brought LV down, don't you? Snape's attitude toward Harry in class is quite similar to tht of Lucius Malfoy's - sneering, insulting, "looking down my nose at you". Deb (aka djklaugh) Snape is a very complex individual and we may never completely understand him. I can only sincerely hope that Book 7 will answer most of the question "Who is Severus Snape really?" From katbofaye at aol.com Fri Apr 7 05:57:06 2006 From: katbofaye at aol.com (katssirius) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 05:57:06 -0000 Subject: Percy's sickle Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150645 Wondering if there is any significance to Percy's silver sickle being the only charm mentioned in SS at the Christmas tea. I was unable to determine their symbolism although I assume it is related to the harvest. The charms in the Plum pudding are considered lucky and fortunes for the person who finds one in their slice. katssirius From irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com Fri Apr 7 07:07:43 2006 From: irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com (IreneMikhlin) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 08:07:43 +0100 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Pansy/ Re: House characteristics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44360FBF.2040704@btopenworld.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150646 zgirnius wrote: > You must have missed the quotes from OotP, when Umbridge was > observing Hagrid's class. In it Pansy does not display any 'pureblood > supremacist' views, but she certainly plays right along with > Umbridge's bigotry against the sentient non-human magical creatures. > (Which in my opinion is an equally objectionable form of bigotry, I > see no evidence that Olympe Maxime or Hagrid are of sub-normal > intelligence or unusually prone to violence). It is at this point > public knowledge that Hagrid is half-giant. And Pansy tells Umbridge > that she can't understand Hagrid's explanations in class because > he 'grunts'. I'd say this is displaying a form of bigotry. > Or exploiting it, at any rate, which I find equally objectionable. > But Hermione is as prejudiced against Firenze as Pansy is against Hagrid! We can't use it to compare the two girls in Hermione's favour. I'm not saying that Pansy is a sweet little girl. Rowling has all the insider information, and if she says Pansy is a nasty piece of work, she must have her reasons. But it's not coming across in the books. And anyway, about the whole "let's get Hagrid fired" campaign - do we honestly think that if it wasn't Umbridge inspecting Hogwarts, but, say, Lupinlore or Eggplant - Harry and the friends wouldn't use their chance to get Snape fired? :-) I know JKR considers disliking one of her favourite characters to be a crime, after all the only reason Zacharia Smith is "eeeevil" is not being a fan of Harry's, but I think a Hogwarts student can have legitimate reasons for disliking Hagrid and wanting him out. Irene From zanelupin at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 08:06:30 2006 From: zanelupin at yahoo.com (KathyK) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 08:06:30 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose /Why I Hate Snape/Snape's Worst Memory In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150647 Deb wrote: > Barty Crouch Jr (aka Fake!Moody) is LVs "most loyal servant" and > probably likes all DEs as long as he thinks they are loyal to his > Lord and Master, LV. But when he drinks Polyjuice and becomes Fake! > Moody he has to take on the persona and attitudes and behaviors of - > Alastair Moody - the real one - who is an Auror and yes *he* > hates the Malfoys, is suspicious of Snape and isn't convinced like > DD was that Snape has truly renounced his DEness. Soooo BCjr has to > be a very good actor in order to impersonate Auror Moody for nearly > a whole school year and give voice to things and do things that are > contrary to what he really believes. KathyK: I certainly agree Crouch Jr had to do a fair bit of acting to impersonate Mad-Eye for a year, but he does hate Death Eaters "who walked free." He says this as Moody back in Chapter 25 of GoF and then agin in Chapter 35 when he has revealed himself as LV's follower (he called those who avoided Azkaban, "scum," "treacherous cowards," "worthless bits of filth," etc). He was not feigning hatred toward the Malfoys or Snape. He *hates* them rather violently. That part of the Crouch!Moody bit was not an act. Deb wrote: > The vow is real yes. But his acting is in his Spin Doctoring - > in his shading of nuance of meanings when he is answering Bella's > accusations and when he is agreeing to help Narcissa thwart LV's > plans for Draco. Isn't that some trick to say in front of Bella that > he will protect Draco when all three of them suspect LV believes > that Draco will fail - and maybe even hopes he will fail - and that > LV will kill him if he does? Yet Bella a very staunch LV supporter > agrees to be binder for this Vow ... against LV's interests! KathyK: I just went through the wording of the UV (I'm sure everyone else already has a million times, but I haven't done so). Nothing Snape promises goes against Lord Voldemort's wishes or interests as I understand them from the Spinner's End chapter. Voldemort wants Draco to kill Dumbledore. Expecting or hoping Draco will fail so he can kill him does not change this. Narcissa asks Snape to watch over Draco while Draco tries to complete his task. Snape promises to protect Draco to the best of his ability. Then he promises to complete the task should Draco fail. The end result is still a dead Dumbledore. Can you explain how you think the UV goes against LV's wishes? 'Cause I'm not convinced protecting Draco to the best of Snape's ability includes protecting him against Voldemort should Draco fail. And that's the only part of the vow I can see causing problems *if* it is taken as a blanket protection of Draco and LV still wants to kill him after Dumbledore is dead. Deb wrote: > I think that LV would expect > that any loyal DE would "hate" the person who brought LV down, don't > you? KathyK: Well, yes. But Snape could still have created a role for himself where he *didn't* hate, pick on, or ridicule HP or other students and still would be able to explain away any sort of perceived favoritism (or complete indifference) toward Harry, IMO. (This concludes the "me too to Magpie" portion of my post). Deb: > I can only sincerely hope that Book 7 will answer most of the > question "Who is Severus Snape really?" KathyK: Me too. And I hope the answer is "A Really Bad Guy" From MadameSSnape at aol.com Fri Apr 7 08:42:01 2006 From: MadameSSnape at aol.com (MadameSSnape at aol.com) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 04:42:01 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Percy's sickle Message-ID: <36e.14e45cc.31677fd9@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150648 In a message dated 4/7/2006 2:49:34 AM Eastern Daylight Time, katbofaye at aol.com writes: Wondering if there is any significance to Percy's silver sickle being the only charm mentioned in SS at the Christmas tea. I was unable to determine their symbolism although I assume it is related to the harvest. The charms in the Plum pudding are considered lucky and fortunes for the person who finds one in their slice. ================================ Sherrie here: This is from www.oldsuperstitions.com/index.php?query=wedding: "When making Christmas pudding, drop into a silver coin, a thimble, and a ring. He who is served the coin finds luck, he who retrieves the thimble brings himself prosperity, and he who comes up with the ring hastens a wedding in his family." So Percy finds the silver Sickle, meaning luck - and so far, he's had it, managing to dodge the bullet on the Crouch thing, even getting promoted. Will it last? :::insert suspenseful music here::: Sherrie [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From a_svirn at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 10:49:00 2006 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 10:49:00 -0000 Subject: Pansy/ Re: House characteristics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150651 > Betsy Hp: > Is that the direction of the shift, though? The Sorting Hat gives > us the *history* of the Founder's ideals, a_svirn: A propos of the history. Have we discussed the meaning of the "geographical background", so to speak, of the four founders? If there is any meaning, that is? I got the feeling that that Slytherin was even geographically alien of some sort. Both ladies are obviously from Scotland, from "glen" and from the "valley broad" ? Highlands and Midland Valley, I take it. "Wild moor" can be anywhere, of course, but the most likely choice is North Yorkshire. And "fen" is obviously Fen Country, which makes him the only southerner among the northerners. That would have made a huge difference a millennium ago. > Betsy Hp: but how the Sorting Hat > ends up sorting the students is up to the Sorting Hat. And the > Sorting Hat looks for ambition and cunning for Slytherin, and > hardwork and loyalty for Hufflpuff. Never mind that Ms. Hufflepuff > stated that she didn't want to weed *any* students out, and never > mind that Mr. Slytherin said that pure-bloods only need apply. (Mr. > Gryffindor had "chivalry" added to his request for the brave > students, and Ms. Ravenclaw had "wit" added to her request for > intelligence.) a_svirn: I think the Hat uses *wit* and *intelligence* as synonyms. > Betsy Hp: > > We already know that Slytherin house is not made up of those with > purest blood, and we know that Hufflepuff is not a catch-all. So I > think the Sorting Hat has been shifting the houses' characteristics > a tad as the years have gone by. a_svirn: Then why all that harping about pure blood in its song? Or does it shifts characteristics on a whim from year to year? Applies less rigid standards every other year and then goes back to the most stringent of principles? > > >>Lupinlore: > > The exception to this is, to an extent, Slytherin. I think this > > is in part due to honest reservations JKR herself has with regard > > to Slytherin's symbolic house traits -- whether pure blood or > > ambition. > > > > True, we've seen McClaggen and Pettigrew in Gryffindor and > > Marietta in Ravenclaw -- now we need to see a truly good character > > in Slytherin (and I don't mean a DDM!Snape, who doesn't qualify as > > good in any case). > > > > Betsy Hp: > That'll be Draco, I'm sure. a_svirn: That'll be a rare example of transfiguration indeed! But then, maybe he'll transfer to Gryffindor... From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Fri Apr 7 12:22:16 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 08:22:16 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] The Founders (was:Pansy/ Re: House characteristics) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060407122216.8884.qmail@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150652 a_svirn wrote: a_svirn: I got the feeling that that Slytherin was even geographically alien of some sort. Both ladies are obviously from Scotland, from "glen" and from the "valley broad" ? Highlands and Midland Valley, I take it. "Wild moor" can be anywhere, of course, but the most likely choice is North Yorkshire. And "fen" is obviously Fen Country, which makes him the only southerner among the northerners. That would have made a huge difference a millennium ago. Catherine now: I had a diferrent take on it. I always thought Gryffindor was from Scotland (There are Scottish Moors too) he always struck me as a Highland Warrior type. http://www.walkwise.co.uk/images/Scotland/scottish_moors.jpg I agree with the Lexicon (who are also just taking a stab at this) That Fen is somewhere not far from London. I say this because I was in a play called Fen many years ago, and it was about a group of English working-class potato pickers. Sweet Hufflepuff from Valley broad...I don't see her as Scottish, rather Irish. I'm just taking a stab at this from her personality, and for another reason I will explain in a second... Fair Ravenclaw from Glen. I see her being from Wales. For the only reason that I believe JKR had each of the founders come from each of the 4 Brittish isles: Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales. And that her whole thing on "House Unity" is also a plea for Brittish unity to a certain extent. It also seems to fit in with the history of fighting among the isles and allegiences and everything. Just my take on it! Catherine --------------------------------- Share your photos with the people who matter at Yahoo! Canada Photos [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From brahadambal at indiatimes.com Fri Apr 7 12:11:45 2006 From: brahadambal at indiatimes.com (latha279) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 12:11:45 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose /Why I Hate Snape/Snape's Worst Memory In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150653 > Deb: > > > I can only sincerely hope that Book 7 will answer most of the > > question "Who is Severus Snape really?" > > KathyK: > > Me too. And I hope the answer is "A Really Bad Guy" > Brady: LOL. I hope not. But seriously speaking, do we really have space in the last book for all the questions to be answered? We need to know a LOT about Severus Snape, we have to find out all about RAB, we have to find out more about the horcruxes. One horcrux is still not defined / seen / named. That has to be first defined / guessed and then found. There is a wedding in question, maybe two. Then we have the actual hunt of the horcruxes. All of them to be found and destroyed... and then the final showdown between Harry and LV himself. SNAPE being redeemed (as I hope he will be) and maybe Draco too. That sounds like another seven book series in itself, to me. Guess JKR would be trying to bite off more than anyone can chew! JMO, Brady. From kchuplis at alltel.net Fri Apr 7 13:08:43 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 08:08:43 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Pansy/ Re: House characteristics References: <44360FBF.2040704@btopenworld.com> Message-ID: <003c01c65a44$65b5ff60$b301010a@ConsolidatedTelephone.local> No: HPFGUIDX 150655 ----- Original Message ----- From: IreneMikhlin But Hermione is as prejudiced against Firenze as Pansy is against Hagrid! We can't use it to compare the two girls in Hermione's favour. kchuplis: How so? She tries to blow off Lavendar's pushing comments by saying she's never liked horses when Lavendar wants to schmooze but she doesn't really seem to have a problem with his teaching divination. She has a problem with divination itself. Irene: I'm not saying that Pansy is a sweet little girl. Rowling has all the insider information, and if she says Pansy is a nasty piece of work, she must have her reasons. But it's not coming across in the books. kchuplis: Honestly, what do people look for in the nasty characters? They don't have to be murdering people to be officious little pain in the butts. They can't all be LV, bad seed awful. It doesn't make them "good". I certainly wouldn't call Pansy likeable. Does she have to be evil? No, but she isn't honest and she isn't pleasant, ever. Irene: And anyway, about the whole "let's get Hagrid fired" campaign - do we honestly think that if it wasn't Umbridge inspecting Hogwarts, but, say, Lupinlore or Eggplant - Harry and the friends wouldn't use their chance to get Snape fired? :-) kchuplis: Yeah, I would honestly say they would not actively do anything. They certainly wouldn't lie as others were doing regarding Hagrid. Would they be happy if he DID get fired? Probably, but I cannot see them actively trying to bring him down through lies as was the case with Hagrid. And yes folks, they were lying. I remember all the "Hagrid is such a rotten teacher" threads, but Grubbly Plank specifically comments that Hagrid has the kids well versed in most things. And certainly he speaks understandable English, and no one can be bitten badly by a flobberworm. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Fri Apr 7 13:11:20 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 13:11:20 -0000 Subject: Pansy/ Re: House characteristics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150656 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "a_svirn" wrote: > > > > Betsy Hp: > > Is that the direction of the shift, though? The Sorting Hat gives > > us the *history* of the Founder's ideals, > > a_svirn: > A propos of the history. Have we discussed the meaning of > the "geographical background", so to speak, of the four founders? If > there is any meaning, that is? I got the feeling that that Slytherin > was even geographically alien of some sort. Both ladies are > obviously from Scotland, from "glen" and from the "valley broad" ? > Highlands and Midland Valley, I take it. "Wild moor" can be > anywhere, of course, but the most likely choice is North Yorkshire. > And "fen" is obviously Fen Country, which makes him the only > southerner among the northerners. That would have made a huge > difference a millennium ago. Geoff: I think that you are jumping to a lot of unfounded geographical conclusions here. The only two folk who can be positively identified with specific areas are RowenaRavenclaw and Salzar Slytherin. The use of the word "glen" is almost unique to Scotland. It refers to a narrow valley, strath being the equivalent term for a wide valley. The corresponding Welsh names would be glyn (or more commonly cwm) or ystrad. Slytherin is certainly NOT a southerner. The Fens lie in Lincolnshire on the eastern side of England and are on roughly the same latitude as Liverpool or Sheffield. Wild moor would more accurately describe Dartmoor in Devon or Bodmin Moor in Cornwall and also cover chunks of Scotland such as Rannoch Moor. Here on the group, we had a long discussion about two years ago about the location of Hogwarts and many of the geographical features of the Highlands were considered. I live on Exmoor but, we like the North Yorkshire Moors are a little bit gentler. As for "valley broad", I have already commented on strath and ystrad which could cover cover Helga Hufflepuff but there are several broad valleys in England - the Thames Valley and Severn Valley for example. Without more information, we cannot presume that the founders represented different areas - or the four home nations. From foxmoth at qnet.com Fri Apr 7 13:50:44 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 13:50:44 -0000 Subject: Pansy/ Re: House characteristics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150657 > > > Alla: > but what is so BAD about Pancy Parkinson that she does not > want the girls to be like her, except that Pancy is in Slytherin > House? Pippin: Pansy judges people by their looks. Neville isn't just a little crybaby, he's a fat little crybaby. Hermione has teeth like a chipmunk and she's plain, in Pansy's estimation, so the only way she could attract a catch like Viktor would be a love potion. I think JKR was simply hoping that her daughters would try to look beyond appearances the way Hermione does and not judge others, or themselves, by how attractive they are. Alla: , but I don't think anybody would be able to convince me that we saw flawed but GOOD characters in Slytherin house so far. I mean, among the adults we have whom .... Regulus and Slughorn? I deliberately leave out Snape of course, since to me his loyalties are.... how we put it questionable? > > But forget about adults, because IMO kids are what matters and among > the Gryffindors we of course have Trio, Neville. Dean Thomas, > Seamus, Ginny, Twins, etc.... and among Slytherins we have whom? Pippin: Why shouldn't Slughorn or Regulus be described as flawed but good? I think flawed but good is exactly the way Dumbledore would describe Draco, don't you? "Come over to the right side, Draco..." what good would it be to urge Draco to choose right if he hasn't got the moral sense to know what right is? Alla: > Right, so I just think that JKR gave us more confirmation that at > the end ( if the Houses will stand, I always said and still do that > IMO Houses will dissappear by assimilating good qualities of each > other and minimising bad ones, thus achieving real unity of > Hogwarts) Slytherin house will be the house of one or two "good" > students at most and by "good" I sure don't mean perfect, but those > who will fight with Harry at the end. Pippin: Now I am confused. How can, or maybe the question is, why should, Slytherin House be assimilated if only one or two of its students are good? On the other hand, if most of them are good, why should they not be allowed the freedom to find their own path? Pippin From puduhepa98 at aol.com Fri Apr 7 14:13:23 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 10:13:23 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics) Message-ID: <31e.1d80237.3167cd83@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150658 > >>Betsy Hp: > > > > She also tends to have more girlfriends than boyfriends, which > > JKR seems to use as a short-cut for either "shallow" or "mean", > > with her female characters. Pansy is described as having a "gang" of Slytherin girls she leads around. Lavander and Parvati are best friends; Cho and Marietta are best friends. All five girls are either shallow or mean or seen as lacking somehow. It's not a written in stone thing, but on the flip side Hermione's best friends are boys, and Ginny doesn't have a female best friend. It's a tone thing, I guess, and frankly I doubt it's anything JKR did on purpose. But it's the *type* JKR is claiming for Pansy that I have issue with. I don't think she's shown Pansy in that light. Not enough to be an example of how not to be for young girls. > >>Betsy Hp: > > But Pansy never does much to fill the "mean girl" role. > > > >>kchuplis It's an important part of being a "mean girl" type though. Pansy should, if she's to be that sort of girl, be trying to date the most powerful guy in the school. She should be trying to become the most powerful girl in the school, and she should be making Hermione's life a living hell. And... well, she doesn't. > >>Quick_Silver: > She sort of comes across as a female Peter. Nikkalmati: I don't think JKR means that Pansy fills the role of a classic teenage "mean" girl with all that comes with that role. I think JKR meant that Hermione is her own person, who knows who she is and thinks for herself. Her portrayal of Pansy is of a girl who defines herself by Draco, follows her boyfriend, and who would be content to be Mrs. Draco for the rest of her life - not a very high ambition. JKR would prefer her girls to be more independent. IMO Nikkalmati [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From zarleycat at sbcglobal.net Fri Apr 7 14:25:13 2006 From: zarleycat at sbcglobal.net (kiricat4001) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 14:25:13 -0000 Subject: Danger at the Wedding? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150659 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "klmf1" wrote: > > Forgive me if this has come up already, but is anyone else out there > wondering if the Bill and Fleur wedding isn't going to be a scene of > destruction? With Arthur working for the Ministry, Bill as a Curse Breaker, the > Weasleys as "blood traitors", and poor Molly's bad dreams ---not to mention > the foreshadowing of the whole family pointing at "mortal peril" on her clock, > a wedding with all those people together in one place seems a great > opportunity to knock off a few pesky muggle-lovers and HP & Co Marianne: I've always felt that, since there are a whole slew of Weasleys, some of them would have to be bumped off before the end of the series. Not that I dislike any of the Weasleys, but, if we are to feel the true horror of what the DEs mean to wizard society, we're going to have to have a bunch of deaths of characters we know fairly well. Knocking off one biggie per book (Sirius in OoP and DD in HBP) isn't enough. And JKR did say she had to be "ruthless" in writing these books, didn't she? In HBP there are IIRC several instances where we are told via one of the Trio or through the Daily Prophet that some relative of a Hogwarts students is killed. It serves to remind us that the DEs are back in business, but doesn't really hit us with an emotional impact the way the death of say, George, would, because we don't see the impact on the main characters. I'd include the death of Emmeline Vance and the disappearance of Florean Fortescue in this category. When we hear of their fate we sit up and take notice, but, IMO, we are not hit with the same sort of shock and sorrow we'd be if it was a Weasley. One other thought - several listies including me expressed dissatisfaction with HBP in that there was no memorial, or mention of one, for Sirius. Other people responded with how this was completely logical because such a gathering would be a danger to the Order as they would be convenient targets for an attack by the DEs. I would suggest the same conditions exist for a Weasley wedding. However, now that 12GP is securely in Harry's possession, perhaps the wedding could be safely held in there, with Mrs. Black providing genteel commentary in the background... Marianne, who's not really bloodthirsty but who expects several emotional wallops in Book 7 From kchuplis at alltel.net Fri Apr 7 15:39:23 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 10:39:23 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics) References: <31e.1d80237.3167cd83@aol.com> Message-ID: <000f01c65a59$71f3cc70$b301010a@ConsolidatedTelephone.local> No: HPFGUIDX 150660 ----- Original Message ----- From: puduhepa98 at aol.com > >>kchuplis It's an important part of being a "mean girl" type though. Pansy should, if she's to be that sort of girl, be trying to date the most powerful guy in the school. She should be trying to become the most powerful girl in the school, and she should be making Hermione's life a living hell. And... well, she doesn't. > >>Quick_Silver: > She sort of comes across as a female Peter. Nikkalmati: I don't think JKR means that Pansy fills the role of a classic teenage "mean" girl with all that comes with that role. I think JKR meant that Hermione is her own person, who knows who she is and thinks for herself. Her portrayal of Pansy is of a girl who defines herself by Draco, follows her boyfriend, and who would be content to be Mrs. Draco for the rest of her life - not a very high ambition. JKR would prefer her girls to be more independent. IMO kchuplis: Please be careful with snippage. I did not say that about Pansy!! [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From andrea1270 at hotmail.com Fri Apr 7 13:03:16 2006 From: andrea1270 at hotmail.com (andrea1270) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 13:03:16 -0000 Subject: Snape's Worst Memory Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150661 steven1965aaa: >Having reflected a little more after reading these posts, I think the >really significant question is why Snape is concerned to prevent Harry >from seeing this particular memory. Any thoughts? I don't think that Snape is concerned about him seeing it at all. I think it's basically planted for the express PURPOSE of Harry seeing it. Suppose you're ESE!Snape. Your working as a double agent for LV by POSING as a double agent for DD. LV couldn't have been too happy that ESE!Snape is being ordered to teach Harry occlumency, especially since entering Harry's mind was a pretty successful tool for LV in OoTP. So here's Snape, having to teach LV mortal enemy how to fend off intrusion. PLUS, it turns out that Harry might have some talent at it when he applies himself and even starts to fight back to enter ESE! Snape's mind. This has become, not only inconvenient for LV, but potentially dangerous for ESE!Snape as well. I say the memory of James is a plant put in the pensieve to give ESE! Snape, if not a graceful way to bow out of coaching Harry, at least a way that is less suspicious than if he just flat out refuses. Given Harry's blind hero worship of his father, ESE!Snape figures what better way to cause a confrontation and have Harry refuse to work with HIM? Plus, if Harry gets to see his father in an unflattering light, all the better. Because I do believe that whether Snape be good or evil, he just plain doesn't like Harry. I don't think that he would like him whatever his own agenda. Snape was the outcast in his day, Harry is the most popular kid in school. Even if you leave James out of the equation, Snape's contempt is not an act. andrea1270 From sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 15:20:03 2006 From: sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com (sugaranddixie1) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 15:20:03 -0000 Subject: Mothers in HP In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150662 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tonks" wrote: > > I was thinking about a theme that I have noticed and wondering what it > means. > > First we have LV's mother who dies to give him life. > Then Harry's mother who dies to save Harry from death. > And Barty Jr's mother who died in her son's place. > > It is always a mother dying for her son. Do we see a father dying for a > child? Do we see anyone dying for a daughter? I can't remember but if > not, then there seems to be a theme here. But what is it, and why? > > I hope this doesn't mean something bad for our beloved Molly. E.T. here- Not sure, but it does seem significant that a chapter of OOP was entitled "The Woes of Mrs. Weasley" & told of her picturing a boggart representing her sons, husband, & Harry dead. (They didn't mention Ginny but she could have been visualized before Harry walked in on Molly. I can't believe Molly subconciously feels there's less chance Ginny will die because after Ginny's near miss in COS, that wouldn't be likely...) Molly's definitely assumed a strong surrogate mother's role in Harry's life. That relationship won't be getting her any discount on a life insurance policy! E.T. From kkersey at swbell.net Fri Apr 7 15:59:13 2006 From: kkersey at swbell.net (kkersey_austin) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 15:59:13 -0000 Subject: House characteristics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150663 Something I never remember seeing discussed here (likely I just missed it) is that JKR has said that the four houses relate to the four classical elements - Griffyndor = fire, Hufflepuff = earth, Ravenclaw = air, Slytherin = water. The house colors, their locations within Hogwarts (e.g. Slytherin being beneath the lake) and even the house characteristics and rivalries correspond with the elements. So no suprise that watery Slytherin comes from the fens, or that earth-y Hufflepuff comes the "valley broad". Moor and glen aren't quite as straightforward, but if glen is associated with the Scottish Highlands that would work well enough. "Wild moor" being associated with fire is perhaps not so straightforward, but I can't help but think of the opening chapter of Far From the Madding Crowd when I think of wild moors... Geoff, does any of this work out with how these geographic features are generally perceived? I live in Texas, where we're not likely to encounter moors, glens or fens outside of Thomas Hardy novels. Elisabet From iam.kemper at gmail.com Fri Apr 7 16:12:59 2006 From: iam.kemper at gmail.com (Kemper) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 09:12:59 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Snape's Worst Memory In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <700201d40604070912oc69b876y9905bb67b6fa7c1b@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150664 steven1965aaa wrote: > Having reflected a little more after reading these posts, I think the > really significant question is why Snape is concerned to prevent Harry > from seeing this particular memory. Any thoughts? > Kemper now: It is the only seen in any of the books where we see Snape verbally abuse Harry's mom. He never does it. We know (or think we know) prior to the scene that Snape and James had conflict. It is know real surprise when we read the scene that Snape and James have conflict (the surprise is the instigator). I have no doubt that there were many similar scenes in Snape's memory that include James as instigator and him humiliated in some way. More memories than the other two placed in the Pensieve. I'm not saying that Snape liked-liked Lily. I don't know one way or the other. But I think at the very least he respected and maybe admired her school/work ethic. Snape in Occulemency says something to the effect that one's memories/feelings can be used against them by the Dark Lord. Maybe this is one of those memories for Snape in which it led him to the Dark Side, and it is *this* reason that it's his worst memory. -Kemper From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 16:34:20 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 16:34:20 -0000 Subject: Barty Jr.'s role (Was: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150665 > KathyK wrote: > > I certainly agree Crouch Jr had to do a fair bit of acting to > impersonate Mad-Eye for a year, but he does hate Death Eaters "who > walked free." He says this as Moody back in Chapter 25 of GoF and > then agin in Chapter 35 when he has revealed himself as LV's follower > (he called those who avoided Azkaban, "scum," "treacherous cowards," > "worthless bits of filth," etc). He was not feigning hatred toward > the Malfoys or Snape. He *hates* them rather violently. That part of > the Crouch!Moody bit was not an act. Carol adds: I agree that Barty Jr.'s hatred of Snape et al. is real, but the role of Moody is serendipitous for him. They hate the same people for different reasons; he has to conceal the reasons, but the gruffness and eccentricity of the real Moody allow him to express his hatred. He can even indulge, or feign, a liking for Harry since his job is to get the boy safely through the TWT and into the hands of the Dark Lord. He can get away with abusing Draco (the ferret incident) because of the real Moody's paranoid eccentricity, and his appearance (scarred face and hands, a chunk out of his nose, a wooden leg with a clawed foot, and above all, the magic eye that sees out the back of his head) makes him a scary figure that no one is going to question too closely. Even Snape, who is no coward, seems to avoid his gaze. He even has the growly voice that requires no effort to imitate; it goes with the polyjuice potion. And how convenient that the real Moody carries a hip flask that he can sip at appropriate intervals to maintain his appearance without arousing suspicion, and that his own father authorized the Aurors to cast Unforgiveable Curses so that he can kill and torture spiders under the pretense of teaching the kids to protect themselves from Unforgiveable Curses. (You can't protect yourself from an AK except perhaps by deflecting it, and there appears to be no countercurse for a Crucio; it ends only when the caster lifts it. I'm not sure about Imperio; there may be a countercurse. Certainly Barty didn't expect any kid to be able to resist it. But he could entertain himself, all the while pretending to be teaching, watching Harry bruise his shins against the desk, "knowing" that it made no difference, that the Potter boy was dead meat.) So the role of Moody was perfect for Barty, the fanatically loyal DE and sadist because it allowed him to indulge his hatred and sadism under the cover of eccentric pananoia. He had Imperio'd the real Moody and could easily observe his mannerisms and speech patterns. (Even if the real Moody didn't go around yelling "Constant vigilance!" it fit the role he was playing.) And he could hardly forget who he was, or rather, who he was pretending to be, with that eye whirling around in his head and his leg clunking at every step, nor would his fanatical devotion have allowed him to do so. Serving his master, preserving Harry so that he could sent to the Dark Lord as living prey, was his purpose in life, and he prided himself on his own cleverness in arranging it, all the while keeping his cover (unless, as I suspect, certain breaches of Hogwarts decorum aroused Dumbledore's suspicions and, as he stirred his thoughts in the Pensieve and relived various moments, began to create the perception that revealed itself when Fake!Moody disobeyed DD at the TWT--the imposter, the person who put Harry's name in the GoF, is none other than Barty Crouch). At any rate, we know that young Barty was clever. Like Hermione, he received twelve OWLs. We know that he eagerly turned to the Dark Lord as a father figure when his own father failed to love him (and yet he could be wrong here; Barty Sr. seems to have been proud of him for the twelve OWLs). We know that he precociously mastered the Crucio and became a follower of the Cruciatrix herself, Bellatrix Lestrange. It appears that he also mastered Imperio and AK before his arrest as well; he could hardly have learned them while he was sitting around his father's house under the Imperius curse and watched every moment by Winky. He wasn't allowed a wand and had to steal Harry's. So I think that Barty was, if not brilliant, at least very bright, and single-minded as well. He can feign kindness and concern for his students if they lead to his goal. (Certainly he was indifferent to, and perhaps even enjoyed, Neville's suffering as he, Barty, Crucio'd the spider, but he could divert suspicions of sadism by giving Neville tea and lending him the book on water plants--two birds with one stone.) He can indulge the one emotion he does feel, hatred, because the person he's impersonating hates the same people. Altogether a lucky break for Barty, who would, I imagine, have had a much tougher time impersonating Arthur Weasley or Nymphadora Tonks. I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but I suspect that Barty Jr., so dedicated to the cause of evil that he can Imperio one boy to Crucio another and kill his own father without a qualm, is some sort of sociopath, either mentally or emotionally ill and yet capable of laying out and following an apparently rational plan of which he is thoroughly proud, as evidenced by his stating, in the third person, exactly what the clever witch or wizard must have done to confund a powerful magical object, and by his words to DD under the influence of Snape's Veritaserum. Carol, who sees in Barty Jr. the spiritual and moral corruption that follows from habitual use of the Unforgiveable Curses From juli17 at aol.com Fri Apr 7 16:52:01 2006 From: juli17 at aol.com (juli17ptf) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 16:52:01 -0000 Subject: Snape=Judas? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150666 I was reading an article in the L.A. Times this morning about the lost Gospel of Judas, a series of conversations wherein Judas was Jesus' closest friend, and only carried out his betrayal because Jesus asked him to do it. Beside the debate of whether this early gospel (one of many that were declared heretical by the early church) portrays the true relationship between Jesus and Judas, I couldn't help thinking of Snape and Dumbledore as I read this. Specifically, several posters have compared Snape to Judas, and in light of this new information I'm inclined to agree! Like Judas, Snape carried out his betrayal because he was asked to by his friend/mentor, and like Judas, Snape suffers emotional distress over the act and is vilified by his community. Though, hopefully, unlike Judas, Snape's true motives will be revealed and he won't be condemned to go down in history as the most reviled wizard ever. Julie From puduhepa98 at aol.com Fri Apr 7 17:03:28 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 13:03:28 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics) Message-ID: <336.1bbca14.3167f560@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150667 My apologies. I will exercise greater care. nikkalmati [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From keeley_cargill at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 16:54:57 2006 From: keeley_cargill at yahoo.com (keeley_cargill) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 16:54:57 -0000 Subject: Mothers in HP In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150668 Tonks_op wrote: > > I was thinking about a theme that I have noticed and wondering > what it means. > > First we have LV's mother who dies to give him life. > Then Harry's mother who dies to save Harry from death. > And Barty Jr's mother who died in her son's place. > > > I hope this doesn't mean something bad for our beloved Molly. Keeley: I think that you've got Lily's and Barty's mother's sacrifices mixed up. I would argue that Lily died in place of her son and that Barty Crouch's mum died to save him. Other than that I think you're right about the theme. I wonder if we will see a mother die at the hands of a son. Keeley From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 17:12:52 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 17:12:52 -0000 Subject: The Founders (was:Pansy/ Re: House characteristics) In-Reply-To: <20060407122216.8884.qmail@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150669 Catherine wrote: > > I had a diferrent take on it. I always thought Gryffindor was from Scotland (There are Scottish Moors too) he always struck me as a Highland Warrior type. > http://www.walkwise.co.uk/images/Scotland/scottish_moors.jpg > > I agree with the Lexicon (who are also just taking a stab at this) That Fen is somewhere not far from London. I say this because I was in a play called Fen many years ago, and it was about a group of English working-class potato pickers. > > Sweet Hufflepuff from Valley broad...I don't see her as Scottish, rather Irish. I'm just taking a stab at this from her personality, and for another reason I will explain in a second... > > Fair Ravenclaw from Glen. I see her being from Wales. For the only reason that I believe JKR had each of the founders come from each of the 4 Brittish isles: Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales. And that her whole thing on "House Unity" is also a plea for Brittish unity to a certain extent. It also seems to fit in with the history of fighting among the isles and allegiences and everything. > Carol responds: I like the idea of the four Founders each being from a different part of the UK, one each from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, but I can't escape the association of "glen" with Scotland. ("Danny Boy" is now running through my head--CMC, maybe you can filk it for me.) More important, hasn't it been established from the route of Hagrid's motorcycle ride in SS/PS (flying over Bristol on his way to Surrey) that Godric's Hollow is in Wales? That being the case, Gryffindor would be from Wales and Ravenclaw from Scotland. Also, although the other names admittedly don't give any clue to national origin (Helga sounds Nordic and Hufflepuff solidly English, with no hint of Irishness), Gryffindor to me suggests a Welsh origin: Griffith (Gruffydd) is a commmon Welsh name, and Gryffindor could be an Anglicized version of a similar name. However, I've always vaguely connected witchcraft/wizardry with the Celts and Muggles with the Saxons. The Veiled archway on its dais suggests to me some connection with ancient Druids and even ritual sacrifice--Slytherin could come from this tradition, which of course the Muggles (Saxons) would fear. Helga Hufflepuff could be part Saxon, if not a Muggleborn then a half-blood, which would account for her wanting to admit all students regardless of "blood" origins. I'm not arguing against the four Houses representing the four kingdoms, or whatever the correct term is. I like it, actually. But I can't make it fit with my other idea, which to me explains Slytherin's anti-Muggle sentiments at a time before witch burnings became common across Europe. Carol, hoping to be corrected onlist rather than off as she's facing a deadline and ought to be working rather than answering e-mail (or posting :-0 !) From belviso at attglobal.net Fri Apr 7 17:40:39 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (sistermagpie) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 17:40:39 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose /Pansy Parkinson In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150670 > Deb: > Barty Crouch Sr is the Head of the Department of International > Magical Cooperation and hates the Malfoys and hates all persons who > side with LV > Barty Crouch Jr (aka Fake!Moody) is LVs "most loyal servant" and > probably likes all DEs as long as he thinks they are loyal to his > Lord and Master, LV. But when he drinks Polyjuice and becomes Fake! > Moody he has to take on the persona and attitudes and behaviors of - > Alastair Moody - the real one - who is an Auror and yes *he* > hates the Malfoys, is suspicious of Snape and isn't convinced like > DD was that Snape has truly renounced his DEness. Soooo BCjr has to > be a very good actor in order to impersonate Auror Moody for nearly > a whole school year and give voice to things and do things that are > contrary to what he really believes. Magpie: He's not giving voice to things and doing things that are contrary to what he really feels much of the time. Barty Crouch Jr. is suspicious of Snape and hates the Malfoys. The real Moody is not necessarily suspicious of Snape at all--and while he presumably hates Lucius Malfoy we don't know that he'd have bounced Draco around in his anger. Barty is acting like himself a lot of the time he's at Hogwarts. That's what's so fun about him. He gets to indulge himself right in front of everyone. > > Deb: > Because it would be out of character for him to be nice to Harry > etal... it would not fit the "role" he has taken on to make LV > believe that he is still a loyal DE. Magpie: My point was just that from the point of view of Voldemort's plan there is no reason he could not be nice to Harry. If it's OOC for Snape to be nice to Harry then what does Voldemort's plan have to do with it when he's not nice to Harry? > Deb: > I didn't say Snape had become a whole different person by > assuming this role. We have never in all 6 books (IMO) seen the REAL > Snape. But I suspect that even when he is not acting a part he is a > prickly, caustic, and difficult man to be around. He probably will > never be a warm fuzzy kind of person. But I doubt that he is > actually a cruel person behind the facade. Stern, demanding, > sarcastic perhaps, but cruel, no I don't think so. Magpie: So which are the times when Snape is faking things just so that Voldemort thinks he's on his side? Where's the line and why does Snape choose to cross it when he does? I thought that was the whole point here, that Snape's behavior towards Harry, Neville and Hermione was something he had to do because of Voldemort. What would be the difference if he didn't have to convince Voldemort of something? Deb: The only time > we see Snape showing anything like conventional social skills is at > Spinners End when Bella and Narcissa show up. Though from brief > glimpses that we see of Snape interacting with his fellow professors > it appears he gets along OK with them. As I see it Snape exaggerates > some of his natural tendencies in his behavior toward the trio - the > easiest role to assume after all is one that is close to one's true > nature. Magpie: So he's exaggerating his natural tendencies exactly how much? What are his real feelings towards the Trio and where is he changing his behavior or exaggerating it? Because to be blunt, this sounds like just a way of saying that any time Snape's behavior makes him look a little too bad, it's not really Snape, it's an act. > > > Deb here: > The vow is real yes. But his acting is in his Spin Doctoring - > in his shading of nuance of meanings when he is answering Bella's > accusations and when he is agreeing to help Narcissa thwart LV's > plans for Draco. Isn't that some trick to say in front of Bella that > he will protect Draco when all three of them suspect LV believes > that Draco will fail - and maybe even hopes he will fail - and that > LV will kill him if he does? Yet Bella a very staunch LV supporter > agrees to be binder for this Vow ... against LV's interests! In the > space of a few pages he turned Bella from a Snape hater (or at least > a disbeliever in the DEness of Snape) to a Snape supporter and one > who agrees to help her sister and Snape go against LVs wishes. Magpie: I don't really think he does that. The vow is Bellatrix's idea because she's trying to make him put his money where his mouth is, and she's surprised when he agrees. But yes, I've agreed that he does this sort of spying, where he pretends to be a DE and explains his actions in that light, but this still seems a very different thing than the show he's supposedly putting on for the Trio. When he interacts with Draco at the Xmas party, that to me is more the equivalent of the way he is with the Trio. He's spinning everything he's saying to conform to the DE story, but I don't think he's putting on an emotional act with the kid, exaggerating his like or dislike of him the way he's supposedly doing with Harry and his friends. Snape's interactions with his students sometimes seem like the most honest he gets. Without them I wonder on what to build his character. > Deb here: > I never said that LV "required" Snape to pick on the trio and > their friends. I said Snape had to maintain a role that would > convince LV that he was still a loyal DE. The role that Snape > adopted involves showing disdain for them, ridiculing them, and > acting in a mean way to them so that if/when LV scans/legilimens's > Snape it appears that he dislikes them. I think that LV would expect > that any loyal DE would "hate" the person who brought LV down, don't > you? Snape's attitude toward Harry in class is quite similar to tht > of Lucius Malfoy's - sneering, insulting, "looking down my nose at > you". Magpie: So you're not saying that Voldemort requires it, but that Snape has decided all on his own that it would be best because he imagines LV's thought processes the way you do (not the way I do, because I don't assume that LV would expect any DE to hate Harry in a way that showed itself as open contempt and teasing in class). Not knowing what's going on in Snape's mind, this could be true, but I admit it still sounds like a cop-out, a way of erasing Snape's worst behavior. I don't know what Snape will ultimately be revealed as either, but as I said, I feel like his interactions with the students are some of his most honest even when they're the most petty. I do think that Snape's bitterness towards Harry is bound up in his situation with LV and his guilt over James etc., but any suggestion that is a sacrifice Snape is making for the kids' own good rings really false to me. Carol: Altogether a lucky break for Barty, who would, I imagine, have had a much tougher time impersonating Arthur Weasley or Nymphadora Tonks. Magpie: Yes. A lucky break for Barty, but not really lucky, because of course the author planned it that way. That's what I mean about Snape. Barty is fun because when you look back at his behavior you see him acting as himself. If Moody had just been a nice guy to Harry and stern with the Slytherins and then at the last minute it was, "Huh, so that guy was really a DE. He was just an amazing actor," it's not interesting because we would never see the real Barty until his one scene where he literally comes out as a different actor, makes a speech, and gets kissed. Instead we hear information about the real Barty in dribs and drabs, and this strange Moody character (stranger than the real Moody). In the end the two come together and Fake!Moody makes more sense and is more compelling as Polyjuiced!Barty than just Unspecifically!Strange! Moody. With Snape it would be more like the former, because unless someone can point me to the canon, we just haven't seen a glimpse of this NicerGuy!Snape. In fact, it undoes a lot of the reveals we've already gotten about him. Nikkalmati: Her portrayal of Pansy is of a girl who defines herself by Draco, follows her boyfriend, and who would be content to be Mrs. Draco for the rest of her life - not a very high ambition. JKR would prefer her girls to be more independent. Magpie: I don't know...I think it's more her rudeness to others, etc., her talking about looks so much--she does it *a lot.* To me personally this makes her seem insecure and gives her a vulnerability that keeps me from hating her, but she still really does it all the time, and that's what JKR's rant is about, not boys. I think that's more defining for Pansy than the idea that she just follows Draco and does what he says. To me it seems more like she's his friend so she's always on his side (as many of Harry's friends might seem to her as well). I just don't think we've seen any specific scenes where Pansy is changing herself to mirror him. In fifth year they seem particularly equal, and she is the leader of her own female group. As Betsy said, I think if you go down that route then Pansy ought to be looking for a better boyfriend. Maybe it's just me, but I buy Draco and Pansy being friends and don't think it's a negative thing about them. Not that they encourage each other into good behavior, obviously, I'm just uncomfortable with judging Slytherin friendships this way, like they can't ever be positive. -m From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 18:01:52 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 18:01:52 -0000 Subject: Snape's Worst Memory In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150671 Andrea wrote: > I don't think that Snape is concerned about him [Harry] seeing it at all. I think it's basically planted for the express PURPOSE of Harry seeing it. Suppose you're ESE!Snape. Your working as a double agent for LV by POSING as a double agent for DD. LV couldn't have been too happy that ESE!Snape is being ordered to teach Harry occlumency, especially since entering Harry's mind was a pretty successful tool for LV in OoTP. So here's Snape, having to teach LV mortal enemy how to fend off intrusion. Carol responds: As you indicate in your last paragraph (snipped), Snape need not be ESE! for the memory to be a plant. He does hate Harry, and he probably wouldn't mind an excuse to end the Occlumency lessons. But how is he to anticipate that Harry will have, and take, the opportunity to enter the Pensieve? Snape has already run off once, leaving the Pensieve unguarded, to see who is screaming upstairs (the Trelawney/Umbridge incident) and Harry followed him on that occasion. When he runs out a second time (to rescue Montague), he probably assumes that Harry will just leave his office and return to the rescheduled lesson as instructed. And certainly Harry *ought* to have closed the door and obeyed him. I do think that Snape was uncharacteristically careless or trusting in this scene, but I see no reason why he would want Harry to see him humiliated. Also, if the memory is a plant, how was Snape to know that Harry would see that particular memory rather than one of the other two that he placed there? Snape may be a good actor, but his anger is clearly unfeigned. (Although Harry thinks that Snape threw the jar of cockroaches at him, I think it exploded as accidental magic, rather like Aunt Marge's brandy glass in PoA.) At any rate, even if you're right, Snape need not be ESE! to want to end the lessons, which are wasting his time as Harry is making no effort to learn. Snape may even fear that they're doing more harm than good and opening Harry's mind to the Dark Lord, in which case planting the memories in the Pensieve to tempt Harry would provide DDM!Snape with an excuse for ending the lessons. Whatever happened, Dumbledore is clearly not angry with Snape. Andrea: PLUS, it turns out that Harry might have some talent at it > when he applies himself and even starts to fight back to enter ESE! > Snape's mind. This has become, not only inconvenient for LV, but > potentially dangerous for ESE!Snape as well. Carol responds: Talent? JKR suggests otherwise in a recent interview, noting that unlike Draco, Harry has difficulty compartmentalizing his emotions. Snape has told Harry that he can use any spell he chooses to ward off the spells, but that it's best to use his mind as he did with the Imperius Curse in Fake!Moody's class. He (faintly) praises Harry ("That was not as bad as it might have been")when he succeeds in fending off the spell. It's important to note, however, that the three memories that Harry sees are not the result of a deliberate effort on his part to block Snape's spell, much less the result of his own Legilimency spell. They are the result of an accidental Protego (Shield Charm) that deflects Snape's Legilimency spell onto its caster. ("Did you mean to cast a Shield Charm? I thought not.") Snape is angry here but suppresses his anger because Harry has (accidentally) done what he is supposed to do. (And it's most likely in anticipation of an incident like this one that Snape put the three memories in the Pensieve in the first place. These are the ones he doesn't want Harry to see if he manages to do what he's supposed to do.) What makes Snape even angrier is that Harry is not trying, that he has memories that are not his own. ("What are that man and that room doing in your mind, Potter?") And when Harry sees the memory of his dream of the DoM, actually prolonging it rather than preventing Snape from seeing it, Snape stops it himself. Almost certainly he reports this incident to Dumbledore. It's possible that when Snape stops the Occlumency lessons because of Harry's intrusion into his Pensieve, DD agrees with him that they should be stopped and uses Snape's hatred of James as his excuse to Harry rather than admitting that he and Snape had consulted together and felt that the lessons were not having the desired effect because Harry himself was not trying. (Considering that Harry is upset over Sirius Black's death, blaming him for not doing his best to learn Occlumency would have been both badly timed and tactless on DD's part.) Whatever Snape's reason(s) for stopping the Occlumency lessons, it is not Harry's (nonexistent) talent. As late as their final confrontation in HBP, Snape is still telling Harry to close his mouth (nonverbal spells) and his mind (Occlumency). Whether Occlumency will help him against LV or not is irrelevant here. Snape believes that it will, and he is still, even as Harry is raging at him for killing Dumbledore, trying to get that lesson into his head. Carol, who obviously doesn't see Snape as ESE! and can't see any advantage for him in loyalty to Voldemort From sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 17:47:24 2006 From: sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com (sugaranddixie1) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 17:47:24 -0000 Subject: Percy's sickle In-Reply-To: <36e.14e45cc.31677fd9@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150672 katssirius: > Wondering if there is any significance to Percy's silver sickle being > the only charm mentioned in SS at the Christmas tea. E.T. here- When I first read this the Grim Reaper with his Sickle popped into my head for some reason..could there be a double innuendo meant to keep us guessing? From lealess at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 18:43:20 2006 From: lealess at yahoo.com (lealess) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 18:43:20 -0000 Subject: Snape's Worst Memory In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150673 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" wrote: > > Andrea wrote: > I don't think that Snape is concerned about him [Harry] seeing it at > all. I think it's basically planted for the express PURPOSE of > Harry seeing it. > > > Carol responds: > > As you indicate in your last paragraph (snipped), Snape need not be > ESE! for the memory to be a plant. He does hate Harry, and he > probably wouldn't mind an excuse to end the Occlumency lessons. But > how is he to anticipate that Harry will have, and take, the > opportunity to enter the Pensieve? Snape has already run off once, > leaving the Pensieve unguarded, to see who is screaming upstairs > (the Trelawney/Umbridge incident) and Harry followed him on that > occasion. When he runs out a second time (to rescue Montague), he > probably assumes that Harry will just leave his office and return > to the rescheduled lesson as instructed. And certainly Harry > *ought* to have closed the door and obeyed him. I do think that > Snape was uncharacteristically careless ortrusting in this scene, > but I see no reason why he would want Harry to see him humiliated. > Also, if the memory is a plant, how was Snape to > know that Harry would see that particular memory rather than one of > the other two that he placed there? Just tagging on here. How is Snape supposed to know how Harry will react to seeing the memory? He may still mostly believe that Harry is just like James. When Snape discovers Harry at the pensieve, Snape seems to believe that Harry finds the whole scene enjoyable, amusing, like father, like son. Snape has been humiliated all over again. His concern is that Harry not say a word about what he saw. I doubt Snape has a lot of insight into Harry's character, because he is using out-of-date references, nor did he gain insight during Occlumency; he only had his prejudices confirmed. lealess From sudeeel at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 18:21:49 2006 From: sudeeel at yahoo.com (sudeeel) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 18:21:49 -0000 Subject: Pansy/ Re: House characteristics In-Reply-To: <44360FBF.2040704@btopenworld.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150674 IreneMikhlin wrote: > I know JKR considers disliking one of her favourite characters to be a > crime. . . . sudeeel: What's the canon for this? sudeeel From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 18:26:10 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 18:26:10 -0000 Subject: Snape's Worst Memory In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150675 andrea1270@ wrote: I don't think that Snape is concerned about him seeing it at all. I think it's basically planted for the express PURPOSE of Harry seeing it. Suppose you're ESE!Snape. Your working as a double agent for LV by POSING as a double agent for DD. LV couldn't have been too happy that ESE!Snape is being ordered to teach Harry occlumency, espeially since entering Harry's mind was a pretty successful tool for LV in OoTP. So here's Snape, having to teach LV mortal enemy how to fend off intrusion. PLUS, it turns out that Harry might have some talent at it when he applies himself and even starts to fight back to enter ESE! Snape's mind. This has become, not only inconvenient for LV, but potentially dangerous for ESE!Snape as well. I say the memory of James is a plant put in the pensieve to give ESE! Snape, if not a graceful way to bow out of coaching Harry, at least a way that is less suspicious than if he just flat out refuses. Given Harry's blind hero worship of his father, ESE!Snape figures what better way to cause a confrontation and have Harry refuse to work with HIM? Plus, if Harry gets to see his father in an unflattering light, all the better. Because I do believe that whether Snape be good or evil, he just plain doesn't like Harry. I don't think that he would like him whatever his own agenda. Snape was the outcast in his day, Harry is the most popular kid in school. Even if you leave James out of the equation, Snape's contempt is not an act. Steven1965aaa writes: Interesting theory. I do agree with you that, regardless of whether he's DDM, ESE, OFH or whatever, Snape just does not like Harry, plain and simple. Perhaps Snape's dislike of both Harry and James, standing alone, would be enough to make him want Harry to see James behaving badly (but I don't think that would be enough of a motivation for Snape to want Harry to see Snape in a situation where he's essentially hanging upside-down with his undies exposed!). One correction on the facts though, in OOP, where that scene takes place, Harry is far from being the most popular kid in school. Most of his classmates think he's a nutcase. From kkersey at swbell.net Fri Apr 7 18:59:35 2006 From: kkersey at swbell.net (kkersey_austin) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 18:59:35 -0000 Subject: Snape=Judas? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150676 Oh yes, the story about the Gospel of Judas has been repeating on NPR news the last day or so, and I keep managing to tune in while it's on. I can't help but think of JCM!Judas versus ESE!Judas, all you have to do is substitute in Snape and Dumbledore's names to get a standard HPfGU post, I swear. E.g. here's what one of the researchers says: "...The context clearly implies that Judas only did what Jesus earlier had instructed him to do. His actions are not a betrayal at all" Of course there are differing opinions on whether or not this Gospel of Judas is canon or fanfic. ;-) Here's a link to one of the NPR stories, you'll have to listen to it to find the quote above as the web page does not have a transcript, though it does have other material and links to the National Geographic website. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5328143 Julie wrote, in part: > Though, hopefully, unlike Judas, Snape's true motives will be > revealed and he won't be condemned to go down in history as the > most reviled wizard ever. Oh dear, I have a horrid picture forming in my mind of JKR letting out an evil cackle as she buries a sealed earthern jar - within which is contained the *true* manuscript of book 7 - in the floor of some nondescript cave in the Egyptian desert... Elisabet From willsonkmom at msn.com Fri Apr 7 19:05:01 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 19:05:01 -0000 Subject: House characteristics/Fat rant In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150677 Alla wrote: > Now, Okay, she likes Hermione, she really likes Hermione, I understand > that, so it is understandable that she wants young girls to be like > her, but what is so BAD about Pancy Parkinson that she does not want > the girls to be like her, except that Pancy is in Slytherin House? Potioncat: I responded off list to this earlier, but since the thread is still going, I thought I'd take another look. As far the house traits go, I do think JKR believes Gryffindor is the best house/has the best traits. Nevermind that you could imagine yourself in another house, and think of all the wonderful traits that go along with it, from most of her interviews, JKR seems to value the Gryffindor one most highly. (I could be wrong of course.) But, after reading all the posts about Pansy/Slytherin I went back to the rant in the extras section of JKR's site. She is talking about a situation when most important thing about a person is their weight/perception of weight. It is a big issue with girls, and I think a growing issue among boys. JKR is upset that what a person does, or the way a person behaves is less important than the person's weight. I pulled out this quote: >>>Maybe all this seems funny, or trivial, but it's really not. It's about what girls want to be, what they're told they should be, and how they feel about who they are. I've got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don't want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I'd rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny ? a thousand things, before 'thin'. And frankly, I'd rather they didn't give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons. Let them never be Stupid Girls. Rant over.<<<<< So, I would have to think in this case, she means that Pansy represents the empty-headed, self-obsessed clones and that Hermione represents the long list of virtues. The two that most oppose are "opinionated" vrs "empty-headed." Hermione may do some awful things, but she's not following along blindly. > From rh64643 at appstate.edu Fri Apr 7 19:24:16 2006 From: rh64643 at appstate.edu (truthbeauty1) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 19:24:16 -0000 Subject: House characteristics/Fat rant In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150678 > Alla wrote: > > Now, Okay, she likes Hermione, she really likes Hermione, I > understand > > that, so it is understandable that she wants young girls to be > like > > her, but what is so BAD about Pancy Parkinson that she does not > want > > the girls to be like her, except that Pancy is in Slytherin House? I don't believe it really has anything to do with Pansy being in Slytherin. Pansy is one of those girls who, according to Cannon, spends most of her time seeking the attention of a certain boy, and the rest of her time trying to make herself feel better by pulling others down. She constantly says cruel things about Hermione, about Hagrid, about Harry, etc. There are other girls in the series that have a similar attitude, who are in other houses. Pansy does seem to epitomize this attitude, however. That is what Rowling dislikes about Pansy. She is one of the "mean" girls, who dosen't have enough self worth to be helpful and pleasant to others. Hermione, despite her flaws, never tears others down in order to feel better about herself. If she has ever been nasty to someone, they are either Ron, or deserve it. She also never really dotes on boys she is interested in. If they don't like her for who she is, well she isn't going to change. truthbeauty1 From zgirnius at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 20:03:11 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 20:03:11 -0000 Subject: Pansy/ Hermione In-Reply-To: <44360FBF.2040704@btopenworld.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150679 Irene: > But Hermione is as prejudiced against Firenze as Pansy is against > Hagrid! We can't use it to compare the two girls in Hermione's favour. zgirnius: Hermione does not have a position on Firenze. She does not know him, she has not had him in a class, she certainly has never done anything which would harm him. If you are referring to her comment about not being fond of horses, I have never thought that was meant to be an insult to Firenze or centaurkind. Parvati and Lavender were exclaiming in a groupie-like way about how *handsome* he is, and doesn't Hermione wish she hadn't given up Divination after all. The remark was to shut THEM up, I thought. Had the discussion been about a new super-handsome male professor of the human species, she might have asserted a lack of interest in blonds (or whatever conspicuous physical characteristic of this hypothetical professor came to mind). But YMMV... Irene: > And anyway, about the whole "let's get Hagrid fired" campaign - do we > honestly think that if it wasn't Umbridge inspecting Hogwarts, but, say, > Lupinlore or Eggplant - Harry and the friends wouldn't use their chance > to get Snape fired? :-) zgirnius: Sure Harry and Ron would! And they'd be wrong to, if they lied to do it. Or appealed to some general prejudices of those gentlemen against greasy-haired, hook-nosed, sarcastic persons, though I think they, unlike Umbridge, lack this character flaw and actually dislike Snape for the person he is (odd though this may seem ), as opposed to his race/species/etc. I think Hermione would not participate, as I think she actually considers Snape a good teacher, and for her this would be a reason not to get him fired. Irene: > I know JKR considers disliking one of her favourite characters to be a > crime, after all the only reason Zacharia Smith is "eeeevil" is not > being a fan of Harry's, but I think a Hogwarts student can have > legitimate reasons for disliking Hagrid and wanting him out. zgirnius: And I agree with you, about Hagrid *and* JKR's favorites. If Pansy had told Umbridge she felt ill prepared for her OWL due to excessive class time spent on skrewts and flobberworms and a lack of a cohesive lesson plan, and frightened because people have gotten hurt by creatures in his class before, I would probably have managed to restrain myself from cheering (as I loathe Dolores the Dreadful). I certainly would not hold this behavior up as an illustration of what is wrong with Pansy. From bboyminn at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 21:03:01 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 21:03:01 -0000 Subject: Danger at the Wedding? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150680 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "klmf1" wrote: > > Forgive me if this has come up already, but is anyone else out there > wondering if the Bill and Fleur wedding isn't going to be a scene of > destruction? ...edited... > > Karen F > bboyminn: I've resisted responding to this post for a couple of days now, partly because, after all is said and done, I'm sure I will have said and done very little. The Weasley Wedding is one scene in the next book that leaves me very uneasy, and slighlty scared. On one hand, it is the perfect opportunity to attack a substantial and influential subset of the wizard population. Gathering together in large groups having given out advanced notice of the gathering seems next to suicide to me. On the other hand, perhaps enough Ministry officials will be there to justify extra security. Arthur worked in magical law enforcement, so he is probably friendly with several of the Aurors. So, I really hope the wedding is not attacked. I just want these people and Harry to have this one moment of joy and peace in what we know will be a books with very little joy and peace. If there is an attack, I hope it is put down quickly, and as a result is mild enough that after a few moments of distress, the wedding can go on as planned. Still, if it is even a remotely or modestly large wedding, then it almost seems too good an opportunity for the DE's to not exploit it. On the other hand, how many DE's are there available? I keep expecting Lucius Malfoy to be released from jail since the crimes he was actually charged with we very modest compared to what he actually did. But many of the captured DE's were already under long jail sentences, and they will certainly remain in jail. Could the DE's really gather together a sufficient force to dare to attack a large number of wizards and witches? Up to now, their attacks have been small, and either directed against property such as the bridge, at individuals in the form of assasination, or in the case of the aledged tornado, against defenseless people and property. Would half a dozen or even a dozed Death Eaters dare attack a couple hundred wizards? Of course, if they bring along giants and Dementors, it could be a different story. But I doubt that giants are very stealth-like. It would seem very difficult for them to move to the Weasley farm unnoticed. Dementors are another story, I'm certain they are very stealthy, but there offensive tools are limited. At a distance, the best they can do is make you depressed, at close range, of course, they have the Dementor's Kiss, and while the wizard about to be kissed may be incapacitated, there would a be another hundred wizards standing around who would not be so incapaciated. Still Voldemort is not known for having the most logical and reasonable plans, he could very easily plan an under-manned attack for no reason other than the terror effect it would have. But then on the other hand, can Voldemort really afford to throw away several of his best supporters just to harrass a wedding? It's not like Voldemort has an army of countless thousands that he can casually spend like a handful of pennies. Every man he loses weaken his ability to make war. Is he really so stupid? The only plan I can see that has a chance of success is if Voldemort uses giants, and I can see several weakenesses in that plan. First, pretty hard to get a group, even a small group of giants across the country without being seen. Yes, if they move by night, it might be possible, but could half a dozen giants quietly lounge around Weasley's woods without being noticed? Seems unlikely. So, while the opportunity seem extremely tempting, the risk of such a venture seems extremely high. If Lucius is out and leads the attack and is caught, his actions simply can not be ignored. He will certainly spend a VERY substantial amount of time in prison. Though if Draco leads the attack, it could serve as the opportunity for Draco to get himself capture. Perhaps, he could stealthily turn against the DE and fight for the side of good, just so that when he was captured, he could publically accept his arrest, but privately tell everything he knows and cooperate with Harry and the Ministry. If another DE leads the attack then Voldemort risks losing a substantial portion of his forces. I don't see any good, logical, or productive way of attacking the wedding, but then Voldemort has never been very good, logical, or productive in any of his actions. So, in summary... ...maybe...maybe not. Steve/bboyminn From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 21:29:20 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 21:29:20 -0000 Subject: Pansy/ Hermione In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150681 > >>Irene: > > But Hermione is as prejudiced against Firenze as Pansy is > > against Hagrid! We can't use it to compare the two girls in > > Hermione's favour. > >>zgirnius: > > If you are referring to her comment about not being fond of > horses, I have never thought that was meant to be an insult to > Firenze or centaurkind. Betsy Hp: "Firenze!" Bane thundered. "What are you doing? You have a human on your back! Have you no shame? Are you a common mule?" (SS scholastic paperback p.257) Hermione may not have been thinking about who she was insulting, but the Centaurs would not have taken kindly to being compared to humans' beasts of burden. > >>zgirnius: > Parvati and Lavender were exclaiming in a groupie-like > way about how *handsome* he is, and doesn't Hermione wish she > hadn't given up Divination after all. The remark was to shut THEM > up, I thought. > Betsy Hp: I do agree with this. And it goes directly towards JKR being unfriendly to girls being girly. I totally would have gone giggly about Firenze, and Hermione would have thought I was an idiot, and I'd have thought she was a bit of a stick in the mud and not nearly as sensitive about non-humans as she liked to pretend she was. > >>truthbeauty1: > I don't believe it really has anything to do with Pansy being in > Slytherin. Betsy Hp: Me neither. I just cannot wrap my mind around JKR being okay with that sort of prejudice. May as well condemn Pansy for being Jewish (or Catholic or Irish or Asian or...). > >>truthbeauty1: > Pansy is one of those girls who, according to Cannon, > spends most of her time seeking the attention of a certain boy, and > the rest of her time trying to make herself feel better by pulling > others down. She constantly says cruel things about Hermione, about > Hagrid, about Harry, etc. > Betsy Hp: I think this is exactly what JKR was shooting for. She just didn't do much to show Pansy in this light, IMO, in the actual books. She likes Draco, yes (and Hermione likes Ron) but she continues to like him through thick and thin. Why is this a bad thing, again? And again, she's got reason to dislike Hagrid. *I'd* dislike Hagrid if I were in her shoes. (Hagrid hates Slytherins per canon, and kids do pick up on stuff like that. So even without him nearly killing Pansy's friend there's a reason for bad-blood there.) She does come up with cruel things to call other people, though I've not gotten the sense that she's particularly gunning for Hermione. (Rita solicited dirt on Hermione when she wrote those articles.) Again, I think it's more that JKR doesn't have time to set up a clash between Pansy and Hermione (though technically it would've been between Pansy and Ginny, I guess) that a school-days book would have had. I think she does mean for us to see Pansy as shallow and too image-conscious. But it's not really there in the text, that I've seen. (Except of course for the handy short-hand that Pansy likes to be around other girls. ) > >>truthbeauty1: > Hermione, despite her flaws, never tears others down in order to > feel better about herself. If she has ever been nasty to someone, > they are either Ron, or deserve it. She also never really dotes on > boys she is interested in. If they don't like her for who she is, > well she isn't going to change. Betsy Hp: Oh yes, Hermione would *never* allow a boy she didn't really like to take her on a date *just* to make a boy she *does* like jealous. She's above such petty behavior. ::end grinning sarcasm:: Hermione's a prickly character for me. She's not the type of girl I'd have liked in school, but I wouldn't have actively *disliked* her either. Unless she started to condescend to me because I was giggly about boys in her presence, *then* it would have been on. But I think she'd have been too earnest for me to relate to, a bit too eager to play the "mother" or "adult" role. And that's probably why I look a bit askance at JKR's take on the "Pansy" type and the "Hermione" type in her fat rant. I don't think JKR and I see eye to eye on the nature of girlhood and what makes a good girl, etc. There are places I think she's a bit too harsh (giggling about boys is bad), and others where I think she's a bit too lax (lashing out in anger is spunky and good). But, on the other hand, the Potterverse isn't really about the nature of girlhood, so perhaps I'm judging too harshly. > >>Potioncat: > > So, I would have to think in this case, she means that Pansy > represents the empty-headed, self-obsessed clones and that Hermione > represents the long list of virtues. The two that most oppose > are "opinionated" vrs "empty-headed." Hermione may do some awful > things, but she's not following along blindly. Betsy Hp: I think you're right, Potioncat. It's just, Pansy is loyal, and Hermione can judge people quite harshly based on some rather surfacy things. (Her treatment of Ron bugs me to no end.) So I take a bit of issue on her type-casting the two characters the way she does. Like, of course *everyone* should see it this way. Though I also see that this is one of those things were views vary mightily. Betsy Hp From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 21:49:16 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 21:49:16 -0000 Subject: House characteristics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150682 > >>Betsy Hp: > > > > (Mr. Gryffindor had "chivalry" added to his request for the brave > > students, and Ms. Ravenclaw had "wit" added to her request for > > intelligence.) > a_svirn: > I think the Hat uses *wit* and *intelligence* as synonyms. Betsy Hp: Okay, then Ms. Ravenclaw had "learning" added to her request for intelligence. My point being is that she's quoted as wanting one specific thing and the Sorting Hat shapes and refines it a bit over the years. As it does with all the Houses. > >>Betsy Hp: > > We already know that Slytherin house is not made up of those with > > purest blood, and we know that Hufflepuff is not a catch-all. So > > I think the Sorting Hat has been shifting the houses' > > characteristics a tad as the years have gone by. > a_svirn: > Then why all that harping about pure blood in its song? Or does it > shifts characteristics on a whim from year to year? Applies less > rigid standards every other year and then goes back to the most > stringent of principles? Betsy Hp: One song talked about pure-blood and Slytherin, and that was the song where the Sorting Hat spoke of the actual founders and their personal belief system at that time. The Hat *did not* state, in that song, what it looked for in the students. Instead it made a plea for the Houses to stop their enmity and unite. The two songs where the Hat *does* spell out what it looks for in students for each house, purity of blood is never mentioned. Slytherin House does not have a history of being connected to blood purity, members of Slytherin are not all of pure blood, and not all pure bloods are in Slytherin. So, at least per the Sorting Hat, Slytherin isn't all about blood, despite Mr. Slytherin's initial wishes. Just as Hufflepuff actually has characteristics it looks for in its students, despite Ms. Hufflepuff's original wishes. > >>a_svirn: > That'll be a rare example of transfiguration indeed! But then, > maybe he'll transfer to Gryffindor... Betsy Hp: One house being the "good" house and another house being the "bad" house goes completely against the Sorting Hat's plea of unity. It also smacks of small-minded bigotry and fear of "other". Not the way I see the story going, myself. Betsy Hp From a_svirn at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 21:56:47 2006 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 21:56:47 -0000 Subject: The Founders (was:Pansy/ Re: House characteristics) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150683 > Carol responds: > I like the idea of the four Founders each being from a different part > of the UK, one each from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, but I > can't escape the association of "glen" with Scotland. ("Danny Boy" is > now running through my head--CMC, maybe you can filk it for me.) More > important, hasn't it been established from the route of Hagrid's > motorcycle ride in SS/PS (flying over Bristol on his way to Surrey) > that Godric's Hollow is in Wales? That being the case, Gryffindor > would be from Wales and Ravenclaw from Scotland. Also, although the > other names admittedly don't give any clue to national origin (Helga > sounds Nordic and Hufflepuff solidly English, with no hint of > Irishness), Gryffindor to me suggests a Welsh origin: Griffith > (Gruffydd) is a commmon Welsh name, and Gryffindor could be an > Anglicized version of a similar name. a_svirn: Yes, I kind of thought so too ? Gryffin-Gruffydd sounds definitely Welsh. And it would make sense too because of the distinctly Arthurian theme of this sword-out-of-the-Hat episode. It's just the moors that made me think of the North. Helga is definitely a Nordic name, but the Broad Valley is just another name for the Midland Valley, and they are juxtaposed in the song "Fair Rawenclaw from glen/Sweet Happlepuff from valley broad". Considering Vikings' involvement in Scotland *Helga* shouldn't have been so unusual a name. > Carol responds: > However, I've always vaguely connected witchcraft/wizardry with the > Celts and Muggles with the Saxons. The Veiled archway on its dais > suggests to me some connection with ancient Druids and even ritual > sacrifice--Slytherin could come from this tradition, which of course > the Muggles (Saxons) would fear. Helga Hufflepuff could be part Saxon, > if not a Muggleborn then a half-blood, which would account for her > wanting to admit all students regardless of "blood" origins. a_svirn: Do we have Druids in the Fen Country though? Or fens in Celtic Fringe ? I agree Celts do have a certain reputation where magic is concerned, but don't think maggles enter into this one way or another. Rather I am quite intrigued by the fact that a lot of families of "Slytherin affinity" so to speak, appear to have surnames of RL Norman barons ? Lestranges, Perevells, Montague. (Even Slytherin House ghost is a *Baron*) And though *Malfoy* is a fictional surname it's also French. Even Voldemort styles himself in a French fashion. The foundation of Hogwarts is of course predates the Conquest, but still... There can be discerned a certain tendency. From a_svirn at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 22:02:41 2006 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 22:02:41 -0000 Subject: Pansy/ Re: House characteristics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150684 > Geoff: > I think that you are jumping to a lot of unfounded geographical conclusions > here. > > The only two folk who can be positively identified with specific areas are > RowenaRavenclaw and Salzar Slytherin. > > The use of the word "glen" is almost unique to Scotland. It refers to a narrow > valley, strath being the equivalent term for a wide valley. The corresponding Welsh names > would be glyn (or more commonly cwm) or ystrad. > > Slytherin is certainly NOT a southerner. The Fens lie in Lincolnshire on the eastern side of > England and are on roughly the same latitude as Liverpool or Sheffield. > > Wild moor would more accurately describe Dartmoor in Devon or Bodmin Moor in > Cornwall and also cover chunks of Scotland such as Rannoch Moor. Here on the group, we > had a long discussion about two years ago about the location of Hogwarts and many of > the geographical features of the Highlands were considered. I live on Exmoor but, we > like the North Yorkshire Moors are a little bit gentler. > > As for "valley broad", I have already commented on strath and ystrad which could cover > cover Helga Hufflepuff but there are several broad valleys in England - the Thames > Valley and Severn Valley for example. Without more information, we cannot presume that > the founders represented different areas - or the four home nations. Yes, well, I am properly chastised. I did not jump to any conclusions though. I *did* say that moors can be found anywhere. The Yorkshire Moor just the most famous. a_svirn From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Fri Apr 7 22:41:29 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 22:41:29 -0000 Subject: The Founders (was:Pansy/ Re: House characteristics) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150686 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" wrote: Carol: > Gryffindor to me suggests a Welsh origin: Griffith > (Gruffydd) is a commmon Welsh name, and Gryffindor could be an > Anglicized version of a similar name. Geoff: It's one of JKR's wordplays.... it's basically French. Gryffindor is Gryffin d'or = golden griffin From Lucid1953 at aol.com Fri Apr 7 18:58:31 2006 From: Lucid1953 at aol.com (Lucid1953 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 14:58:31 EDT Subject: Percy's sickle Message-ID: <30f.2272240.31681057@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150687 > katssirius: > > Wondering if there is any significance to Percy's silver sickle > > being the only charm mentioned in SS at the Christmas tea. > > E.T.: > When I first read this the Grim Reaper with his Sickle popped into > my head for some reason..could there be a double innuendo meant to > keep us guessing? Diane (new kid on the block): I took the silver sickle to be a coin, as in gold galleons, silver sickles, and brass knuts. No? From orgone9 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 19:39:59 2006 From: orgone9 at yahoo.com (Len Jaffe) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 12:39:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Snape's Worst Memory In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060407193959.92401.qmail@web80612.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150688 > > andrea1270@ wrote: > > Because I do believe that whether Snape be good or > > evil, he just plain doesn't like Harry. > > Steven1965aaa writes: > Perhaps Snape's dislike of both Harry and James, > standing alone, would be enough to make him want > Harry to see James Len: Severus Snape had been a full-time teacher at Hogwarts for about 10 years by the time Harry shows up for year 1. Perhaps Snape's generally dour demeanor, combined with watching a student (with whom he has historical emotional ties) squander his abilities, is what makes him so abusive to Harry in potions. Why is he so mean to Neville? Well, Neville appears to be a complete failure at potions, and Snape just abuses him becuase he can. I'm reminded of a Pink Floyd lyric from "The Wall": When we grew up and went to school / there were certtain teachers / who would hurt the children / in any way they could / by pouring their derision / upon anything we did / exposing every weakness / however carefully hidden by the kid. Could "verbally abusive" be be an English boarding-school teacher archetype, and Snape just be an example? I think he must be, and he reserves his greatest derision for those who are failures at potions, and he takes extra delight in tormenting the Gryffindor power trio. Harry for reasons that we've been hashing around already. Ron for his close association with Harry and his mediocrity, and since he can't ride Hermione for underachiement, he make fun of her for knowing all the answers (which can be insufferable), and her looks (GoF - big teeth) which is just plain cheap for a teacher to do. Snape is just a nasty man, with some unsavory hobbies, and a childhood grudge that inform his actions as an adult and teacher. From katbofaye at aol.com Fri Apr 7 20:23:42 2006 From: katbofaye at aol.com (katssirius) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 20:23:42 -0000 Subject: Mothers in HP Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150689 There has been a great discussion on this site about the portrayal (unfortunate portrayal) of women by JKR. I do not mean to resurrect that discussion however for those same reasons I believe in JKR's books girls will not be worth dying for which is why we do not have the sacrifice of a mother for a daughter or a father for a daughter. It is interesting to note that even in the Woes of Mrs Weasley Ginny was not represented by the boggart. katssirius From a_svirn at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 23:03:30 2006 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 23:03:30 -0000 Subject: House characteristics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150690 > Betsy Hp: > One song talked about pure-blood and Slytherin, and that was the > song where the Sorting Hat spoke of the actual founders and their > personal belief system at that time. The Hat *did not* state, in > that song, what it looked for in the students. Instead it made a > plea for the Houses to stop their enmity and unite. a_svirn: Yes, and are we to make of this plea? The Hat did not blame Slythrin alone for the conflict between the founders and the resulting "strife". In fact, from what it says he looks more like a scapegoat. All four were responsible according to the Hat, but only Slytherin had to leave. We are also told that the fighting ceased when Slytherin left, but the resulting peace was never as satisfying as the one before the Schism. It is tempting to conclude that in order to re-establish the proper harmony Slytherin must be re- admitted somehow into the happy Hogwarts family. I don't see how it can be done, considering that the founders are dead, and Slytherin's heir is a totally unacceptable figure. But in any case from the Hat's POV all four were equally responsible. The Hat does not make a difference between Slytherin preference for purebloods and, say, Ravenclaw penchant for intellectuals. While for us the difference is obvious and huge. And if for the Hat the "blood discrimination" is no worse and no better than any other discrimination, I'd say there is no reason why it should disregard Slytherin's wishes any more than it disregards Gryffindor's. > Betsy Hp: > The two songs where the Hat *does* spell out what it looks for in > students for each house, purity of blood is never mentioned. > Slytherin House does not have a history of being connected to blood > purity, members of Slytherin are not all of pure blood, and not all > pure bloods are in Slytherin. a_svirn: Actually in the second and third song it spells out what did Founders look for in their students, and only in the first one did it talk about houses rather than their founders. I'd say it implies that at least on two occasions out of three it tries to comply with the founders wishes. > Betsy Hp: > So, at least per the Sorting Hat, Slytherin isn't all about blood, > despite Mr. Slytherin's initial wishes. Just as Hufflepuff actually > has characteristics it looks for in its students, despite Ms. > Hufflepuff's original wishes. a_svirn: No, it isn't all about blood. But it's very much about blood. And if Slytherin initial wishes count for naught why refer to them at all? Why not simply stuck to ambition and cunning as it did in the first two songs? > > > >>a_svirn: > > That'll be a rare example of transfiguration indeed! But then, > > maybe he'll transfer to Gryffindor... > > Betsy Hp: > One house being the "good" house and another house being the "bad" > house goes completely against the Sorting Hat's plea of unity. It > also smacks of small-minded bigotry and fear of "other". a_svirn: It does, alas. From rhiannon902002 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 22:40:56 2006 From: rhiannon902002 at yahoo.com (Barton Rhiannon) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 15:40:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose /Why I Hate Snape/Snape's Worst Memory In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060407224056.22059.qmail@web54413.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150691 > Deb: > I can only sincerely hope that Book 7 will answer most of the > question "Who is Severus Snape really?" > > KathyK: > Me too. And I hope the answer is "A Really Bad Guy" > > Brady: > LOL. I hope not. But seriously speaking, do we really have space > in the last book for all the questions to be answered? I hope that Severus Snape doesn't die, but I also want to find out what the 7th book is about. Does Snape kill Dumbledore because he is suppose to or does Dumbledore beg for his life. Rhiannon Decker From a_svirn at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 23:15:59 2006 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 23:15:59 -0000 Subject: The Founders (was:Pansy/ Re: House characteristics) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150692 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister" wrote: > > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" wrote: > > Carol: > > Gryffindor to me suggests a Welsh origin: Griffith > > (Gruffydd) is a commmon Welsh name, and Gryffindor could be an > > Anglicized version of a similar name. > > Geoff: > It's one of JKR's wordplays.... it's basically French. > > Gryffindor is Gryffin d'or = golden griffin > Of course it's wordplay but it does not rule out Welsh connotations. French version would be grIffin, not grYffin. a_svirn From amiabledorsai at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 23:32:59 2006 From: amiabledorsai at yahoo.com (amiabledorsai) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 23:32:59 -0000 Subject: Mothers in HP In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150693 katssirius: > There has been a great discussion on this site about the portrayal > (unfortunate portrayal) of women by JKR. I do not mean to resurrect > that discussion however for those same reasons I believe in JKR's > books girls will not be worth dying for... AD: Yeah, I'm sure James would have stepped aside for Voldemort if it had just been Lily he was after, and we've certainly never seen Harry or Ron put themselves in harm's way for any mere females... Amiable Dorsai From tonks_op at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 00:24:06 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 00:24:06 -0000 Subject: Mothers in HP In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150694 Keeley wrote: >I think that you've got Lily's and Barty's mother's sacrifices >mixed up. I would argue that Lily died in place of her son and that >Barty Crouch's mum died to save him. Other than that I think you're >right about the theme. Tonks: Hum... will ponder that. Guess I was thinking of The Dark Lord as death and Lily saving Harry from death. And Barty Jr. the sinner and his mother dying instead of him. Of course part of the theme I am seeing in all of this is the theme of the crucifixion. That is erasing death and dying in our place. But I think that there is more to it than that. "katssirius" wrote: > > There has been a great discussion on this site about the portrayal > (unfortunate portrayal) of women by JKR. I do not mean to resurrect that discussion however for those same reasons I believe in JKR's books girls will not be worth dying for which is why we do not have the sacrifice of a mother for a daughter or a father for a daughter. It is interesting to note that even in the Woes of Mrs Weasley Ginny was not represented by the boggart. Tonks: I guess I missed that discussion, but that wasn't what I was thinking about. I mean why mother's and sons? Mothers dying I guess could be some subconscious thing for JKR because of her own mother. Maybe she has to kill them off in different ways for some cathartic release. I know that writers are human and they can't help have some of their own issues enter into their writing. But even so, I really think that there is more to it than that. But what? I think that this theme is intended, that is not just accidental or subconscious. The question is what is she telling us about the plot? Where is she going with this? And I totally missed the part about Ginny. Do you think that means that Ginny will be the one to die? Tonks_op From orgone9 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 00:25:32 2006 From: orgone9 at yahoo.com (Len Jaffe) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 17:25:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: House characteristics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060408002532.89788.qmail@web80612.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150695 > > a_svirn: > We are also told that the > fighting ceased > when Slytherin left, but the resulting peace was > never as satisfying > as the one before the Schism. It is tempting to > conclude that in > order to re-establish the proper harmony Slytherin > must be re- > admitted somehow into the happy Hogwarts family. I > don't see how it > can be done, considering that the founders are dead, > and Slytherin's > heir is a totally unacceptable figure. Ah. I think that a reconcilliation can occur after LV is toasted, and Slytherin is no longer the Death Eater farm team*. Len. * A farm team is an americanism for a minor league team that is used to prepare players for the big leagues. It is typically a baseball term. From sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 01:07:01 2006 From: sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com (sugaranddixie1) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 01:07:01 -0000 Subject: Percy's sickle In-Reply-To: <30f.2272240.31681057@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150696 >Diane (new kid on the block)wrote >I took the silver sickle to be a coin, as in gold galleons, silver >sickles, and brass knuts. No? E.T.- You're absolutely right... To my understanding, what Percy physically found was a coin. I was just wondering if that coin being called a "sickle" might denote an omen. E.T.- who knows that sometimes a cigar is probably just a cigar, but thinks life is more interesting when it's not!!! From belviso at attglobal.net Sat Apr 8 02:00:48 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 22:00:48 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Snape=Judas?/House characteristics References: Message-ID: <00a101c65ab0$422fca50$10ba400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 150697 kkersey_austin > Oh yes, the story about the Gospel of Judas has been repeating on NPR > news the last day or so, and I keep managing to tune in while it's on. > I can't help but think of JCM!Judas versus ESE!Judas, all you have to > do is substitute in Snape and Dumbledore's names to get a standard > HPfGU post, I swear. E.g. here's what one of the researchers says: > > "...The context clearly implies that Judas only did what Jesus earlier > had instructed him to do. His actions are not a betrayal at all" > > Of course there are differing opinions on whether or not this Gospel > of Judas is canon or fanfic. ;-) Magpie: It should come as no surprise that Judas has always been my favorite Biblical character.:-) I didn't see him expressly following Jesus' orders, but it always seemed like mythologically, he was a necessary part of the process. Like in stories where one God kills and chops up another god which is then reborn as another entity. This didn't go over well with my CCD teacher either. I'll bet she wouldn't have been a Snape fan... a_svirn: We are also told that the fighting ceased when Slytherin left, but the resulting peace was never as satisfying as the one before the Schism. It is tempting to conclude that in order to re-establish the proper harmony Slytherin must be re- admitted somehow into the happy Hogwarts family. I don't see how it can be done, considering that the founders are dead, and Slytherin's heir is a totally unacceptable figure. Magpie: This definitely seems like the key to me, somehow. Because the way the school is now replicates that split. Slytherin has "left" in that the Slytherin kids seem loyal only to their house and not the school, and that keeps things in an uneasy holding pattern that's still unsatisfying and weakens the school. The DA sounded like a great idea, but there were those Slytherins working against it (though it was Marietta who was the weak link). In HBP Hogwarts had all these defenses but was opened from the inside by a Slytherin who's never made any secret of not having loyalty to Dumbledore. The hat warned everyone that they needed all four houses together and the immediate reaction was: no way. Hermione tried to cheat around it with the DA idea, but no dice. Psychologically, that seems to totally fit for the shadow idea. You always do anything you can to avoid your shadow. The Heir of Slytherin is obviously unacceptable, but then isn't the point rather that heirs don't matter? (Voldemort is even the exiled heir, since Slytherin left the school and Voldemort the orphan raised away from his roots returns.) The word "house" in the books usually refers to the people of a house more than the structure--that's why I never like the idea of "one good Slytherin," especially when that OGS used to always be assumed to be someone we didn't really know. Because it's not the house the structure that needs to be brought back, so that as long as you've got one kid in a green tie who hates Voldemort you're okay. You have to change the house as in the kids in it, the attitude. And with that the attitude of the other houses towards it. I don't know how it's going to be done, but it did seem like HBP was laying the groundwork that way. The book just drips (literally) with Slytherin, with Harry having to "immerse" himself in the house in a way. He's not attacking Slytherin, he's mostly observing passively. He doesn't have a whole new view of the house by the end, but he's not quite where he was at the start of the book either. So given that beginning I don't think it's impossible that JKR could continue a story where Harry learns to work with Slytherin and Slytherin learns to work with the other houses, and also learns for real this time that Voldemort's policies lead only to their own destruction. Of course I fully admit that I would like to see this also shown personally with Draco, who already has discovered being a DE is not what he thought it would be just as Regulus did, coming to see he was wrong to a certain extent. I mean, that's the real battle, to have someone who's clung to and believed this stuff let it go. I could be wrong and JKR is planning to keep Slytherin just the way it was, but that just feels so wrong to me. It seems like exactly the way the book started with Voldemort defeated but in a half-arsed way, just reprieve. Like taking only half your anti-biotics. From the first book it's seemed like it's moving towards Slytherin as the shadow house. -m From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 02:50:56 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 02:50:56 -0000 Subject: House characteristics (LONGish) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150699 Magpie: The word "house" in the books usually refers to the people > of a house more than the structure--that's why I never like the idea of "one > good Slytherin," especially when that OGS used to always be assumed to be > someone we didn't really know. Because it's not the house the structure > that needs to be brought back, so that as long as you've got one kid in a > green tie who hates Voldemort you're okay. You have to change the house as > in the kids in it, the attitude. And with that the attitude of the other > houses towards it. Alla: Well, yes, I agree that you have to change the attitudes of the kids in Slytherin. To me that mean that Slytherin kids have to understand that "pureblood" philosophy is wrong, absolutely wrong, one hundred percent wrong, that there is no justification for this philosophy no matter how many justifications they may come up with. Then my next question to you will be as follows. Do you see that in book 7 all Slytherin kids or at least majority will do such drastic change in their world views? Because if I understand you correctly you do not argue that Slytherins whom we do not meet (I call them "just names characters") do not subscribe to that philosophy? You do think that whole Slytherin house is in need of the change, right? That is why I think that JKR will do "one good Slytherin", if any and maybe she will mean for us to see that such good Slytherin symbolize the beginning of the change in Slytherin. I just don't see whole Slytherin House standing up with Harry at the end. Magpie: > I don't know how it's going to be done, but it did seem like HBP was laying > the groundwork that way. The book just drips (literally) with Slytherin, > with Harry having to "immerse" himself in the house in a way. He's not > attacking Slytherin, he's mostly observing passively. He doesn't have a > whole new view of the house by the end, but he's not quite where he was at > the start of the book either. So given that beginning I don't think it's > impossible that JKR could continue a story where Harry learns to work with > Slytherin and Slytherin learns to work with the other houses, and also > learns for real this time that Voldemort's policies lead only to their own > destruction. Alla: Ok, so you ARE saying that the whole Slytherin House will recognize that they are wrong in following Voldemort philosophy in book 7? Then another question is doesn't mean that they stop being Slytherins then and become somehow different entity, because IMO Slytherin without its "pureblood part" is not really Slytherin. That is IMO another good reason why Houses will become one at the end if JKR go for this possibility. Magpie: Of course I fully admit that I would like to see this also > shown personally with Draco, who already has discovered being a DE is not > what he thought it would be just as Regulus did, coming to see he was wrong > to a certain extent. I mean, that's the real battle, to have someone who's > clung to and believed this stuff let it go. Alla: Draco lowered his wand, that is clear to me and JKR said as much that he would not have killed DD, so I understand that it is possible that Draco will turn, but so far I don't see him discovering that being DE is not what he thought. He discovered that killing person while looking at the face of that person is much harder then killing with poisoned necklaces, IMO. Again IMO it remains to be seen what else he discovered. Will Draco follow Regulus' path and commits the act of heroism while defying Voldemort? It is possible of course, but IMO he has a long way to go before he can be compared to Regulus' heroic deed. Magpie: > I could be wrong and JKR is planning to keep Slytherin just the way it was, > but that just feels so wrong to me. It seems like exactly the way the book > started with Voldemort defeated but in a half-arsed way, just reprieve. > Like taking only half your anti-biotics. From the first book it's seemed > like it's moving towards Slytherin as the shadow house. Alla: You could be right, and I can be wrong and vice versa :). I don't think that Slytherin House will be the same at the end of the story as it was in the beginning, but neither would we see many "good people" from that house either, IMO. Probably we will see the beginning of such change. Alla: > , but I don't think anybody would be able to convince me > that we saw flawed but GOOD characters in Slytherin house so far. > I mean, among the adults we have whom.... Regulus and Slughorn? > I deliberately leave out Snape of course, since to me his loyalties are.... > how we put it questionable? > > > > But forget about adults, because IMO kids are what matters and among > > the Gryffindors we of course have Trio, Neville. Dean Thomas, > > Seamus, Ginny, Twins, etc.... and among Slytherins we have whom? > > Pippin: > Why shouldn't Slughorn or Regulus be described as flawed but good? Alla: Sure, Regulus and Slugghorn could be described as flawed but good, which is IMO goes to my point. Namely there are only TWO adults from House Slytherin who can be unequivocally described as such ( again, Snape is left out because there are people who do consider his loyalties to be questionable :)) and one of those two, well, RUNS from Voldemort instead of fighting against him. Don't get me wrong, I love Slughorn and do think that by running instead of joining he also makes a statement, but such statement IMO is a weaker one in comparison to statement many other Potterverse characters make. Pippin: > I think flawed but good is exactly the way Dumbledore would describe > Draco, don't you? "Come over to the right side, Draco..." what good > would it be to urge Draco to choose right if he hasn't got the moral > sense to know what right is? Alla: Have I mentioned recently that I think that Dumbledore's value judgments are not always correct? So, no, flawed but good is not how I would describe Draco, so very NOT, at least not yet. That description IMO needs to be earned and I do think it is possible that Draco will earn it, but not yet. So, to go back to my point, I have not seen ONE single good Slytherin in the books yet among the students and if you are going to tell me that Draco in his today state of mind ( almost murderer) is the best "good Slytherin" that Slytherin can produce, then I do feel sorry for them. > Alla: > > Right, so I just think that JKR gave us more confirmation that at > > the end ( if the Houses will stand, I always said and still do that > > IMO Houses will disappear by assimilating good qualities of each > > other and minimizing bad ones, thus achieving real unity of > > Hogwarts) Slytherin house will be the house of one or two "good" > > students at most and by "good" I sure don't mean perfect, but those > > who will fight with Harry at the end. > > Pippin: > Now I am confused. How can, or maybe the question is, why should, > Slytherin House be assimilated if only one or two of its students are > good? On the other hand, if most of them are good, why should > they not be allowed the freedom to find their own path? > > Pippin > Alla: Those are two different things, Pippin. I tried to explain above why we would only see one or two good Slytherin students, IMO, but Houses will assimilate because as we had been shown many people have qualities of different Houses and it is wrong to make kids from one house only socialize with each other, while increasing their bad qualities so to speak. It just seems to me that Houses are artificial barriers preventing Hogwarts students to get to know each other better. Like if you try to be friends with other Houses, it is hard enough. I mean, Harry sort of started to break the barriers but not completely IMO. And even though I think it will happen primarily to accommodate Slytherin House, others will also benefit from learning more about "good ambition" and "courage" "intelligence", etc. Makes sense? JMO, Alla From celizwh at intergate.com Sat Apr 8 02:57:03 2006 From: celizwh at intergate.com (houyhnhnm102) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 02:57:03 -0000 Subject: Snape's Worst Memory In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150700 steven1965aaa > Having reflected a little more after reading these > posts, I think the really significant question is why > Snape is concerned to prevent Harry from seeing this > particular memory. Any thoughts? houyhnhnm: Maybe there is something in the memory that would expose a lie Snape has told Voldemort. Surely he must have scores of such memories, but I can't help thinking that Snape's greatest concern would be that in Legilimencing Harry and thus opening Harry's mind further to Voldemort, he is putting himself at greater risk. Maybe this memory was formed at such an impressionable age and is so emotionally charged that he can only shield it from Voldemort by outright repression rather than the selective type of half truth/half lie Occlumency Snape customarily practices with Voldemort when it is only his adult experiences he is trying to conceal. Voldemort would never think to look for such a memory, but Harry's mind, should he break through Snape's defenses, might go straight to it because it concerns him so nearly. Alternatively, I have thought that Snape may have removed this memory at Dumbledore's suggestion (It is Dumbledore's pensieve after all.) I know there has been previous discussion about whether a memory removed from someone's mind is still accessible to the person except in the pensieve. Slughorn's memory suggests that only a copy is removed and the original memory remains in the person's mind, but Slughorn's memory has been tampered with. Maybe it can work both ways. The memory transferred to the pensieve can be a copy or it can be the original memory. Or, even if the memory in the pensieve is only a copy, its presence in the pensieve still renders the owner more objective in some way. Then it would make sense for Snape to remove this memory when he is trying to teach Harry Occlumency, not for its possible effect on Harry (do you think Snape *really* expects Harry to break into his mind?), but for its effect on Snape. Dumbledore wanted Snape to be able to put aside his old hatreds in order for the Occlumency lessons to be successful. Perhaps he instructed Snape to remove this particular memory because it's presence would undermine Snape's ability to put aside his hatred of James. If that is true, then I would expect that at least one of the other two memories has to do with the Prank. If this was Dumbledore's plan for the Occlumency lessons, it seems to me that it was succeeding. Snape was much more professional and objective with Harry than in any other encounters between them. What Dumbledore did not count on, or could not prevent, was Harry's unwillingness to let go of his visions, and the sheer bad luck of Snape's being called away when he was. From montague at tca.net Sat Apr 8 01:55:42 2006 From: montague at tca.net (amont4ljtk) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 01:55:42 -0000 Subject: Pettigrew's hand and the locket Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150701 I was listening to the books again (I have them on tape) and I was wondering if anyone thinks that in book 7, the fact that Pettigrew being in debt to Harry for his life will affect LV because he used his hand to bring him back into his body? The other thing I was thinking about is when they were cleaning 12 Grimwald place they threw away a heavy locket that they could not open. Do you all think it might be THE LOCKET and that Kreature has it in his room? amontague From spirittalks at gmail.com Sat Apr 8 02:55:50 2006 From: spirittalks at gmail.com (Kim) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 22:55:50 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Danger at the Wedding? References: Message-ID: <017001c65ab7$f27ef780$6501a8c0@your27e1513d96> No: HPFGUIDX 150702 I'm curious about the "coming of age" factor for the summer before Harry and Neville turn 17. Ginny won't be 17 for some time yet. How can Harry and crew begin Horcrux Hunting if Harry can't perform magic? If there's trouble at the wedding and the wedding happens before their 17th birthdays then will Harry and Neville (surely he and gran are invited?) be called into a hearing to prove that they were in danger if they should have to defend themselves or others with magic? Will Hermione and Ron do all the magical stuff until Harry and Neville turn 17? Maybe we'll pick up the story on Harry's birthday again. Just wondering outloud. Kim From AllieS426 at aol.com Sat Apr 8 03:01:40 2006 From: AllieS426 at aol.com (allies426) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 03:01:40 -0000 Subject: Snape's worst memory...you are kidding right? In-Reply-To: <20060406005858.6551.qmail@web61323.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150703 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Joe Goodwin wrote: > > Honestly, how can that be the man's worst memory? He was a Death Eater, he had to have seen some gruesome things. If we believe he was one of the first people to Godrics Hollow then he saw James and his beloved(maybe) Lilly laying murdered. Shouldn't that be is worst memory? > > Now I have no love at all for Snape but even I cannot see Snape as so sad and pathetic that the pensive scene really was his worst memory. > > Joe > Allie: The chapter is called "Snape's Worst Memory" because either the narrator or *Harry* thinks that that's what it is. Snape himself never says that it's his worst memory. It could just be something Snape didn't want Harry to see, which is understandable. From talisman22457 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 03:23:07 2006 From: talisman22457 at yahoo.com (Talisman) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 03:23:07 -0000 Subject: Score at No. 4 ( was: Danger at the Wedding? In-Reply-To: <017001c65ab7$f27ef780$6501a8c0@your27e1513d96> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150704 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Kim" wrote: > I'm curious about the "coming of age" factor for the summer before Harry and Neville turn 17. >Snip< > Maybe we'll pick up the story on Harry's birthday again. I'm thinking we'll have a nice day at the wedding. A brief interlude of Wizard lurv, for the fans, before the carnage starts. Just for variety. I'm expecting the first attack to be at Privet Drive, prior to Harry's 17th birthday, which is when the *Blood Protection* lapses. Otherwise, that whole basis for placing him there proves useless. Vernon and Petunia's steaming corpses on the rubble of Number 4, anyone? Talisman Reminding you that, per Rowling, Dudley is the only salvagable Dursley. From kchuplis at alltel.net Sat Apr 8 03:31:43 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 22:31:43 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Danger at the Wedding? In-Reply-To: <017001c65ab7$f27ef780$6501a8c0@your27e1513d96> References: <017001c65ab7$f27ef780$6501a8c0@your27e1513d96> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150705 On Apr 7, 2006, at 9:55 PM, Kim wrote: > I'm curious about the "coming of age" factor for the summer before > Harry and > Neville turn 17. Ginny won't be 17 for some time yet. How can > Harry and > crew begin Horcrux Hunting if Harry can't perform magic? > > If there's trouble at the wedding and the wedding happens before > their 17th > birthdays then will Harry and Neville (surely he and gran are > invited?) be > called into a hearing to prove that they were in danger if they > should have > to defend themselves or others with magic? > > Will Hermione and Ron do all the magical stuff until Harry and > Neville turn > 17? > > Maybe we'll pick up the story on Harry's birthday again. > kchuplis: Well, I'm thinking when it comes to THIS kind of threat, no one is going to be worrying about underage magic. Nope, everyman, woman and child for themselves. From Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com Sat Apr 8 03:23:44 2006 From: Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com (coldsliversofglass) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 03:23:44 -0000 Subject: Snape's worst memory...you are kidding right? In-Reply-To: <20060406005858.6551.qmail@web61323.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150706 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Joe Goodwin wrote: >Here is something that has bothered me for a while. Could the >scene in the pensive really be Snape worst memory? A high school (in >the US) altercation with a couple of guys he didn't like? Doesn't >that sound way to much like those Jerry Springer commercials "Got >issues from high school and want to confront your old schoolmate? zgirnius wrote in reply: >>Or maybe it is not really Snape's worst memory. Maybe it is one of >>the two Harry did not see. Or maybe Harry assumes (having seen SWM) >>that Snape put his worst memories in the Pensieve, but really Snape >>put in the memories he'd most prefer Harry not see, which is not >>necessarily the same thing. (snip) >>Or maybe Harry assumes (having seen SWM) that Snape put his worst memories in the Pensieve, but really Snape put in the memories he'd most prefer Harry not see, which is not necessarily the same thing. coldsliversofglass: This made me wonder if maybe it's not Snape's worst memory at all, the chapter title aside (OoP, Chapter 28, Snape's Worst Memory). The word order implies that it is Snape's worst memory, but one could also take the title to mean that it's really Harry's worst memory if one looked at the chapter heading in a different way. By which, I mean, that?despite the involvement of the other characters?the books revolve around Harry, and the chapters are titled with the assumption that the reader already knows Harry has a part in what's going on. The chapter titles usually reflect Harry's experiences, even titles that mention someone else. For example, Chapter 13 of Order of the Phoenix is called "Detention with Dolores": Harry is the one having detention with Dolores, but there's no need to explain that in the chapter title because it's already implied. Chapter 10 is "Luna Lovegood" but the chapter refers to Harry's interaction with her, and Luna's assurance that Harry is not going crazy, because they can both see the thestrals. Anyhow, I think that, although it may be Snape's memory, it's Harry's worst memory?of his father, at the least. I'm imagining that a pensieve is a bit like a good book: the reader temporarily becomes the character and experiences not only the adventure, but also the character's emotions and reactions. More importantly experiencing another person's memory makes that memory ours?in part?too. Harry?through the pensieve?experienced Snape's memory, which now makes it Harry's memory too. I imagine it's the worst memory for Harry, because he has so few memories of his parents in the first place. How unpleasant it must be to have such a bad memory as one of the few vivid recollections of one's father. I also think that it's hard for Harry to separate Snape's memory from his own experience of the memory. The worst memory could be the memory that fostered the realization that his father his bully, combined with the memory of the moment Harry came to the realization. After all, Harry realizes at the end of the chapter that "his father had been every bit as arrogant as Snape had always told him" (OoP 650). Snape's perception of Harry's father has been proven to have a basis, where as Harry has just realized that his accusation that Snape was maligning Harry Potter has no basis: in essence, Harry was maligning Snape with no proof of Snape's guilt, even though Harry had accused Snape of doing the same thing in regards to James Potter just to get to him him (to get to Harry, I mean). So, anyhow, I think that maybe it's Harry's worst memory, and the syntax of the title just makes the reference to Harry more vague than in some of the other chapter titles. coldsliversofglass From belviso at attglobal.net Sat Apr 8 04:08:32 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 00:08:32 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: House characteristics (LONGish)/Snape's worst memory References: Message-ID: <00fa01c65ac2$1a1c10c0$10ba400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 150707 > Alla: > > Well, yes, I agree that you have to change the attitudes of the kids > in Slytherin. To me that mean that Slytherin kids have to understand > that "pureblood" philosophy is wrong, absolutely wrong, one hundred > percent wrong, that there is no justification for this philosophy no > matter how many justifications they may come up with. Magpie: Yes, me too. Or at least, it becomes like any other house on this matter. It's possible for someone to have Pureblood prejudice and be in Hufflepuff, for instance, but Hufflepuff isn't like Slytherin. It's important for Pureblood superiority to be separated from the definition of Slytherin in the minds of everyone, most of all the kids in Slytherin. Alla:> > Then my next question to you will be as follows. Do you see that in > book 7 all Slytherin kids or at least majority will do such drastic > change in their world views? Because if I understand you correctly > you do not argue that Slytherins whom we do not meet (I call > them "just names characters") do not subscribe to that philosophy? > You do think that whole Slytherin house is in need of the change, > right? Magpie: I do think that the whole house is in need of a change. It's funny, because people often say that we just don't see most of Slytherin so we can't judge them, but we actually probably see more of Slytherin than we do of most other houses, and from what I've seen all the students show signs of being...Slytherins. They often act en masse. So yeah, I feel pretty confident saying that this is a Slytherin problem even if not all the kids are Draco Malfoy. He is the face of the house in the books and I don't think he's hiding lots of great heroic people we just don't see. Now, as to whether all the kids in Slytherin will change...that sounds like a tall order. We don't know most of these kids (they're just names characters at best, as you said) and who wants to spend the last book with all new people? So what I imagine (and could be completely wrong about, of course!) is more what you say here: Alla: > That is why I think that JKR will do "one good Slytherin", if any > and maybe she will mean for us to see that such good Slytherin > symbolize the beginning of the change in Slytherin. I just don't see > whole Slytherin House standing up with Harry at the end. Magpie: That's more what I see: the beginning of a change, presumably connected to Slytherins Harry knows. I don't feel like I can say at all how it would go, but I feel like a major shakeup in the house as we know it could believably be assumed to start a change. That's why I like the personal story--if one kid starts to change his mind and can admit he was wrong, that's the first step to other kids being able to do it. Just something so that Slytherin as a house isn't completely shut out of the victory against Voldemort and we're maybe back where we started. If Slytherin plays a part in it that would be a step towards Slytherin having to do something to actively reject Pureblood superiority--that doesn't have to require all the kids in the house changing sides and joining with Harry. In the last generation it seems we may have had Regulus' solitary act of defiance and Snape's change of sides, but neither was enough to make a real change. Perhaps this generation will do things differently. > Alla: > > Ok, so you ARE saying that the whole Slytherin House will recognize > that they are wrong in following Voldemort philosophy in book 7? > Then another question is doesn't mean that they stop being > Slytherins then and become somehow different entity, because IMO > Slytherin without its "pureblood part" is not really Slytherin. Magpie: I don't think all the Slytherins will have a change of heart in Book VII--that seems far fetched. But I feel like Slytherin without the Pureblood part is the challenge. I mean, why should Slytherin just be about being a Pureblood when that can be made into such an empty value anyway? It's just who your parents are, not anything about yourself. (Something I think JKR demonstrates with Lucius and Draco in CoS. His Pureblood pride isn't really helpful to his son at all, it just means anything he does right is only due to his blood and anything he does wrong is him failing his lineage. The first time I ever had a spark of hope for Draco was when Harry said he'd have to make do on his talent sixth year.) Slytherin could redefine itself--or, as others have suggested, perhaps the message has been muddled anyway. It seems like it could be significant that Slytherin is the founder that left the school. Perhaps his not being there to interpret his own words opened the path for danger, for instance. > Alla: > > Draco lowered his wand, that is clear to me and JKR said as much > that he would not have killed DD, so I understand that it is > possible that Draco will turn, but so far I don't see him > discovering that being DE is not what he thought. He discovered that > killing person while looking at the face of that person is much > harder then killing with poisoned necklaces, IMO. Again IMO it > remains to be seen what else he discovered. Magpie: Well, I disagree that it was just a case of killing face to face being hard vs. killing from a distance being easy. As I've said in other threads I thought the point hammered home in the story was that killing was hard, period, and I think that's what Dumbledore is spelling out in his last scene. Being a DE is killing, imo. But I completely agree that it remains to be seen what else he has discovered and I don't consider him to have turned at the end of the book. I meant perhaps that was a story JKR might do in the seventh book, not that it was one she did in this book. What Dumbledore was offering Draco was protection, but with his death the stakes may have been raised so that it would take more from Draco to "come over to our side." He'd be dealing with Harry instead. Would he be brave enough to do it? Not sure. We can't credit him for it unless he does it. Lowering his wand was stopping from taking the next step down one path, but we did not see him take a step down a different path. Alla:> > Will Draco follow Regulus' path and commits the act of heroism while > defying Voldemort? It is possible of course, but IMO he has a long > way to go before he can be compared to Regulus' heroic deed. Magpie: Well, yeah. Regulus has his own story and Draco's whole story hasn't even been written yet. For all we know we'll hear he was AK'd a week after the end of HBP. I would only compare him to Regulus in the same way his author did, which is to say he bought the party line, joined up and got in over his head or whatever she said. But I'd suspect that if we were reading MWPP era and knew Regulus pre-revelation we might not have believed it of him either. I mean, isn't it ironic that the first we hear about Regulus is Sirius describing him as an unimportant idiot who got killed as a nobody? > Alla: > > You could be right, and I can be wrong and vice versa :). I don't > think that Slytherin House will be the same at the end of the story > as it was in the beginning, but neither would we see many "good > people" from that house either, IMO. Probably we will see the > beginning of such change. Magpie: Then we actually do agree because that sounds like very much what I vaguely imagine. Not everyone in the house changing because that just seems odd to me, like hiring a bunch of extras to show up and cheer or something. But the beginning of a change, which is the most important thing. That's everything. LOL--suddenly I'm picturing Draco at the well like Helen Keller figuring out that all this Pureblood stuff is crap. Only I'm not sure whether to cast Dumbledore or Snape as Annie Sullivan.;-) -m From kchuplis at alltel.net Sat Apr 8 04:21:34 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 23:21:34 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8FDFC51F-2FF6-436D-89AA-5A284F01A752@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150708 > > > >>kchuplis: > > And, really, Harry is richer? > > > > Betsy Hp: > Than Draco? Yes. If Harry wanted to buy that Hand of Glory back in > CoS, he wouldn't have to beg someone for it, he'd buy it. Draco > doesn't have that sort of cash flow. (He may in the future, but not > at the moment.) kchuplis: Much too tired to do more than this, but I really have to take a major exception to this idea that Harry is richer than Draco. Draco has the money or credit to buy a 1600 galleon necklace in HBP. I suspect that Harry had hands on his own cash sooner but it is only described as a "small fortune". Which could mean anything but if Lucius can afford to buy the entire Quidditch team Nimbus 2001s, Draco has plenty of backing and apparently the means to get at it. From djklaugh at comcast.net Sat Apr 8 06:44:41 2006 From: djklaugh at comcast.net (Deb) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 06:44:41 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose /Pansy Parkinson In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150709 (Snips - Magpie I responded to your first comments on another post in this treat in my dialogue with KathyK so I snipped them here) > Magpie: > So which are the times when Snape is faking things just so that > Voldemort thinks he's on his side? Where's the line and why does > Snape choose to cross it when he does? I thought that was the whole > point here, that Snape's behavior towards Harry, Neville and > Hermione was something he had to do because of Voldemort. What > would be the difference if he didn't have to convince Voldemort of > something? Deb here: Snape as Harry, etal's teacher ... and IMO as DDM!Snape ... has to teach them much much more than just potions. He knows that Harry has been selected by LV to be the child in the prophecy (per DD's explaination to Harry at the end of OOP).Of all the members of OOP Snape knows the most about LV's character and way of doing things as he was when he became Vapomort - given that Snape had been a DE. Snape and DD know that in order for Harry to do what he needs to do, in order for him to survive any and all confrontations with LV and the DEs he has to not only master his magical skills but also he has to develop emotionally and intellectually to the point that he can withstand LVs verbal and emotional assaults as well as his magical ones. Harry has had some experience dealing with emotional abuse prior to coming to Hogwarts having lived with the Dursleys. However that had not made him tough enough. He still got intimidated by verbal abuse or became too angry to think clearly. When one is intimidated by a bully it becomes difficult to think and to plan a counter attack. And just lashing out without thought usually does not work very well. Constant thoughtfulness, considered planfulness, sharpened reaction times, emotional detachment, learning the magical curriculum to the point of not *having to* think of what spell or jinx or curse is going to be most effective - this is what will work. Compare how Harry reacts to intimidation in the first book to how he reacts in later books... by the time of the graveyard scene in GOF Harry has learned to ignore verbal assaults - he has stopped being intimidated by Big Bad Bullies - he was able to quickly recover from the Crucio curse, he was able think his way through the whole assault by LV, the Prior Incantatum effects did not spook him into paralysis, the circling of Nagini did not distract him, the taunting of the DEs did not divert him. Who else at Hogwarts could have facilitated this aspect of Harry's maturation? Professor Sprout? Professor Flitwick? Hagrid? DD? No they are too inately kind and they like Harry ... they like most students. Snape, being the irritable curmudgeon he is, can do this kind of "teaching". Yes it is a role he takes on but it also fits mostly with the person he probably really is. I think he merely exaggerates or intensifies his natural surliness when dealing with Harry and friends. He was trying to do the same for Neville but Neville was already too intimidated and had learned helplessness from his intimidating grandmother rather than much of a fight back mentality. Snape's attempts at teaching Harry Occlumency were a fiasco as DD admits... Harry's nature is to be open about his feelings, and open to the feelings of others. Closing off that aspect for Harry, I think, is rather like having him close one eye when dueling - it throws him off balance and distorts his perceptions because it is so foreign to his nature. Will LV be able to use Harry's emotions and memories against him... perhaps, but I don't think it will have as much impact as LV thinks it will... one of the things Harry did learn from the Occlumency lessons is the embarassing experiences and the memories of such do not kill you! > Magpie: > I don't really think he does that. The vow is Bellatrix's idea > because she's trying to make him put his money where his mouth is, > and she's surprised when he agrees. But yes, I've agreed that he > does this sort of spying, where he pretends to be a DE and explains > his actions in that light, but this still seems a very different > thing than the show he's supposedly putting on for the Trio. When > he interacts with Draco at the Xmas party, that to me is more the > equivalent of the way he is with the Trio. He's spinning everything > he's saying to conform to the DE story, but I don't think he's > putting on an emotional act with the kid, exaggerating his like or > dislike of him the way he's supposedly doing with Harry and his > friends. Snape's interactions with his students sometimes seem like > the most honest he gets. Without them I wonder on what to build his > character. Deb here: The vow was Narcissa's idea not Bella's. And she was pleading for her son's life wanting some concrete reason to hang on to that her son would be safe. Spinner's End, HBP (Snape speaking) "Narcissa, that's enough. Drink this. Listen to me." She quieted a little; slopping wine down herself, she took a shaky sip. "It might be possible...for me to help Draco" She sat up, her face paper-white, her eyes huge. "Severus - oh, Severus - you would help him? Would you look after hi, see he comes to no harm?" "I can try". She flung away her glass; it skidded across the table as she slid off the sofa into a kneeling position at Snape's feet, seized his hand in both of hers, and pressed her lips to it. "If you are there to protect him...Severus, will you swear it? Will you make the Unbreakable Vow?" Yes Bella then twits Snape and accuses him of saying "empty words" and of "the usual slithering out of action"(she rather likens Snape to a snake here doesn't she?) but I think he had decided to make the UV before she said that. Just my opinion. (Snips - responded to similar in response to KathyK up or over thread - and other topic was off topic for this particular thread) Deb (aka djklaugh) From bboyminn at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 07:16:41 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 07:16:41 -0000 Subject: The Ancient and Noble House of Slytherin Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150710 There is a discussion going on about the merits of Slytherin, the characteristics of the four Houses, and the likelihood of seeing one or more 'good Slytherins'. Since I can't really blend all my comments into direct responses to individuals, I will gather them together here. For what ever they may be worth. The Sorting Hat- Let us remember that the Sorting Hat speaks to the school in song and rhymes. That is a very limited format in which to speak. It doesn't allow for much dialog or for complex thought when everything has to fit the meter and rhyme. So, I think we need to be careful not to take what the Sorting Hat says as absolute. In song format, the best the Hat can do is generalize and speak figuratively or illustratively. When the Hat says that Slytherins are those with great ambition, those whose blood is purest, and those with great cunning, etc..., it is not making an absolute statement of any and all characteristics. It is not defining Slytherins. It is illustrating characteristics that are important in those who will be selected for that House. But I don't think it is an all-defining statememt. I'm sure great long essays, perhaps even thick history books could be written about the history and nature of Slytherin House, and even after they were published, Pub gossips would continue to speculate. Also notice the most House Prejudice fades after people leave school and enter the 'real world'. To most adults, the House characteristics serve little more than petty school rivalries which have little place in the business world. Salazar Slytherin - According to the Sorting Hat and to Prof. Binns, Salazar didn't trust Muggles which is why he wanted to keep wizarding education limited to established wizarding families. Not necessarily Pure-Blood families, but established wizarding families that had a vested and personal interest in the security of the wizard world. So, it seems reasonable to me that he was expressing a very valid security issue, not a blood prejudice. I think people, at a later time, took Salazar's security concerns about muggle-borns, and expanded it into an excuse to carry on their own personal blood prejudice. House Names and Geography- Again, a caution that the Sorting Hat is force to conform any information it convey into song format. That has to be limiting. So, I'm not really sure what we can say about glen, fen, moor, and valley broad other than they make the song rhyme nicely. Personally, I would have thought a glen was a stand of trees, but it turns out it is a Scottish valley. Fen is a swamp, bog, or marsh. Moor is usually on the high ground, a broad area of poorly drained land with heath (shrubs) and peat bogs. And, of course, 'valley broad' is pretty obvious. But wait, a glen is a valley, and a fen isn't much different than a moor except fen is low ground and moor is high ground, but both are swampy. In otherwords, I don't really think that tells us very much. As far as the House names, certainly the names can imply some origin, but can we be sure that origin still implies the name. As an illustration, most Scandinavian names end in -son (Johnson, Olson, Nelson, etc...). Logic tells me that there must be plenty of people in the British Isles whose name end in -son. While those names imply Scandinavian origin, the names do not imply that these people are native Scandinavians. We know that Vikings invaded Britain long ago, centuries ago, and may Vikings settles in Scotland, Ireland, most likely Wales, and most likely England. So, a name ending in -son could represent a name with centuries of history in Britain. My point is that Founders names may imply an ancestral origin, but not necessarily a personal origin. Much like the Viking in my example above. Most Slytherins- We must be carefull about making assumptions about 'most Slytherins' because we have NOT met /most Slytherins/. JKR said as much in her Melissa-Emerson interview. In fact, we, through Harry's eyes, have seen very few Slytherins. Most of the negative behavior we see from the many unnamed Slytherins is typical school stuff like laughing at Draco's smart remarks, or causing trouble as a critical Slytherin/Gryffindor Quidditch game draws near. I hardly think we can judge all or most Slytherins based on such scant information. I also think it is very unfair to paint all Slytherins in the same manner as the few Slytherins we do know. I suspect /most Slytherins/ are just kids who are minding their own business and going to school. Ambitious and cunning - yes, but little more. Good Slytherins- I don't think we need ONE token Good Slytherin, and I don't think we need a conversion of all or most Slytherins. I say that if, in the absents of Draco's intimidation, we get /some/ Slytherins who can see the folly of following a deranged dictator like Voldemort and join the good side to fight against Voldemort, then the four House are united as they were meant to be. It's not an all-or-nothing sort of thing. I'm sure there will be some from each House amoung the general population that support Voldemort, but I suspect the most of the wizard world, meaning most from all houses, will see Voldemort as dangerous at war and inept at government, and will fight against him. Just a few Slytherin thoughts. Steve/bboyminn From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Sat Apr 8 07:53:21 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 07:53:21 -0000 Subject: The Founders (was:Pansy/ Re: House characteristics) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150711 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "a_svirn" wrote: > > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister" > wrote: > > > > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" > wrote: > > > > Carol: > > > Gryffindor to me suggests a Welsh origin: Griffith > > > (Gruffydd) is a commmon Welsh name, and Gryffindor could be an > > > Anglicized version of a similar name. > > > > Geoff: > > It's one of JKR's wordplays.... it's basically French. > > > > Gryffindor is Gryffin d'or = golden griffin a_svirn: > Of course it's wordplay but it does not rule out Welsh connotations. > French version would be grIffin, not grYffin. Geoff: This is my second attempt at replying. Yahoomort seems to have swallowed my first reply at 07:50 BST. It will probably re-surface mid-afternoon and I shall have to delete it I did say it was `basically' French. If I might be pedantic :-) the French word is "griffon". Gryffin ? and also gryphon ? are older English forms of the word. JKR has often demonstrated in her wordplays - and her spells for that matter ? that she can be quite cavalier in her use of language. Passing on, in message 150684, you wrote: "Yes, well, I am properly chastised. I did not jump to any conclusions though. I *did* say that moors can be found anywhere. The Yorkshire Moor just the most famous." I suspect that you are not a resident of the UK because, if you were to ask a British person to name a moor, the most likely answers you would get would probably be Dartmoor, then maybe Bodmin Moor, Exmoor ? and, in the case of a Yorkshireman ? Ilkley Moor(!) The North Yorkshire Moors are a rather general area defined more by the borders of the National Park; the name is not historical as with the others I quoted. There is a subtle difference in English between the use of "moor" and "moors". The first is specific, the latter more general. It is rather analogous to the use of "Scottish Highlands" or "Welsh mountains" as descriptions of an area. From greatraven at hotmail.com Sat Apr 8 08:11:26 2006 From: greatraven at hotmail.com (sbursztynski) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 08:11:26 -0000 Subject: Mothers in HP In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150712 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tonks" wrote: >> I guess I missed that discussion, but that wasn't what I was > thinking about. I mean why mother's and sons? Mothers dying I guess > could be some subconscious thing for JKR because of her own mother. > Maybe she has to kill them off in different ways for some cathartic > release. I know that writers are human and they can't help have some > of their own issues enter into their writing. But even so, I really > think that there is more to it than that. But what? I think that > this theme is intended, that is not just accidental or > subconscious. The question is what is she telling us about the > plot? Where is she going with this? > > And I totally missed the part about Ginny. Do you think that means > that Ginny will be the one to die? > > Tonks_op Sue here: Or maybe it just means that Lupin got into the room and removed the boggart before she could do any more imagining? :-) From keltobin at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 08:43:19 2006 From: keltobin at yahoo.com (Kelly) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 08:43:19 -0000 Subject: Danger at the Wedding? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150713 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Karen wrote: > > > On Apr 7, 2006, at 9:55 PM, Kim wrote: > > > I'm curious about the "coming of age" factor for the summer before > > Harry and > > Neville turn 17. Ginny won't be 17 for some time yet. How can > > Harry and > > crew begin Horcrux Hunting if Harry can't perform magic? I've gotten the impression that underage magic is detected based on the area where the underage wizard lives. Otherwise, Harry wouldn't have been able to perform magic with Dumbledore in the cave without giving away their positions. I don't think the ministry can detect who performed the magic (like Dobby and the pudding), but becomes suspicious when a spell is detected in the proximity of the dwelling. I'm not sure how this works in houses or areas where a lot of wizards reside. From hickengruendler at yahoo.de Sat Apr 8 09:57:38 2006 From: hickengruendler at yahoo.de (hickengruendler) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 09:57:38 -0000 Subject: Mothers in HP In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150714 Tonks_op: > > And I totally missed the part about Ginny. Do you think that means > > that Ginny will be the one to die? > > Sue here: > > Or maybe it just means that Lupin got into the room and removed the boggart before she > could do any more imagining? :-) > Hickengruendler: Exactly. And when Harry entered the room, Mrs Weasley was already weeping over the Boggart. Therefore Ginny could just as well have appeared earlier. By the way, Charlie's body didn't appear either. What is important about the boggart is a.) that it explains Mrs Weasley's sometimes over the top behaviour, b.) it shows (again), that she sees Harry as part of the family and c.) that she still loves Percy, no matter what he did. And while I think, that JKR's male characters are generally better written than the female ones, saying that "girls aren't worth dieing for" in the HP series is IMO way over the top. First of all, nobody died for Tom. If anything, Merope died in spite of Tom. That leaves Harry, who as the main character happens to be a boy, and Barty Crouch junior. And I must admit that I have a hard time imagining the Crouch junior character as female. To start with, he identifies himself with Voldemort up to a certain point, and that just works better when they are of the same gender. Hickengruendler From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Sat Apr 8 12:19:39 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 12:19:39 -0000 Subject: Snape's Worst Memory In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150715 houyhnhnm: *(snip)* > Then it would make sense for Snape to remove this memory when he is > trying to teach Harry Occlumency, not for its possible effect on Harry > (do you think Snape *really* expects Harry to break into his mind?), > but for its effect on Snape. Dumbledore wanted Snape to be able to put > aside his old hatreds in order for the Occlumency lessons to be > successful. Perhaps he instructed Snape to remove this particular > memory because it's presence would undermine Snape's ability to put > aside his hatred of James. If that is true, then I would expect that > at least one of the other two memories has to do with the Prank. > > If this was Dumbledore's plan for the Occlumency lessons, it seems to > me that it was succeeding. Snape was much more professional and > objective with Harry than in any other encounters between them. What > Dumbledore did not count on, or could not prevent, was Harry's > unwillingness to let go of his visions, and the sheer bad luck of > Snape's being called away when he was. Ceridwen: I like this explanation. It sounds logical, and it sounds like something that can be primed to go very wrong, from the writing standpoint. If the Pensieve can hold originals or copies, and Snape put in the originals (no memory left in his head) it would help explain his grudging complement to Harry, and why he didn't get upset at all with the stinging hex. I think you're right, he was much more patient with Harry in the Occlumency lesson scenes, I thought about how unusual that was while reading those scenes. It would also explain Snape's white-faced anger when he joined Harry in the Pensieve to pull him out. If there's no conscious recollection in his mind, he's suddenly confronted with the scene as if it is happening to him for the first time. This is at the point where James is taking votes on whether he should pants Snape. I think your suggestion explains Snape's reactions from this point very well. If Snape is DDM!, then only a very big problem will stop him from following Dumbledore's orders. This presents a huge problem, it modifies Harry into a copy of the memory as an onlooker who did nothing to help. Not a logical stance, but emotions are rarely logical. It may or may not be the reason, but I think it covers the reaction and the lessons being stopped. I like it, I think I'll adopt it. Ceridwen. From irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com Sat Apr 8 12:51:03 2006 From: irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com (IreneMikhlin) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 13:51:03 +0100 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Pansy/ Re: House characteristics In-Reply-To: <003c01c65a44$65b5ff60$b301010a@ConsolidatedTelephone.local> References: <44360FBF.2040704@btopenworld.com> <003c01c65a44$65b5ff60$b301010a@ConsolidatedTelephone.local> Message-ID: <4437B1B7.3030305@btopenworld.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150716 Karen wrote: > From: IreneMikhlin > > But Hermione is as prejudiced against Firenze as Pansy is against > Hagrid! We can't use it to compare the two girls in Hermione's > favour. > > kchuplis: How so? She tries to blow off Lavendar's pushing comments > by saying she's never liked horses when Lavendar wants to schmooze > but she doesn't really seem to have a problem with his teaching > divination. She has a problem with divination itself. > zgirnius: > Hermione does not have a position on Firenze. She does not know him, > she has not had him in a class, she certainly has never done anything > which would harm him. > > If you are referring to her comment about not being fond of horses, I > have never thought that was meant to be an insult to Firenze or > centaurkind. Parvati and Lavender were exclaiming in a groupie-like > way about how *handsome* he is, and doesn't Hermione wish she hadn't > given up Divination after all. The remark was to shut THEM up, I > thought. Had the discussion been about a new super-handsome male > professor of the human species, she might have asserted a lack of > interest in blonds (or whatever conspicuous physical characteristic > of this hypothetical professor came to mind). But YMMV... Yes, my mileage varies hugely on this comment. I think it's very insulting. Speaking of super-handsome human professors, if the girls were giggling about this super-handsome dark skinned professor and his adorable black curls, and Hermione tried to shut them up with "I'm not fond of monkeys" retort, we wouldn't be so kind to her, would we? Even if she still were OK with him teaching Divination. > > kchuplis: And certainly he speaks understandable English, and no one > can be bitten badly by a flobberworm. They don't have to be lying. I'm a foreigner here, and I have a great trouble understanding people with strong regional accents. It does not mean I want them out of their jobs, though. :-) Irene From mgrantwich at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 13:11:37 2006 From: mgrantwich at yahoo.com (Magda Grantwich) Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 06:11:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: R.A.B In-Reply-To: <8C826CAFF7A9B71-C20-264@MBLK-D29.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <20060408131137.59128.qmail@web53104.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150717 My personal assumption (I wouldn't call it a theory) about RAB is that RAB is Regulus and that Regulus switched the lockets BEFORE the locket got put in the cave, he didn't go there to retrieve it (and thus someone we don't yet know put the fake locket in the birdbath, since Voldemort would have recognized it). It's possible it was Bellatrix who was trusted with the task of protecting the necklace by taking it to the cave, as per her cut-off statement in Spinners End about being trusted by Voldemort with something important. (Another assumption: Voldemort told no one about the horcruxes. He wanted his followers to see him as a great magician with access to old, ancient and powerful magic. I'm sure he was pursuing immortality on other non-horcrux levels as well. RAB's note implies that he felt he had discovered Voldemort's secret and the tone suggests that the scales have fallen from his eyes.) I think there are too many difficulties around the idea of Regulus undergoing the same struggles that Dumbledore and Harry went through. It makes more sense to me that he'd switch them beforehand. How or when - I don't know. Why wasn't the locket destroyed? Don't know that either. I suspect Regulus tried to destroy it himself but died in the attempt, and that Kreacher was responsible for putting it amongst the Black Family trophies. Perhaps he recognized the Salazar Slytherin "S" and jumped to the conclusion that Regulus died protecting the locket from someone else. Why didn't Mrs. Black notice an addition to her heirlooms cabinet? If she didn't know it was there, she might miss it. If you get used to seeing the same collection every day eventually you sort of don't really see it at all. No, I really think assuming that Regulus went to the cave isn't necessary or probable plot-wise. Magda __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From willsonkmom at msn.com Sat Apr 8 13:57:53 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 13:57:53 -0000 Subject: R.A.B In-Reply-To: <20060408131137.59128.qmail@web53104.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150718 Magda Grantwich wrote: > My personal assumption (I wouldn't call it a theory) about RAB is > that RAB is Regulus and that Regulus switched the lockets BEFORE the > locket got put in the cave, he didn't go there to retrieve it (and > thus someone we don't yet know put the fake locket in the birdbath, > since Voldemort would have recognized it). It's possible it was > Bellatrix who was trusted with the task of protecting the necklace by > taking it to the cave, as per her cut-off statement in Spinners End > about being trusted by Voldemort with something important. > Potioncat: Me too! {an elf with NYC on her tea towel clears her throat just as Potioncat is about to hit the send key.) Let me expand on that. Actually, the locket only had to fool one person, the person who placed it in the basin. For that matter, the original Horcrux could have been a music box, so long as the one who placed it (or the one guarding it) didn't know what it was supposed to be. Or, it could have been transfigured to look more like the original locket, and that spell ended when RAB died. In theory, when, or if, LV ever came back for it, he would know at once it was the wrong locket. He'd open it and see that RAB had tricked him many years before. I suspect that whoever placed the locket in the basin is still in the lake...and that could be RAB. Or RAB, as a "loyal" DE and favorite cousin of Bella's may have helped her place the locket. He tricked her and replaced the locket prior to taking it to the lake. Shortly after that, it was determined he had lost interest in the overall program and was killed. But no one knew yet that he had switched the locket. >Magda: > I think there are too many difficulties around the idea of Regulus > undergoing the same struggles that Dumbledore and Harry went through. > It makes more sense to me that he'd switch them beforehand. How or > when - I don't know. Potioncat: I agree. The switched locket was placed before the traps were set up. From gelite67 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 14:09:05 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 14:09:05 -0000 Subject: Percy's sickle In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150719 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sugaranddixie1" wrote: > > > > >Diane (new kid on the block)wrote > > >I took the silver sickle to be a coin, as in gold galleons, silver > >sickles, and brass knuts. No? > > > E.T.- > You're absolutely right... To my understanding, what Percy physically > found was a coin. I was just wondering if that coin being called > a "sickle" might denote an omen. > > E.T.- who knows that sometimes a cigar is probably just a cigar, but > thinks life is more interesting when it's not!!! > Angie here: I thought there was some sort of tradition about finding a coin in food being good luck. But then again, when I first read about Percy finding the sickle, for some reason, I thought of Judas and the 33 pieces of silver. From willsonkmom at msn.com Sat Apr 8 14:13:56 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 14:13:56 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose /Pansy Parkinson In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150720 > Deb here: snipping severely throughout - given that Snape had been a DE. > Snape and DD know that in order for Harry to do what he needs to do, > in order for him to survive any and all confrontations with LV and > the DEs he has to not only master his magical skills but also he has > to develop emotionally and intellectually to the point that he can > withstand LVs verbal and emotional assaults as well as his magical > ones. Compare how Harry reacts to intimidation in the first book to > how he reacts in later books... > Who else at Hogwarts could > have facilitated this aspect of Harry's maturation? Professor > Sprout? Professor Flitwick? Hagrid? DD? No they are too inately > kind and they like Harry ... they like most students. Snape, being > the irritable curmudgeon he is, can do this kind of "teaching". Potioncat: Remember the "it'll bring out the worst in him" quote about why DD wouldn't give Snape the DADA position? Most of us took it to mean that something about DADA would be bad for Snape. Turns out (nods to Carol) that DADA brings out the worst in everyone. There is a JKR quote something along the line of "because DD knows the students have something to learn from this type of person" to explain why DD puts up with Snape. For some reason, Deb, the wording of your post hit home. While I don't think Snape is exactly acting, (and there's a nice essay at the Lexicon that addresses this) I think either Snape or more likely, DD, has a reason for Harry to be "toughened up" in this way. I mean, if you can survive Snape, LV is a piece of cake! Potioncat: Who is unable at this time to go find the actual JKR quote. The essay at The Lexicon is about Spinner's End and discusses geography and personality. It can be found in the March section of "what's new." From kchuplis at alltel.net Sat Apr 8 14:29:02 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 09:29:02 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Pansy/ Re: House characteristics In-Reply-To: <4437B1B7.3030305@btopenworld.com> References: <44360FBF.2040704@btopenworld.com> <003c01c65a44$65b5ff60$b301010a@ConsolidatedTelephone.local> <4437B1B7.3030305@btopenworld.com> Message-ID: <8F8D3A03-59A2-4240-A673-8FB9522EFFB1@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150721 On Apr 8, 2006, at 7:51 AM, IreneMikhlin wrote: > > > > kchuplis: And certainly he speaks understandable English, and no > one > > can be bitten badly by a flobberworm. > > They don't have to be lying. I'm a foreigner here, and I have a great > trouble understanding people with strong regional accents. It does not > mean I want them out of their jobs, though. :-) > > kchuplis: To me there is a huge difference in saying, I have difficulty understanding his accent and I have trouble understanding me because he grunts incomprehensibly. They are lying to plot to bring about his sacking. Although I am quite sure Umbridge could have managed it by herself, Draco's gang were actively trying too. From quigonginger at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 15:11:01 2006 From: quigonginger at yahoo.com (quigonginger) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 15:11:01 -0000 Subject: Uh, oh, do we have a FILNT? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150722 As I was trolling the archives, a post by Pippin caught my eye. It was message #37415. They had a thread going back then about whether or not Snape could be half-dementor. Here's the post (snipped): Dene Moore of the Canadian Press reports the following http://www.canoe.ca/JamHarryPotter/oct25_potter-cp.html "One young Canadian boy earlier asked her how Dementors breed. "I was just so pleased that he thought about it and pleased that I had the answer," " The answer, according to the article is: "These evil creatures don't, by the way, breed but grow like a fungus where there is decay. " Pippin Back to now: In HBP, Fudge tells the British PM that the mist is caused by dementors breeding. Hmm, so which is it? Do we have a FLINT? Or, since the original wasn't canon, is it actually a FLINT? Or did JKR just change her mind? Can anyone justify the two statements? The world is wondering. Ginger, who realizes most of the world doesn't care, but is herself, quite curious. From foxmoth at qnet.com Sat Apr 8 15:14:33 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 15:14:33 -0000 Subject: House characteristics (LONGish) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150723 > Alla: > > Well, yes, I agree that you have to change the attitudes of the kids > in Slytherin. To me that mean that Slytherin kids have to understand > that "pureblood" philosophy is wrong, absolutely wrong, one hundred > percent wrong, that there is no justification for this philosophy no > matter how many justifications they may come up with. Pippin: I dunno, Alla. I'm not sure there is something so wrong with pureblood identified (since JKR says none of them are technically pureblood) kids wanting to associate with each other. There is something wrong with campaigns of terror and extermination against non-purebloods, but I think what everyone forgets is that there have been campaigns of terror and extermination in real life against the mentally impaired (remember how frightened Tom was of the asylum?), the non- working classes (the French Revolution) and those who do not subscribe to the code of chivalry (the heyday of knighthood was also an era of persecution for witches, Jews, heretics and anybody else who didn't fit tidily into the feudal system.) So all the houses can be identified with persecutions in real life, not just Slytherin. There were Slytherins who stood to honor Harry in GoF, so we have seen there are Slytherin kids who reject Voldemort -- but Harry hasn't spoken to any of them, because he never speaks to Slytherins. > > Alla: > > Have I mentioned recently that I think that Dumbledore's value > judgments are not always correct? So, no, flawed but good is not how > I would describe Draco, so very NOT, at least not yet. That > description IMO needs to be earned and I do think it is possible > that Draco will earn it, but not yet. Pippin: Oh, Slytherins have to earn being called good? Are even eleven year old children evil by presumption? I strongly hope JKR is not going there. Pippin From donnawonna at worldnet.att.net Sat Apr 8 15:08:39 2006 From: donnawonna at worldnet.att.net (Donna) Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 11:08:39 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) Subject: Chamber of Secrets Message-ID: <4437D1F7.000006.04036@D33LDD51> No: HPFGUIDX 150724 Donna Asks: I know this has been discussed long before I joined the group but I'm rereading "the Chamber of Secrets" and, being as slow as I am, I just realized that the entrance to the chamber is a large pipe located under a sink complete with water taps. Now, my question is: did people living over a thousand years ago have sinks and water taps for plumbing? I'm not quite 1,000 years old but I did grow up with an outhouse and a water pump and I knew flush toilets, sinks, and running water weren't new inventions but 1 000 years old? If these "modern" conveniences were added much, much later after the chamber was built, when installing the new conveniences, why didn t someone investigate the huge pipe and check it for leaks, etc? Comments? Thought? Corrections? [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 15:43:13 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 15:43:13 -0000 Subject: House characteristics (LONGish) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150726 > > Alla: > > > > Have I mentioned recently that I think that Dumbledore's value > > judgments are not always correct? So, no, flawed but good is not how > > I would describe Draco, so very NOT, at least not yet. That > > description IMO needs to be earned and I do think it is possible > > that Draco will earn it, but not yet. > > Pippin: > Oh, Slytherins have to earn being called good? Are even eleven year > old children evil by presumption? > > I strongly hope JKR is not going there. Alla: Pippin, I said DRACO has to earn being called "GOOD", not Slytherins and I absolutely stand by it. I think Slytherins have to reject their "pureblood superiority" philosophy and I also stand by it. And as I said many many times in the past, of course I would have huge problems with eleven year olds being called evil by association in RL. In fiction - not so much, especially since we agree that JKR does not go there, but I do think she is portraying this philosophy as the one to needs to be abolished, so I agree with Lupinlore(I think) initial point that JKR needed villains in the story and that is why she gave such philosophy to Slytherin House, etc. I don't think that she is going to " all Slytherin kids are bad", but I think she ALREADY went into portraying at least majority of Slytherin kids ( based on Slytherins we saw) obviously as following this philosophy and falling prey to Voldemort. IMO. Alla From maccanena at gmail.com Sat Apr 8 16:00:05 2006 From: maccanena at gmail.com (Maria) Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 12:00:05 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Uh, oh, do we have a FILNT? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1f40e2480604080900p956af3bie69eed02b5568c60@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150727 On 4/8/06, quigonginger wrote: > "One young Canadian boy earlier asked her how Dementors > breed. > "I was just so pleased that he thought about it and pleased that I > had the answer," " > > The answer, according to the article is: > > "These evil creatures don't, by the way, breed but grow like a > fungus where there is decay. " > > Pippin > > > Back to now: > In HBP, Fudge tells the British PM that the mist is caused by > dementors breeding. Hmm, so which is it? Do we have a FLINT? Or, > since the original wasn't canon, is it actually a FLINT? Or did JKR > just change her mind? > > Can anyone justify the two statements? > Maria now: I don't think they two statements are contradictory. The mists is the consequence of the breeding, from that statement, the other one is the way the reproduce, like a fungus. Maybe the mist is something she thought of later, but it seems to me that she had already given some thought to it when the first question was asked. Anyway, just my opinion. Maria - who rarely ever posts, but can't bring herself to work on her thesis this morning From willsonkmom at msn.com Sat Apr 8 16:04:31 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 16:04:31 -0000 Subject: Uh, oh, do we have a FILNT? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150728 -Ginger: > Back to now: > In HBP, Fudge tells the British PM that the mist is caused by > dementors breeding. Hmm, so which is it? Do we have a FLINT? Or, > since the original wasn't canon, is it actually a FLINT? Or did JKR > just change her mind? > > Can anyone justify the two statements? > > The world is wondering. > > Ginger, who realizes most of the world doesn't care, but is herself, > quite curious. Potioncat: Well, if you've ever lived in a misty, moisty Southern climate, fungus can appear to breed.... From midnightowl6 at hotmail.com Sat Apr 8 16:16:21 2006 From: midnightowl6 at hotmail.com (P J) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 12:16:21 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Uh, oh, do we have a FILNT? In-Reply-To: <1f40e2480604080900p956af3bie69eed02b5568c60@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150729 Pippin: > The answer, according to the article is: > > "These evil creatures don't, by the way, breed but grow like a > fungus where there is decay. " > Back to now: > In HBP, Fudge tells the British PM that the mist is caused by > dementors breeding. Hmm, so which is it? Do we have a FLINT? Or, > since the original wasn't canon, is it actually a FLINT? Or did JKR > just change her mind? > > Can anyone justify the two statements? Fungus "breed" by scattering their spores in the wind. JKR could be telling us that the mist, as she sees it, is a direct result of the huge number of spores the dementors are releasing... If they breed like fungus then this isn't a flint, IMO. Seems kind of reasonable in fact... :-) PJ From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 17:01:21 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 10:01:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Slytherin redemption Message-ID: <20060408170121.46000.qmail@web61324.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150730 Well it seems that a frequent topic is the redemption of either Snape, Draco or the Slytherins as a whole. I confess that I am one of those people who believe that some sort of co-operation is going to have to happen between the four hoses to defeat Voldemort. Still I often wonder at the mechanics of it. I think we can safely say that unless Dumbledore left a message for Harry saying "Snape is on your side and I want him to kill me," then Harry is never going to trust Snape again. He DID see Snape kill Dumbledore and no amount of circumstantial evidence is likely to overcome what he saw with his own two eyes. As to Draco we find ourselves in the same boat. Harry knows Draco let the DE's in and had been working to murder Dumbledore for over a year. I cannot concieve of anything that would cause Harry to do anything but hex Malfoy. He may believe that Malfoy could not kill Dumbledore face to face but he would certainly not entertain the idea of trusting him for a minute either. To me this means that one of the lesser known Slytherins, say Goyle or even Parkinson is going to step and and decided that it is their best interest to work against Voldemort. Note I don't think they will do it because they are wonderful people but because they recognise what the wizarding world would be like if Voldemort won. It just seems to me and Snape and Draco both working for the good guys after having seen the error of their ways is a good bit too contrived for a writer as imaginative as JKR. If that happened I would expect everyone to join hands and sing Christmas Carols in Whoville. Joe From belviso at attglobal.net Sat Apr 8 18:10:49 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 14:10:49 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] The Ancient and Noble House of Slytherin References: Message-ID: <006001c65b37$c51626d0$72b4400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 150731 Steve: > Most Slytherins- > Good Slytherins- > > I don't think we need ONE token Good Slytherin, and I don't think we > need a conversion of all or most Slytherins. I say that if, in the > absents of Draco's intimidation, Magpie: This is one of the major problems I've always had with the "good SlytherinS" theory--what intimidation from Draco? Draco isn't shown to be intimidating any Slytherins ever in the story. In sixth year what presence he has significantly shrinks and he's completely isolated. The other Slytehrins do not all have to be DE sympathizers, of course. But it seems to me that JKR has made a point of making the background characters not part of the solution. She even throws in little things like the password for the common room being "Pureblood" the first year.We're told Blaise and Harry hate each other on principle because of their houses. Blaise was one of the people considered a candidate for Good Slytherin and then he shows up casually talking about blood traitors. Sure presumably there are Slytherins who are just keeping to themselves and not dreaming about wiping out anybody. They're not part of the most destructive impulses of Slytherin, but I still think they will benefit from a change in this aspect of Slytherin. Steve: we get /some/ Slytherins who can see > the folly of following a deranged dictator like Voldemort and join the > good side to fight against Voldemort, then the four House are united > as they were meant to be. It's not an all-or-nothing sort of thing. Magpie: It's definitely not all or nothing, imo, but I'd say it depends a lot on who these people are. A bunch of new people we've never heard of show up to join Harry? That's been suggested in the past and to me that's no solution because it's no story. I think the houses united means uniting the rift we've seen, not just filling out Harry's army with some kids from the dungeons or revealing that Auror #3 was in Slytherin. Joe Goodwin: It just seems to me and Snape and Draco both working for the good guys after having seen the error of their ways is a good bit too contrived for a writer as imaginative as JKR. If that happened I would expect everyone to join hands and sing Christmas Carols in Whoville. Magpie: I'm honestly surprised by this. Not because I think either Snape or Draco are wonderful people or not potentially Voldemort-loyal, but what is so overly happy about this outcome? I mean, Snape may have already switched sides years ago and it didn't make him any more Who-ish. It's not like, knowing JKR, it would be a case of anyone suddenly sprouting a halo. She'd probably put them through hell to earn it first. I'm even more puzzled by the idea that what should happen is some minor Slytherin will politically decide what's best is to work for Harry and then that will take care of it because...Who on earth cares? Why avoid the drama of Harry having to work with Draco or friends of Draco who are still loyal to Draco to instead of Pansy Parkinson show up, say she's severed ties with Draco and decided Harry has the right idea and...what? What does Pansy add to Harry's side? She's a girl who sometimes offers minor irritation he easily brushes aside and has bad taste in boys from his pov. I don't think JKR even has much use for people who do things for political reasons. I think she might be happy to let those people just protect themselves and try to stay neutral. She seems more interested in those determined to fight or, even more, those who feel they must fight whether they would have wanted to or not. Harry isn't at all inclined to trust Draco at the end of the book, but I'm not seeing him sharing the same focus that's common in fandom on killing from a distance vs. killing face to face. Alla: Who are Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan? Magpie: Sorry! I thought when I said it that I might be being too culturally specific. Helen Keller was a woman born in 1880 in Alabama. When she was a little under two years old she got sick and lost her sight and hearing. When she was about 7 her parents hired a governess for her, Annie Sullivan. Because she couldn't hear or see she couldn't communicate with anyone except in very basic ways and at that time nobody really thought she could learn to do so. But Annie Sullivan insisted on teaching her to fingerspell lots of words. Helen was bright and learned better behavior and lots of words, but the trick was to get her to understand what the words were, that they referred to things in the real world, that the thing she was trouching had a name, and this was it. The big moment (and the climax of the play and movie based on the story, "The Miracle Worker") was when one day Helen was running her hand under water at the well and Annie, as she'd done a hundred times, spelled w-a-t-e-r into her hand. Only this time she just...got it. Like a light went on behind her eyes and I think she even try to say "water" which was one of the few words she'd known before she got sick. Immediately Helen started demanding to know the names for everything, and went on to learn to read and write, go to college, writer her autobiography, talk to groups, etc. So in the US that image of "Helen Keller at the Well" kind of stands for this breakthrough from being locked in darkness to being in the world, etc. :-) -m From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 18:59:57 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 18:59:57 -0000 Subject: Draco's and Harry's wealth (was:Re: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics) In-Reply-To: <8FDFC51F-2FF6-436D-89AA-5A284F01A752@alltel.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150732 > >>kchuplis: > Much too tired to do more than this, but I really have to take a > major exception to this idea that Harry is richer than Draco. Draco > has the money or credit to buy a 1600 galleon necklace in HBP. I > suspect that Harry had hands on his own cash sooner but it is only > described as a "small fortune". Which could mean anything but if > Lucius can afford to buy the entire Quidditch team Nimbus 2001s, > Draco has plenty of backing and apparently the means to get at it. Betsy Hp: I'm not trying to suggest that the Potters were on even financial standing with the Malfoys. Though canon tells us little to nothing, I suspect the Malfoys are meant to be seen as richer. But Draco is (well, was) a dependent. It was *Lucius* who bought the brooms; Draco couldn't have afforded them. I'm not saying Harry could have afforded them himself. But when it came down to spending cash, Harry had more available to him than Draco. (This may have changed since Draco's reaching his majority.) The only reason I thought this at all worth mentioning (way, way upthread ) was it was just one more example of Harry having more power than Draco. It was yet one more way that Draco failed to fulfill the "powerful bully" role that he'd have probably been put in if this were an actual school-days story. Betsy Hp From kchuplis at alltel.net Sat Apr 8 19:27:56 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 14:27:56 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Draco's and Harry's wealth (was:Re: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150733 On Apr 8, 2006, at 1:59 PM, horridporrid03 wrote: > The only reason I thought this at all worth mentioning (way, way > upthread ) was it was just one more example of Harry having more > power than Draco. It was yet one more way that Draco failed to > fulfill the "powerful bully" role that he'd have probably been put in > if this were an actual school-days story. kchuplis: I guess I continue to fail to understand why it is necessary to discuss what HP is not. (I wasn't aware of the "school days" story genre nor elements of such a genre). I guess that I also do not see it as making Harry more powerful that he has direct access to money (so to speak - yes, he gets a sack at the beginning of term, but we see in PoA that he is very careful with it so that he never gets in a position where he is short). Harry does not *act* upon the direct access to largess, where as Draco seems to be the sort of "rich kid" in behaviour and acquisitions that *does* act upon the family fortune even though he doesn't have direct access. To me, that makes him effectively "richer" than Harry which I think does fulfill your character requirement, but that is just IMO. Perhaps it is because in Harry's POV there is the constantly Poor Weasley Family that causes a bit of a warped view of Harry's wealth. I just think Draco can have whatever Draco wants basically but Harry would LIKE to give the Weasley's what he does not need because he controls his budget fairly effectively. Just another way in which we all seem to view characters differently. From bboyminn at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 20:31:05 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 20:31:05 -0000 Subject: The Ancient and Noble House of Slytherin In-Reply-To: <006001c65b37$c51626d0$72b4400c@Spot> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150734 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Magpie" wrote: > > Steve: > > Most Slytherins- > > > Good Slytherins- > > > > I don't think we need ONE token Good Slytherin, and I don't > > think we need a conversion of all or most Slytherins. I say > > that if, in the absents of Draco's intimidation, > > Magpie: > This is one of the major problems I've always had with the "good > SlytherinS" theory--what intimidation from Draco? Draco isn't > shown to be intimidating any Slytherins ever in the story. bboyminn: My main point is shown below, and that is simply that it's not an all-or-nothing affair. I find this frequently when we are discussing various subject related to the books. For example, if Draco were to join the good side then he and Harry would be 'best buddies forever'. But, that is not necessarily true. Nor is it necessarily true that each and every Slytherin student must join the side of good for the Houses to be considered united. There will be some DE's and Voldemort sympathizer in every House, so why should we expect perfection of unity from Slytherin? I say we shouldn't. But if most normal Slytherins support the status quo (ie: the Ministry) and cooperate, then I say the Four Houses are as united as they will ever be or ever were. My Draco comment was very incidental to my main statement. But as long as you brought Draco up, let's explore. Draco is a bully, and further, he is very outspoken about his beliefs regarding Voldemort, Purebloods, etc.... Anyone who has ever been to high school knows that the local schoolyard bully doesn't have to confront you personally for you to feel intimidated by him. That said, I will agree that, in general, we don't really see Draco intimidating fellow Slytherins. Though I am sure I can find passages that I can stretch to imply that. But that's not really necessary, because as I said, it doesn't necessarily take a direct threat or a direct act of confrontation for people to feel intimidated. I think to most average, in the background, Slytherins, Draco attitude is very intimidating. How could it not be? So, I guess I'm saying I didn't expect anyone to give much weight to my comment about Draco since my central point was something else entirely. However, I think Draco's presence in the school does set a mood that is anti-muggle-born and anti-Gryffindor and anti-anything that annoys Draco in the moment. I see Draco's presence at Hogwarts as being a powerful influential force. He is outspoken and seems to have the implied priviledge of wealth. He feels he is protected from anything he says and does by his father's wealth and power. Just that alone is enough to intimidate some people. So, my point relative to Draco is simply that it makes it easier for other Slytherins to step forward without fear of conflict with Draco. Whether that 'conflict' represents 'intimidation' or not is not so relevant. It's simply easier without Draco there. Do you really deny that it is easier for generally good Slytherin with Draco absent? > ...edited.. > > Steve: > > we get /some/ Slytherins who can see the folly of following a > > deranged dictator like Voldemort and join the good side to > > fight against Voldemort, then the four House are united > > as they were meant to be. It's not an all-or-nothing sort of > > thing. > > Magpie: > It's definitely not all or nothing, imo, but I'd say it depends > a lot on who these people are. A bunch of new people we've > never heard of show up to join Harry? That's been suggested in > the past and to me that's no solution because it's no story. I > think the houses united means uniting the rift we've seen, not > just filling out Harry's army with some kids from the dungeons > or revealing that Auror #3 was in Slytherin. > bboyminn: If I understand the first part of your statement correctly, you have a problem with unknown unnamed background Slytherins suddenly stepping forward and playing a more noticable role in the story. I can certainly see that, but I think we have been introduced to enough Slytherins by name that one or two of them could step forward as the leaders, and the remaining 'good' Slytherins could remain unnamed. True in the last (most recent) book the named Slytherins we see have not been too friendly toward Harry, but I have to wonder if that is based on typical schoolboy rivalries, or if it is a clear and solid reflection of blood prejudice and support for Voldemort? Personally, I lean toward schoolboy rivalries. In the absents of Draco, I think some of the schoolboy rivals will be more willing to oppose Voldemort. As far as the 'good Slytherin' story being no story, I can foresee an attack on Hogwarts. I have said before that capturing Hogwarts and it's students would allow Voldemort to essentially blackmail the entire wizard world into cooperation. Hold the Children of the wizard world, and you effectively hold the entire wizard world. Now with Dumbledore gone, Hogwarts becomes a very appealing target. Voldemort might just be foolish enough to see some merit in this plan. Voldemort might even succeed, and that sets the scene for Slytherins to either cooperate with Voldemort, or overtly and convertly fight against him. Nothing like being someone's prisoner to make you think poorly of them. My point is, in the framework you laid out, there probably isn't that much of a story to 'good Slytherin'. What I am saying, is that circumstances could occur in which the story might be made good. I do agree that it's not simply a matter of a few Slytherins joining Harry. I think there needs to be more story than that. I think for the rift to be healed, they have to join not to fight Voldemort, but to defend their school. Perhaps even to defend their world, which will certainly fall apart if Voldemort takes over. I guess we could ask why do any people anywhere ever join a slightly mad dictator. Well, it usually because they see themselves gaining wealth and power in the process, and those visions of wealth an power blind them to what they have to do and what they have to give up. We see how Voldemort treats his supporters, they bow and scrape and kiss the hem of his robs. He tortures and kills them without hesitation and with very little provocation. Still the delusions of wealth and power blind them until it's too lated. I have to believe that there are some intelligent Slytherin who see the utter and complete folly of supporting Voldemort. As I've said many times before, the wizard world (and probably the muggle world) under Voldemort's rule will be a world in ruins. Commerce will be destroyed. The poor will become utterly dirt poor. The middle class will fall into ruin. The wealthy will be force to do Voldemort's largely irrational bidding, or accept utter personal and financial distruction. Slytherins are ambitious, they want to get rich and stay rich, and that simply can't happen with the economy and international trade complete destroyed. To an ambitious talented Slytherin with grand plans for achieving personal wealth, fame, and power, supporting Voldemort is the absolute worst thing they could do. If nothing else greed tempered with common sense will lead them to oppose Voldemort. > Joe Goodwin: > It just seems to me and Snape and Draco both working for the good > guys after having seen the error of their ways is a good bit too > contrived for a writer as imaginative as JKR. If that happened I > would expect everyone to join hands and sing Christmas Carols in > Whoville. > > Magpie: > I'm honestly surprised by this. Not because I think either Snape > or Draco are wonderful people or not potentially Voldemort-loyal, > but what is so overly happy about this outcome? I mean, ..., it > would be a case of anyone suddenly sprouting a halo. She'd > probably put them through hell to earn it first. > > I'm even more puzzled by the idea that what should happen is some > minor Slytherin will politically decide what's best is to work > for Harry and then that will take care of it because...Who on > earth cares? ...edited much good stuff.... bboyminn: Though I'm much overstating it, some people seem to think that if Draco joins the good side, he and Harry will be skipping through a meadow of flowers holding hands and whistling show tunes. NOT! Will Draco really join the side of good in his heart, thereby completely reforming his beliefs and his attitudes, or will he simply reject working for Voldemort as too dangerous? Rejecting Voldemort does not mean suddenly accepting all good, right, and moral principles. Draco is basically a misguided cowards; as I've said before, I think in his mind, Draco pictured himself standing shoulder to shoulder with Voldemort while adoring and/or fearful crowds bowed down to them. He certianly didn't picture himself killing Dumbledore. He certainly did picture himself compelled under thread of death doing things he certainly did not want to do. He certainly did no see himself bowing, scraping, and kissing Voldemort's hem. Draco had grand delusions of what it meant to be a Death Eater, and now he is finding that his grand delusions are really dark, terrible, degrading, painful, dangerous, and reprehensible things. Harry Potter, in Draco's eyese, might be an annoying prat, but he is not prone to torturing and killing people on a whim. It's far safer to support Harry than it is to support Voldemort. So, let's not create any grand delusions of Draco suddenly becoming all flowers and show tunes. Draco is a Slytherin, and when he sees that it is in his best long term and short term interest to NOT support Voldemort, then that is what he will do. In other words, Draco's delusions have been shattered, and now he is faced with a heavy dose of reality, hard cold nasty reality, and he is rethinking his life. Perhaps he will be able to get out, perhaps he won't, but I know for sure, Draco is no longer having grand romantic delusion about what it means to be a Death Eater. For what it's worth. Steve/bboyminn From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 20:58:22 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 20:58:22 -0000 Subject: Draco's and Harry's wealth (was:Re: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150735 > >>kchuplis: > I guess I continue to fail to understand why it is necessary to > discuss what HP is not. Betsy Hp: Well, we were discussing Pansy as a "mean girl" type, and I was saying that she doesn't properly fulfill that role, just as Draco doesn't properly fulfill the "big man on campus bully" role. So at that time, to my mind, it was necessary to point out that JKR wasn't writing that sort of tale anyway. She didn't *need* a "mean girl" or a "BMOC bully". Anyway, sometimes the best way to arrive at what something *is*, is to figure out what it is *not*. (Or if not the best, it can be an interesting trip, IMO. ) > >>kchuplis: > (I wasn't aware of the "school days" story genre nor elements of > such a genre). Betsy Hp: >From what I understand, a "school days" story (or is it "school story"?) is a coming of age story and follows the protagonist as they navigate the path from adolescence to adulthood while at boarding school. See this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_story Funnily enough, when my sister recommended the Potter books to me she told me the series was a lot like "Malory Towers" only with magic. (My sisters and I loved those books as little girls.) The Potter books do have that flavor, but Harry moves well beyond a simple school boy with simple school-boy worries in the very first book, I think. > >>kchuplis: > I guess that I also do not see it as making Harry more powerful > that he has direct access to money... > Harry does not *act* upon the direct access to largess, where as > Draco seems to be the sort of "rich kid" in behaviour and > acquisitions that *does* act upon the family fortune even though > he doesn't have direct access. To me, that makes him > effectively "richer" than Harry which I think does fulfill your > character requirement, but that is just IMO. > Betsy Hp: Well, Harry is not a "BMOC bully" himself. He'd never think to use his easy access to funds as a tool to lord over the other boys in his dorm. He *could* do so, just as he could cash in on his fame as the "Boy Who Lived" to gain a large following of sycophants, but that just wouldn't be Harry. He'd absolutely cringe at the idea. Draco, on the other hand, has no problem invoking his family name (and the apparent connections it brings), and also has no problem pointing out the advantages of his family's wealth. Draco would have gladly fulfilled the "BMOC bully" role. But he can't. Because, though Harry's too modest to *use* his power, it does trump Draco's. And Draco knows it. So, it's not that I'm saying Draco *won't* be the "BMOC bully", it's that he *can't*. Just as Pansy may have hoped to play "mean girl" to Hermione, but she can't. Hermione has too much power. There's also the added difficulty of the Slytherin students being a shunned minority (deserved or not) rather than an elite club. The Slytherins are put firmly into the under-dog or black sheep role at the end of PS/SS. Which is fitting, I guess, since that is when the school-days part of the story is also rather firmly put aside. Betsy Hp From willsonkmom at msn.com Sat Apr 8 21:01:37 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 21:01:37 -0000 Subject: Lupin Means Wolf Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150736 Potioncat ducks. Ginger has a bag of tomatoes that she's about to throw and Geoff is about to chuck a dictionary at her...Oh, Ginger is making a salad and Geoff doesn't need the dictionary to explain that Lupin does NOT mean wolf. Both are frowning at Potioncat. OK, a bit of history and a question. I'm reading romance novels...it's OK they're rather old British Romance, so they're almost literature. Mary Stewart, Pilcher, Binchley...that sort. So everyone of them has several (at least several) scenes that take place in the English Garden. It appears to be a requirement of the genre that the garden and all its flowers are described in great detail. Every garden ever mentioned has lupins. One book by Stewart has a pair of sisters that the neighborhood children think are witches. One of them makes wild predictions about people that can't possibly be correct and no one takes her seriously. She's rushing around among the lupins looking for her neighbor's lost turtle/tortoise which has just laid an egg although they thought it was a boy. I had to read that chapter twice, and double check the published date because it read like a parody of HP. The dotty divination character turned out to be right in an unexpected sort of way. So, although I've learned at this site that Lupin is a flower, I didn't realise it was a common flower and that every decent person in the UK grew it in their garden....or else! So, way back when, when PoA was new, and you didn't yet know his name was Remus or that he had a furry problem, did you see Professor Lupin in the same way that you might have seen Professor Flowers or Profesor Rose? (Both of those are real names.) It just seems to me that if you know it's a flower, the name Lupin makes him seem so much more gentle. Never mind it also sounds like looping, or makes one think: Lupine. Potioncat, who currently needs books that don't challenge the mind too much, if at all, and enjoys listening to Sir Paul sing about English tea and gardens. From belviso at attglobal.net Sat Apr 8 21:52:15 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 17:52:15 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: The Ancient and Noble House of Slytherin References: Message-ID: <009801c65b56$b3a86330$72b4400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 150737 > bboyminn: > > My main point is shown below, and that is simply that it's not an > all-or-nothing affair. I find this frequently when we are discussing > various subject related to the books. For example, if Draco were to > join the good side then he and Harry would be 'best buddies forever'. > But, that is not necessarily true. ...Do you really deny > that it is easier for generally good Slytherin with Draco absent? Magpie: Ah, I see. Then I definitely agree--and with your next description of Slytherin being able to contain people with different views as well. Otherwise it seems like we're sort of talking about ending bigotry completely, which I think is unrealistic, and as you say, why expect it from Slytherin when not from anyone else? To the Draco question specifically, I guess I can go either way. When I think of Draco absent from Slytherin, to be honest it doesn't seem like it makes that much difference. We lose one kid who's a bad influence, who maybe could very well be the difference between a particular kid leaning one way or the other. But I don't think the problem is this one kid, and don't think the house influences him in the other direction because as a house it's already open to what he's saying. So while I do think that Draco would be one more thing encouraging a Slytherin to make the wrong choice, I can't be sure that he's the only kid encouraging other Slytherins to do that. I'd be intimidated by sexy Blaise Zabini as well, for instance. And Draco's not even ever been in the oldest class. But where I do agree is that yes, Draco's obviously an important student in his year and he's going to influence the others. So I tend to feel that better than Draco just being removed is Draco inspiring students in the other direction-which doesn't have to mean Draco switching sides and becoming a charismatic leader of all the Slytherins to the side of light, of course. He could die in a way that brought the lesson home. Or change to become a different kind of influence. Maybe because it seems like Draco himself is so obviously the product of influences. I don't say that to suggest he's not responsible for his own behavior, just that from what I've read it seems made clear that Draco isn't unique. The hat put him Slytherin because he is very Slytherin, his family has a long history there, it's Voldemort's house, it's the house of many DEs, it was young Snape's house, three other boys in Draco's year have DE fathers and while Draco is the most visible leader they may all independently be a lot like him anyway. Also I think maybe I just have a flag go up at the idea of Draco being removed so that other students have less fear of stepping forward. JKR seems to consider courage the most important virtue, because without it no other virtue can exist. Someone afraid to speak out against Voldemort because of Draco Malfoy is a perfect example. They are not virtuous not because Draco Malfoy keeps them from being so, but because their own lack of courage keeps them from being so. There's not even any actual threat to them, considering this is a kid who's been walloped in public more than once, had his family been disgraced publically more than once. Neville Longbottom isn't afraid to take him on, what's holding others back? So yes, to a certain extent I would deny that it would be easier for a Good Slytherin with Draco absent. I would agree it's easier because it's easier for anyone without an antagonist. But I would seriously question the use of the word "good." Perhaps "neutral" would be a better term, since we're talking about people who maybe think bigotry is wrong, but not to the point of speaking up as long as there's a rich kid in your dorm who seems to favor it, even if he's 11 and you're 17. > bboyminn: > > If I understand the first part of your statement correctly, you have a > problem with unknown unnamed background Slytherins suddenly stepping > forward and playing a more noticable role in the story. I can > certainly see that, but I think we have been introduced to enough > Slytherins by name that one or two of them could step forward as the > leaders, and the remaining 'good' Slytherins could remain unnamed. > True in the last (most recent) book the named Slytherins we see have > not been too friendly toward Harry, but I have to wonder if that is > based on typical schoolboy rivalries, or if it is a clear and solid > reflection of blood prejudice and support for Voldemort? Personally, I > lean toward schoolboy rivalries. In the absents of Draco, I think some > of the schoolboy rivals will be more willing to oppose Voldemort. > As far as the 'good Slytherin' story being no story, I can foresee an > attack on Hogwarts. Magpie: I still think all of this is a completely different book than the one we're reading. It's not a war novel. The conflict with Slytherin has been laid out personally, not as a foreign country who would tip the balance as an ally. The story goes where the conflict is, and there's no conflict between Harry and people he's never met. Sydney laid this out wonderfully in her post about villains: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149090 In it she points out that this story has always been antagonist driven, not villain-driven, and that Voldemort is more accurately described as a Monster, an embodiment of evil who is defeated through spiritual tools in dream-like confrontations. It does seem like we need Slytherin to join with the other houses for Voldemort to be defeated but if there is a literal army of students working together, it will still, imo, be secondary, a reflection of the true drama with the Slytherin antagonists. They're the ones more at the center of the story, imo. Steve: > I have to believe that there are some intelligent Slytherin who see > the utter and complete folly of supporting Voldemort. Magpie: Well, sure there could be. Slughorn is one. He gave Harry the memory about the Horcruxes. Why doesn't that join the houses? Nothing's stopping other students from acting. Any Slytherins who are anti-Voldemort can join in a fight at Hogwarts along with any Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws who choose to fight (Draco won't be there to be annoyed), but that doesn't resolve Harry's conflicts. > bboyminn: > > Though I'm much overstating it, some people seem to think that if > Draco joins the good side, he and Harry will be skipping through a > meadow of flowers holding hands and whistling show tunes. NOT! > > Will Draco really join the side of good in his heart, thereby > completely reforming his beliefs and his attitudes, or will he simply > reject working for Voldemort as too dangerous? Rejecting Voldemort > does not mean suddenly accepting all good, right, and moral > principles. Draco is basically a misguided cowards; as I've said > before, I think in his mind, Draco pictured himself standing shoulder > to shoulder with Voldemort while adoring and/or fearful crowds bowed > down to them. He certianly didn't picture himself killing Dumbledore. > He certainly did picture himself compelled under thread of death doing > things he certainly did not want to do. He certainly did no see > himself bowing, scraping, and kissing Voldemort's hem. Draco had grand > delusions of what it meant to be a Death Eater, and now he is finding > that his grand delusions are really dark, terrible, degrading, > painful, dangerous, and reprehensible things. Magpie: I don't find "coward" particularly enlightening about Draco but where I agree is that his joining the other side does not automatically lead to being bff with Harry or changing fundementally--and I think JKR would make an important distinction between those two things. Dumbledore was essentially offering Draco the opportunity to switch sides without fundamentally changing, at least in that moment. But I think with Dumbledore's death JKR could be setting it up so Draco has to do one if he wants to do the other. And that, to me, is compelling. It's what I said about the political--I just don't think it's at the heart of the story. A real understanding of what's truly wrong with Voldemort's whole mindset, that it leads to ruin and destroys its followers as well as the enemy, is dramatic. There's nothing particularly dramatic about just a political maneuver, at least that's how it seems to me instinctually. Draco even rejected Lucius' political advice when he continued to openly antagonize Harry. Steve: > In other words, Draco's delusions have been shattered, and now he is > faced with a heavy dose of reality, hard cold nasty reality, and he is > rethinking his life. Perhaps he will be able to get out, perhaps he > won't, but I know for sure, Draco is no longer having grand romantic > delusion about what it means to be a Death Eater. Magpie: I agree--and actually, here is where I may see something different in Draco or at least something that hasn't been discussed. It connects to why I don't use the word "coward" in discussing his story. It seems like it's always been taken as a given in fandom that Draco doesn't want to get his hands dirty, that he wants the power and imagines it's cool to be a DE but can't face the reality. And I agree with that on one level, but I don't think he's been portrayed as quite the political animal he's considered. I'm not quite ready to assume that there wasn't any real desire to be a hero (a hero which to us is a villain, of course) here. Imagine, for instance, Ron in Draco's position. Arthur's been killed by Voldemort. Dumbledore gives him the secret mission of killing Lucius Malfoy. Ron knows it's really a suicide mission; Dumbledore is hoping Ron will die for some reason. But Ron closes in on himself and vows to do it. He rejects Hermione's help. He makes attempts on Lucius' life but ultimately can't force himself to be a killer. Does Ron just sound like a coward whose empty pipe dreams of glory got replaced with reality? He did get a dose of reality, but I can see his actions as a need to prove himself and do something for his father as well as a desire for glory. It seems like many people completely reject that way of looking at things for Draco since after all, he's trying to murder a good, innocent person in the service of an evil man with a plan for ethnic cleansing. But for me it still exists even as I acknowledge that killing Lucius Malfoy is not the moral equivalent of killing Albus Dumbledore. He's a boy dtrying really hard to do something dangerous and scary on his own. It may be in the service of something evil, but I think he is drawing on courage throughout the year. So to me the events of HBP, while putting Draco further down the path to evil, makes him more potentially capable of seeing what's truly wrong about Voldemort than another Slytherin, not less. Harry's last thoughts about him in the text acknowledge his fascination with the Dark Arts but also describe him as someone Voldemort is forcing to do things to protect his family. It seems like that situation could lead not only to Draco wanting to change sides for practical reasons but seeing that Dumbledore was a better man than Voldemort. The events of HBP in a weird way seem to make Draco finally someone worth having on the other side to me (if he was genuinely switching sides) where as before it would have just been a case of neutralizing him and protecting him as a child. -m From djklaugh at comcast.net Sat Apr 8 21:54:00 2006 From: djklaugh at comcast.net (Deb) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 21:54:00 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose /Why I Hate Snape/Snape's Worst Memory In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150738 > KathyK: > > I certainly agree Crouch Jr had to do a fair bit of acting to > impersonate Mad-Eye for a year, but he does hate Death Eaters "who > walked free." He says this as Moody back in Chapter 25 of GoF and > then agin in Chapter 35 when he has revealed himself as LV's follower > (he called those who avoided Azkaban, "scum," "treacherous cowards," > "worthless bits of filth," etc). He was not feigning hatred toward > the Malfoys or Snape. He *hates* them rather violently. That part of > the Crouch!Moody bit was not an act. Deb: (trying to recreate scintilating prose that I wrote last night in response to KathyK -- which appears to have been eaten by Crumple- Horned Snorkack or some other beastie. Wish I had a QuikQuotes computer!) Yes you're right. I'd forgotten about his hating DEs who walked free. Wonder what he would have thought, if he had survived to meet up with LV after his return, of LV welcoming Snape back into the DEs with open arms? And how would he have reacted to LV pardoning (or what ever it was that LV did to accept the other DEs who didn't make it to Azkaban) Malfoy and the others? KathyK: > > I just went through the wording of the UV (I'm sure everyone else > already has a million times, but I haven't done so). Nothing Snape > promises goes against Lord Voldemort's wishes or interests as I > understand them from the Spinner's End chapter. Voldemort wants Draco > to kill Dumbledore. Expecting or hoping Draco will fail so he can > kill him does not change this. Narcissa asks Snape to watch over > Draco while Draco tries to complete his task. Snape promises to > protect Draco to the best of his ability. Then he promises to > complete the task should Draco fail. The end result is still a dead > Dumbledore. > > Can you explain how you think the UV goes against LV's wishes? 'Cause > I'm not convinced protecting Draco to the best of Snape's ability > includes protecting him against Voldemort should Draco fail. And > that's the only part of the vow I can see causing problems *if* it is > taken as a blanket protection of Draco and LV still wants to kill him > after Dumbledore is dead. Deb here: I think LV was setting Draco up to fail. After all Draco is only 16 years old, he has no experience repairing complex magical devises (and has never struck me as being particularly mechanically inclined), he's rather a wimp without his hulking cohorts Crabbe and Goyle, and I don't think LV really believes he actually has the cajones to kill DD if he got the chance. I think LV would be just as delighted if Draco failed as he would be if he succeeded(maybe even more so). If Draco failed at any or all of his assignment then LV could have the pleasure (from LV's POV) of punishing him - he could Crucio him, or AK him, or... LV *loves* to see others in torment. He gets his jollies by inflicting pain - look how he treated some of his followers at the graveyard. And by punishing Draco he could also punish Lucius! I think LV was LIVID when Lucius bungled the acquisition of the prophecy... and even more irate when Lucius and the other DEs were captured and sent to Azkaban. They are beyond his reach there so he can not hand out his own punishments - deprived not only of the prophecy and his henchmen, but also deprived of an opportunity to dish out excruciating pain to multiple miscreants - this is LIVIDD!LV! (Loving Iniquity, Voldemort Inflicts Delighted Damage - wheee my first acronym). IMO, the UV has thwarted this aspect of LV's twisted plan vis a vis Draco. When Draco escapes with Snape he is unscathed, his soul is still intact, and he successfully completed half of the assignment himself (fixing the Vanishing Cabinet and getting DEs into Hogwarts). One wonders where Snape takes him and how Draco will escape (if he indeed does) LV's punishment when he learns that Draco was not the one who killed DD. While the whole assignment has been complete in one way or another, I wonder if LV will be satisfied with that... or will he also feel frustrated because once again a Malfoy has evaded his wrath. KathyK: > > Well, yes. But Snape could still have created a role for himself > where he *didn't* hate, pick on, or ridicule HP or other students and > still would be able to explain away any sort of perceived favoritism > (or complete indifference) toward Harry, IMO. (This concludes the "me > too to Magpie" portion of my post). Deb here: In order for Snape to be able to convince LV that he is still LVM! Snape, Snape has to be able to "shut down feelings and memories that contradict the lie(s)" he is telling LV. This is the essence of Occlumency and Snape is a Master at it. But how does one hide lies from a Master of Legilimency? Well by sticking as close to the truth as possible, by staying as "in character" as possible. LV apparantly knew Snape well before he became Vapomort and would expect that any true DE would only become more vile, more vicious over time. Remember LV does not understand the "soft" emotions - he forgot the power of love in trying to kill Harry, compassion is a foreign word, tenderness is probably only for steak, and loyalty (again from LV's POV) is never a sure thing without painful reinforcers. LV rules his minions by fear and IMO he would expect that any returnee, especially one who had initially appeared to have left him, would be cowering when first arriving in LV's presence. Now I don't think Snape ever did "cowering" particularly well because it would be too reminiscent of his experience with his father(Occlumency lessons with Harry) and his experiences with James and friends, but he did apparently give fealty to LV at one point and would know what to expect when LV is displeased with someone. So when LV returns to corporeal existence and Snape returns to him, LV is going to expect a full accounting of the years since they last meet. And will expect that the emotions that go with the memories will be consistent with his(LV's) world view. I would imagine LV spent a lot of time just after his return, grilling each and every DE about what they had been doing since he vaporized and using his punishments to instill renewed fear and obedience into his troups. I also think that Legilimency has two aspects - a mental ability to sense emotions in others - rather like empathy - and pull up memories that fuel or trigger those emotions. And then there is the wand work Legilimency that appears to work by forcing out memories that are linked to emotions that contradict what the person is saying. For example, if I stood in front of LV and said "I am your servant, My Lord" when I am actually DD's person all the way, I'd better be able to pull up enough emotion to support the statement or LV is going to know I'm lying. And if he thinks that then out comes the wand and the Legilimens spell and out comes pouring all of the memories that are linked to the contradictory emotions. LV is like a human lie detector and the power of the Legilimens spell brings "proof" of any lies. But even RL mechanical lie detectors can be thwarted. The most typical way (I'm no expert on this - just what I remember reading) to foil a lie detector is to either be extremely angry during a test or be in serious pain. Those emotions can cause false readings from mechanical devices. Also true sociopaths who feel no emotions at all can foil a device because they lie all the time and feel no guilt or fear about doing so. So the role that Snape takes on vis a vis Harry and friends has to also be consistent with who LV remembers him to be - arrogant perhaps, brilliant definately, irritable, angry, caustic, and definately not warm and fuzzy!!! Just as we read him to be in the HP books, Snape would still need to shut down feelings and emotions that would indicate his loyalty has shifted to DD, that he has become a true member of the OOP, that he has been protecting and teaching Harry not to fulfill LV's wishes, but to fulfill DD's wishes. If he were kind to Harry or even merely neutral, I think that that would seem OOC to LV and would cause him to suspect Snape - and then if he used the Legilimens spell on Snape... would he then find out the doings of the OOP, information about DD's Horcrux hunts, the truth about Harry's wizardly abilities? Whether or not he likes Harry is irrelevant IMO. DD trusted Snape to be loyal to DD and to fulfill what ever assignments he has taken on for DD and the OOP. What ever happened between Snape and DD, what ever memory it is that fuels DD's repeated conviction that he trusts Snape, I think must be very powerful. While DD believes in second chances, I don't think he does that blindly. And I suspect that DD knows all about how to foil LV's lie detecting abilities. It appears to me that DD's bland, sweet, benign exterior is also one that LV can not penetrate. That maybe why LV feared him so much. While DD admits that Occlumency lessons were a fiasco, Harry did, I think learn a lot from them ... and not just from Snape's memories. He learned that embarassing or fearful experiences and the memories of them do not kill you. And I suspect that LV's attempts to use Harry's emotions and memories against him will not be very effective in the future. > > I can only sincerely hope that Book 7 will answer most of the > > question "Who is Severus Snape really?" > > KathyK: > > Me too. And I hope the answer is "A Really Bad Guy" Deb here: LOL Oh, no, no, no. Snape will be shown to be a courageous fighter for truth, justice and the Wizarding Way Deb (aka djklaugh) - I think I retrieved all of my previous musings from memory storage... unless I got zapped with a memory charm at the same time the Crumple-Horned Snorkack was devouring my previous post. From sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 19:10:31 2006 From: sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com (sugaranddixie1) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 19:10:31 -0000 Subject: Percy's sickle In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150739 >Angie here: >I thought there was some sort of tradition about finding a coin in food >being good luck. But then again, when I first read about Percy finding >the sickle, for some reason, I thought of Judas and the 33 pieces of >silver. E.T. again- You're right, Angie. Finding the coin is supposed to bring you good luck. Then again, Percy almost broke his tooth on it! I believe, (and someone from the U.K. can please correct me if I'm mistaken), that it is traditionally a silver piece that's hidden. So perhaps it was just tradition that dictated it was the silver piece that Percy found.... But I'm curious as to why JKR gave the wizard denominations the names she did. I've googled the three names- Galleon, Sickle & Knut, but haven't been able to deduce anything of significance from what I've found. Stiil I can't help wondering why it was Percy who JKR had find the coin... Your Judas association is interesting and sort of leads in the same direction. Are you thinking that Percy will betray someone into the hands of LV? A family member perhaps? We've grown so attached to the rest of the Weasley's (including Harry as honorary member) that if he gave up one of them to LV it would be truly horrendous! Or perhaps just the fact that he's basically estranged himself from his family and allied himself with the "official" ministry is in itself the ultimate betrayal and all that was being foretold? From aceworker at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 20:28:39 2006 From: aceworker at yahoo.com (career advisor) Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 13:28:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Trouble at the Wedding? How about at the school? In-Reply-To: <1144481053.899.80358.m19@yahoogroups.com> Message-ID: <20060408202839.72599.qmail@web30202.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150740 On Apr 7, 2006, at 9:55 PM, Kim wrote: > I'm curious about the "coming of age" factor for the summer before > Harry and > Neville turn 17. Ginny won't be 17 for some time yet. How can > Harry and > crew begin Horcrux Hunting if Harry can't perform magic? > > If there's trouble at the wedding and the wedding happens before > their 17th > birthdays then will Harry and Neville (surely he and gran are > invited?) be > called into a hearing to prove that they were in danger if they > should have > to defend themselves or others with magic? > > Will Hermione and Ron do all the magical stuff until Harry and > Neville turn > 17? > > Maybe we'll pick up the story on Harry's birthday again. There might be trouble at the wedding, but it won't be at the burrow, since I believe it has been mentioned that it will be in France. But why attack the wedding? If Voldermort wants a place where all his enemies are at the same location, the it is apparent where he needs to attack. He needs to attack right where we left off at the end of HBP. People are starting to disperse at the end of the funeral there, but Harry and Ron and Hermione are sitting there. Luna and Neville are nearby and so is just about anybody else who could be a threat to Voldermort and company. I sort of suspicious as to why JKR ended he book with the students at Hogwarts. She may have cut it there, so she start the next book off with a bang, literally! All other books have ended with the students home. So I'm wondering if the next book will start with a surprise attack and probably some very quick surprising and shocking deaths. All the D.A. members are there; even the ones who have graduated apparently. Fleur is there. Maybe Victor Krum? Many famous and strong wizards and witches. Can you imagine that Ron, Harry and Hermione have just started to relax and to talk about what happened under that famous beech tree of theirs when.....D.E.'s mounted on Dragons fly overhead, spells start flying and their friends start dying. Maybe Ginny is captured, or Luna or one of the trio is hurt and or dies, ... right away you would be reminded that this is a book about a war. How can Harry start the Horcrux hunt if he can't get away from the castle and immediately. has to defend Hogwarts? That would add immediate drama. Or alternatively, the Hogwarts express is attacked one the way home and there is big wreak/ action scene that scatters the allies. The Harry Potter series is an epic children's adventure that teaches about: War, death, Love and caring. Also that nice people can be bad (Umbridge for all her faults in my opinion is on the side of Good) and Nasty people can be good (which Snape and/or Draco will turn out to be). D.A Jones. From jsfigiel at aol.com Sat Apr 8 20:02:19 2006 From: jsfigiel at aol.com (jsfigiel at aol.com) Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 16:02:19 EDT Subject: Draco Message-ID: <1ab.4abc764f.316970cb@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150741 Alla: > Will Draco follow Regulus' path and commits the act of heroism while > defying Voldemort? It is possible of course, but IMO he has a long > way to go before he can be compared to Regulus' heroic deed. Magpie: Well, yeah. Regulus has his own story and Draco's whole story hasn't even been written yet. For all we know we'll hear he was AK'd a week after the end of HBP. I would only compare him to Regulus in the same way his author did, which is to say he bought the party line, joined up and got in over his head or whatever she said. But I'd suspect that if we were reading MWPP era and knew Regulus pre-revelation we might not have believed it of him either. I mean, isn't it ironic that the first we hear about Regulus is Sirius describing him as an unimportant idiot who got killed as a nobody? Jamie: I would not be too surprised to see Draco AK'd in the beginning of the 7th book either. JKR did say there will be deaths of some of the main characters and I think Draco is a character who could very easily be extinguished. First of all, he did not fulfill his obligations to LV and for that alone he could be killed. In fact, I think this was LVs plan all along. I think he KNOWS that Draco cannot fulfill his obligation because he just doesn't have the knowledge or magical experience to do it. Not to mention the fact that his death would be a signal to Lucius that LV's orders should be obeyed without fail. I think Draco was chosen for this assignment specifically to punish Lucius and LV has no reason not to kill him if he fails, which he did. I also don't think Snape can save Draco from LV. Even if he tried it would put him in danger and I'm not sure Snape is willing to die for a student, even if it is his beloved Draco. From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 23:16:41 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 23:16:41 -0000 Subject: Draco In-Reply-To: <1ab.4abc764f.316970cb@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150742 > Jamie: > I > think Draco was chosen for this assignment specifically to punish Lucius and > LV has no reason not to kill him if he fails, which he did. I also don't think > Snape can save Draco from LV. Even if he tried it would put him in danger > and I'm not sure Snape is willing to die for a student, even if it is his > beloved Draco. zgirnius: I wonder whether Snape has any choice but to try. The second clause of the Unbreakable Vow reads: "And will you, to the best of your ability, protect him from harm?" Unlike the first clause, this one does not have any qualifiers that would limit how long/when Snape must do this. ('as he attempts to fulfill the Dark Lord's wishes') From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 23:34:10 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 23:34:10 -0000 Subject: Draco a coward? WAS: Re: The Ancient and Noble House of Slytherin In-Reply-To: <009801c65b56$b3a86330$72b4400c@Spot> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150743 > Magpie: > I agree--and actually, here is where I may see something different in Draco > or at least something that hasn't been discussed. It connects to why I don't > use the word "coward" in discussing his story. It seems like many people completely reject that way of looking at things > for Draco since after all, he's trying to murder a good, innocent person in > the service of an evil man with a plan for ethnic cleansing. But for me it > still exists even as I acknowledge that killing Lucius Malfoy is not the > moral equivalent of killing Albus Dumbledore. He's a boy dtrying really > hard to do something dangerous and scary on his own. It may be in the > service of something evil, but I think he is drawing on courage throughout > the year. Alla: You know, if we were in the different story, I would totally see your point about Draco trying to do something dangerous and scary on his own and look at it as courageous, etc. But I just don't see ( remembering very old and long debate I had with somebody about related subject) a lot of "morals are relative" in Potterverse, I just don't. IMO JKR views courage as POSITIVE virtue, as you mentioned yourself she values courage beyond anything else, therefore I just don't see her viewing assasination attempts as courage. You brought an example with Ron, well , yes, of course, it is a mirror situation to Draco's, but as you said yourself in Potterverse killing Lucius Malfoy is so NOT a moral equivalent to killing Dumbledore. IMO of course. The best example to me of how morals are NOT relative in potterverse would be of course Snape switching sides. That is if he genuinely switched sides, of course. If we look at what Snape did from DE POV view, he is a stinking traytor, nothing more, probably he betrayed a lot of his friends, no? Nevertheless, if Snape genuinely turned he would be viewed as someone who committed courageous act of returning to the Right side, no? Therefore to me Draco does not just does something dangerous and scary on its own, he tries to do something EVIL, very evil on his own, I just don't think at all that JKR would view it as courage So yes, I view Draco's actions as coward way to do things, not just in HBP by the way, but throughout the books. I have a feeling that if Draco TURNS, then for the first time in the books he will be praised for courage. As of today, I would be hard pressed to remember Draco doing one courageous thing through the books, be it running his mouth at Hermione in CoS, or sabotaging Harry as "dementors" in POA ( as Mcgonagall correctly called them cowardly ways), or lying about his injury to such Hagrid and Buckbeak, or of course coming to Harry's compartment with Crabe and Goyle, or for that matter taking Crabb and Goyle everywhere with him. I think courageous is another objective that Draco will have to earn , personally. JMO, Alla From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 23:50:35 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 23:50:35 -0000 Subject: Draco In-Reply-To: <1ab.4abc764f.316970cb@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150744 > >>Jamie: > I would not be too surprised to see Draco AK'd in the beginning of > the 7th book either. > Betsy Hp: I *would* be surprised if Draco gets killed in the opening pages of book 7. After spending all that time in HBP building and deepening the character of Draco it would be odd for JKR to turn him into a footnote. > >>Jamie: > I also don't think Snape can save Draco from LV. Even if he tried > it would put him in danger and I'm not sure Snape is willing to > die for a student, even if it is his beloved Draco. > >>zgirnius: > I wonder whether Snape has any choice but to try. The second clause > of the Unbreakable Vow reads: > "And will you, to the best of your ability, protect him from harm?" > Unlike the first clause, this one does not have any qualifiers that > would limit how long/when Snape must do this. ('as he attempts to > fulfill the Dark Lord's wishes') Betsy Hp: I agree. I'd add that just by taking the Vow Snape signaled his willingness to die to protect Draco. Of course, I see Snape as DDM (Dumbledore's Man) and since Dumbledore sacrificed so much to save Draco I can't see Snape allowing all of Dumbledore's work to go to waste. Betsy Hp From mgrantwich at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 00:44:33 2006 From: mgrantwich at yahoo.com (Magda Grantwich) Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 17:44:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Draco In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060409004433.4229.qmail@web53101.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150745 > Betsy Hp: > I *would* be surprised if Draco gets killed in the opening pages of > book 7. After spending all that time in HBP building and deepening > the character of Draco it would be odd for JKR to turn him into a > footnote. I wouldn't. That's pretty much what happened to Remus Lupin, wasn't it? I think JKR gives characters one shot at major status and then they sink back into wallpaper-dom for the rest of the series. Lupin had POA; Draco had HBP. I can see Harry having a run-in with Draco in Diagon or Knockturn Alley (and it wouldn't be a friendly conversation) and getting an update on what's happening with Snape, but I don't think Draco is coming back in a big way. Lucius, on the other hand, might return. Magda __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From orgone9 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 00:15:07 2006 From: orgone9 at yahoo.com (Len Jaffe) Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 17:15:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Score at No. 4 ( was: Danger at the Wedding? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060409001507.1933.qmail@web80614.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150746 > Talisman wrote: > Reminding you that, per Rowling, Dudley is the only > salvagable Dursley. Dudley as an Orphan, having to going to live with a wizarding family, or with Mrs. Figg and her cats, maybe Filch needs and assitant, maybe Mrs. Cole's orphanage...He could get a job as a joke tester a WWW I mean, if the LV & the DEs liquify #4, it'll be the least the WW can do for Dudders is to take him in. I'm sure there's plenty of nutters who'd like to adopt a muggle. [Adopt a muggle, get a rubber duck!] It would be kind of fun to have Draco show up at #4, start talking smack at Harry, and have Dudley, the boxing champ, lay him out cold. Len. Leonard A. Jaffe lenjaffe at jaffesystems.com Leonard Jaffe Computer Systems Consulting Ltd. Columbus, OH, USA 614-404-4214 F: 530-380-7423 From tonks_op at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 01:37:02 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 01:37:02 -0000 Subject: R.A.B In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150747 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" wrote: > > Magda Grantwich wrote: > > My personal assumption (I wouldn't call it a theory) about RAB is > > that RAB is Regulus and that Regulus switched the lockets BEFORE > the locket got put in the cave, Snip > Potioncat: > Me too! {an elf with NYC on her tea towel clears her throat just as Potioncat is about to hit the send key.) > > Let me expand on that. > > Actually, the locket only had to fool one person, the person who > placed it in the basin. (Snip)> > I suspect that whoever placed the locket in the basin is still in > the lake...and that could be RAB. Or RAB, as a "loyal" DE and > favorite cousin of Bella's may have helped her place the locket. He tricked her and replaced the locket prior to taking it to the lake. > Shortly after that, it was determined he had lost interest in the > overall program and was killed. But no one knew yet that he had > switched the locket. > (snip> > Potioncat: > I agree. The switched locket was placed before the traps were set > up. > Tonks: Makes sense. That is that RAB is in the lake. Perhaps he was sent with Bella to place the locket in the cave and was never expected to come out alive. Maybe Bella stayed on the bank and he went across in the boat. She doesn't seem to have any problem killing a relative. If it was known that he might be having second thoughts it could have been set up for him to die there. After all it seems to be a dangerous job to get to the pensive in the center of the lake, he may have been sent because it was dangerous and if he was successful and on his way back in the boat, Bella could have finished him there. If this theory is correct then it follows that he switched the lockets before he left the house. Or somewhere else and he told Kreacher to take it back to the house. The question is: Is the real locket still a horcrux? It can't be opened therefore, I think that it is still a horcrux and that it was in the stuff that Mundungus had in the bag when Tonks saw him. Who has it now? Tonks_op From richter at ridgenet.net Sun Apr 9 01:53:16 2006 From: richter at ridgenet.net (richter_kuymal) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 01:53:16 -0000 Subject: Chamber of Secrets In-Reply-To: <4437D1F7.000006.04036@D33LDD51> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150748 Donna Asks: entrance to the chamber is a large pipe located under a sink complete with water taps. Now, my question is: did people living over a thousand years ago have sinks and water taps for plumbing? If these "modern" conveniences were added much, much later after the chamber was built, when installing the new conveniences, why didn't someone investigate the huge pipe and check it for leaks, etc? PAR: yes, there were water plumbing systems that would allow for sinks and water fountains --- from the "history channel" site: http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/hometech/toilet.html King Minos of Crete owned the world's first flushing water closet over 2800 years ago. and there is some evidence that the Romans had indoor plumbing in many of their structures in England -- http://www.naciente.com/essay55.htm -- the Romans had a system of indoor plumbing although it didn't extend to the "flush toilet" Additional at http://plumbing.1800anytyme.com/info/history_of_plumbing.php. The problem is that even so, the best of water systems needs periodic upkeep and creating a bathroom complete with faucets (as opposed to fountains) and toilets that flushed would have required occasional upgrades and modifications. So either some wizard did the work who knew about the chamber and put the snake on the tap, the upkeep is done by House Elves (who keep the secrets of the founders), the castle itself modifies according to need (part of the original enchantment) or, possibly the upkeep has been done by wizards but the snake on the faucet was done by LV. PAR. From miss_gotta at yahoo.com Sat Apr 8 20:30:45 2006 From: miss_gotta at yahoo.com (miss_gotta) Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 20:30:45 -0000 Subject: Is Dumbledore a Hebrew hero!? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150749 To all of you who might be open-minded...(Anat,(22) Israel) Let's make it short as possible: it might sounds delusional but I thought that there might be a conection between Dumbledore and the Hebrew hero "Joseph Trumpeldor": 1. He fought for identity and freedom in a notorious kind of way... 2. He lost his left arm and kept fighting aftrwards. 3. While he was dying, he said "Never mind, it is good to die for our country". ( As Dumbledore died for the wizarding world?) 4. There is a memorial statue of a roaring lion (Gryffindor?) for his remembrance. 5. "Dumbledore" and "Trumpeldor" sounds alike. What do you think?!? p.s: try also at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Trumpeldor From tonks_op at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 02:16:47 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 02:16:47 -0000 Subject: Percy's sickle In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150750 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sugaranddixie1" wrote: > > > You're right, Angie. Finding the coin is supposed to bring you good luck. Then again, Percy almost broke his tooth on it! (Snip:> > But I'm curious as to why JKR gave the wizard denominations the names she did. I've googled the three names- Galleon, Sickle & Knut, but haven't been able to deduce anything of significance from what I've found. Stiil I can't help wondering why it was Percy who JKR had find the coin... > Tonks: I have never thought about the names of the coins before. Thank you for bringing that up. I used the Dictionary.com site and came up with this: Sickle is the cutting mechanism of a reaper. (Like what the Grim Reaper carries. So maybe is means something to do with death. Or reaping what you sow for Percy.) Galleon is A large three-masted sailing ship with a square rig and usually two or more decks, used from the 15th to the 17th century especially by Spain as a merchant ship or warship. Knut: king of Denmark and Norway who forced Edmund II to divide England with him; on the death of Edmund II, Canute became king of all England (994-1035) [syn: Canute, Cnut, Knut, Canute the Great] I seached the web for Canute the Great and found some interesting information and a picture that I have seen somewhere before. And it may have been in connection with the HP books, but I am not sure. Here is the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canute_the_Great He was king and divided the country into 4 parts. I thought of the 4 houses here, but I don't really think that it means anything. There was a coin with his face on it, this might be significant and where she got the idea. Since it is the smallest coin it probably means that she doesn't think much of him. Tonks_op From tonks_op at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 03:32:07 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 03:32:07 -0000 Subject: Snape=Judas? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150751 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "juli17ptf" wrote: > > I was reading an article in the L.A. Times this morning about the lost Gospel of Judas, a series of conversations wherein Judas was Jesus' closest friend, and only carried out his betrayal because Jesus asked him to do it. Beside the debate of whether this early gospel (one of many that were declared heretical by the early church) portrays the true relationship between Jesus and Judas, I couldn't help thinking of Snape and Dumbledore as I read this. > (Snip) Elisabet wrote: >Oh dear, I have a horrid picture forming in my mind of JKR letting out an evil cackle as she buries a sealed earthern jar - within which is contained the *true* manuscript of book 7 - in the floor of some >nondescript cave in the Egyptian desert... Tonks: Is JKR really Cassandra? Makes you wonder doesn't it? I don't mean that she actually buried a jar, but how does she KNOW these things. Let me explain: When 9-11 happened my first rational thought after cursing the idiot we have for a president (or what JKR calls "that horrible man") was "thank god all of those children read the 4th book of Harry Potter." By that I mean that I think reading about how LV came back helped children understand real evil and maybe somehow it prepared them for it. And then real evil happened in our Muggle world. Again last year JKR was going to read from the first chapter of HPB on July 16th but had to switch chapters because on July 10th terrible things really did happen in London. And throughout the books the parallels between the evil that is happening in our world and what is happening in the books are so real. Now one could argue that evil is evil and the connections are just there because of that, and I would agree. On the other hand, it does make you stop and wonder. Now the story of the Gospel of Judas is just coming out. Like others, I too thought about Snape and DD when I saw this on TV. I think that I was one of the first here to say that DD was a Christ figure and Snape was Judas, but still DD's man. (I have said all along that JKR is using many Christian symbols in the books and telling a metaphorical story about ultimate truth from a Christian perspective.) But how does JKR know about these discoveries about Judas before they are made public? Does she have a friend that is one of the scientist? I know that scholars have had different debates about the role of Judas for many years. Some say that he was a Zealot and expected that Jesus was going to lead a rebellion and Judas tried to push him to start it that night. Later when Judas realized that he had misunderstood the type of Messiah that Jesus was, he felt so bad about what he had done that he hung himself. For years scholars have debated what the words of Jesus meant when he said to Judas "what you are going to do, do quickly". These debates are much like the one we have here on the HPFGU list over what was meant by DD's words "Severus, please ". Oh an intuitive level, which connects with the subconscious where our collective unconscious resides, I just sense that there is something in these books that are so much more than just an interesting and enjoyable tale. There is deep truth here, and I wonder if there is even more. Is JKR the next Moses? Is there a burning bush behind that locked door? What is this woman really doing? Tonks_op Who hopes that people don't think that she has gone off the deep end here. Next I will be seen carrying around a sign that says "the world will come to an end when the 7th seal is opened on 7-7- 7." "OH, NO, are those wizards in white coats coming for me??" From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 04:21:30 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 04:21:30 -0000 Subject: Percy's sickle In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150752 > Tonks: > I have never thought about the names of the coins before. Thank you > for bringing that up. I used the Dictionary.com site and came up > with this: > Sickle is the cutting mechanism of a reaper. (Like what the Grim > Reaper carries. So maybe is means something to do with death. Or > reaping what you sow for Percy.) > > Galleon is A large three-masted sailing ship with a square rig and > usually two or more decks, used from the 15th to the 17th century > especially by Spain as a merchant ship or warship. > > Knut: king of Denmark and Norway who forced Edmund II to divide > England with him; on the death of Edmund II, Canute became king of > all England (994-1035) [syn: Canute, Cnut, Knut, Canute the Great] > > I seached the web for Canute the Great and found some interesting > information and a picture that I have seen somewhere before. And it > may have been in connection with the HP books, but I am not sure. > Here is the link: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canute_the_Great > > He was king and divided the country into 4 parts. I thought of the 4 > houses here, but I don't really think that it means anything. There > was a coin with his face on it, this might be significant and where > she got the idea. Since it is the smallest coin it probably means > that she doesn't think much of him. > > Tonks_op zgirnius: My observation about the coin names is that they are all alliterative with the name of the metal of which they are made. The lowest denomination, the Knut, is a copper coin. The next coin, the Sickle, is silver; Galleons, the most valuable, are made of gold. From catlady at wicca.net Sun Apr 9 05:27:37 2006 From: catlady at wicca.net (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 05:27:37 -0000 Subject: Neville/ DeadMothers/ Pansy/ Geography of Founders/ Wizard Plumbing Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150753 pippin_999 wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150556 : << I wonder if Snape finally found out that the Lestranges knew nothing of the prophecy when they attacked the Longbottoms, and that's why he's no longer picking on Neville in HBP? >> Do we know that Snape is no longer picking on Neville in HBP? We didn't see much of DADA class taught by Snape. Tonks wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150627 : << First we have LV's mother who dies to give him life. Then Harry's mother who dies to save Harry from death. And Barty Jr's mother who died in her son's place. It is always a mother dying for her son. Do we see a father dying for a child? Do we see anyone dying for a daughter? I can't remember but if not, then there seems to be a theme here. But what is it, and why? I hope this doesn't mean something bad for our beloved Molly. >> The great Elkins posted long ago (after GoF) about a JKR trend of idealizing sainted, spotless, dead mothers, while having comical and vulgar types do the actual diaper-changing. Actually, the latter referred only to Winky, whose motherly role to Barty Jr Elkins carefully listed word by word. We have no evidence that perfect Lily didn't change baby Harry's nappies for his first year and a half, altho' it was vulgar, comical Petunia who got stuck with toilet-training him. From HBP, we know that Merope was far from perfect, but Mrs Cole was comically vulgar. As dear Molly is also comically vulgar, this theory suggests she's safe. (But I don't doubt that she'd rather die to save any of her children than live without him/er.) Betsy Hp wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150642 : << Quick_Silver [wrote]: << She sort of comes across as a female Peter. >> Except she gets the guy she's panting after. >> This is a totally forbidden LOL post. Nikkalmati wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150658 : << Pansy (snip) would be content to be Mrs. Draco for the rest of her life - not a very high ambition. >> Marrying all that Malfoy money IS a pretty high ambition. It's not easy to achieve, partly because there will be lots of other beautiful gold-diggers competing once they get out of school, and it pays quite well. a_svirn wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150651 : << A propos of the history. Have we discussed the meaning of the "geographical background", so to speak, of the four founders? If there is any meaning, that is? I got the feeling that that Slytherin was even geographically alien of some sort. Both ladies are obviously from Scotland, from "glen" and from the "valley broad" ??" Highlands and Midland Valley, I take it. "Wild moor" can be anywhere, of course, but the most likely choice is North Yorkshire. And "fen" is obviously Fen Country, which makes him the only southerner among the northerners. That would have made a huge difference a millennium ago. >> Hi, a_svirn, I think you've been around long enough that you were here the last time I got verbose about the geography of the Founders. Unlike those who suggest that 'glen' MUST mean Scotland or 'valley broad' MUST mean the Rhondda Valley in Wales, I think the geographical features mentioned in the Sorting Hat's song are meaningless and they're only there for rhyme. Helga is a Scandinavian name, so I say she was of Scandinavian extraction and blonde and came from the Danelaw, so she's the one who should be said to be coming from fen. Rowena and Godric are both Saxon names, but I say Rowena is the Saxon (and red-haired because Rowena sounds like 'rowan') from South England and Godric is the Welshman. I'm so pleased someone already pointed out that a group of Saxon men-at-arms leavened with a Norman or three trying to pronounce a name like 'Gryffydd Glyndwr' could come out with something like Godric Gryffindor (okay, the Saxons say Godric something I haven't figured out yet and the Normans say Gervais Gryphon d'Or, and our Gryffydd put them together). The Godric Gryffindor in my mind would have been amused to adopt this nomme de guerre that had been bestowed upon him, and even to adopt the symbol of a golden gryffin on a red field in its honor, while he was having adventures in disguise as a Muggle. (Yes, there were a few Normans wandering on Britain before the Norman Conquest, according to Regia Anglorum at http://www.regia.org/ ) The name 'Salazar', however, doesn't come from the British Isles at all. It comes from Iberia, where IIRC there is a Salazar Valley, and last time around, I found sources that said 'Salazar' came from Basque for 'old hall' from 'sala', hall or palace, and zarra, old. But other listies claimed that 'sala' couldn't possibly be a Basque word.... Anyway, that would make Salazar Slytherin a foreigner, which would make him even more of an outsider than one southerner among three northerners. Catherine Higgins said in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150652 : << I believe JKR had each of the founders come from each of the 4 Brittish isles: Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales. >> I also think she had each of them come from a different ethnic group, but I don't think there was one from Ireland -- there were enough ethnic groups without leaving the big island. I mentioned Dane, Welsh, and Saxon above, and there must have been one from Scotland, considering that they put their school in Scotland. I kind of think there should be two from Scotland, a Scot and a Pict. IIRC, in the 900s, Scotland was named 'The Kingdom of the Scots and Picts', in which the Picts were the people who were already there when the Scots came over from Ireland. (I found some support for my opinions in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Scotland which has a paragraph saying "In the wake of the Roman withdrawal Scotland's population comprised two main groups: 1. the Picts, a people of uncertain origin (but possibly a Brythonic Celtic group) who occupied most of Scotland north of the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth: the area known as "Pictavia" 2. the Britons formed a Roman-influenced Brythonic Celtic culture in the south, with the kingdom of Y Strad Glud (Strathclyde) from the Firth of Clyde southwards, Rheged in Cumbria, Selgovae in the central Borders area and the Votadini or Gododdin from the Firth of Forth down to the Tweed Invasions brought three more groups, though the extent to which they replaced native populations is unknown 1. the Old Irish-speaking Scotti (Irish) or more specifically, the D??l Riatans, arrived from Ireland from the late 5th century onwards, taking possession of the Western Isles and the west coast in the Kingdom of D??l Riata." Donna wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150724 : << I just realized that the entrance to the chamber[of Secrets] is a large pipe located under a sink complete with water taps. Now, my question is: did people living over a thousand years ago have sinks and water taps for plumbing? >> Thank you for giving me an excuse for my rant. I always say, in the Potterverse, the wizarding folk had indoor plumbing with hot and cold running water and flush toilets ever since Atlantis. All the various Muggles who 'invented' indoor plumbing (Minoans, Romans, 18th century, etc) were really trying to copy what they had seen when a guest in a wizarding home. Also, the wizarding folk had elaborate castles ever since Atlantis, so it doesn't matter that Muggle 'castles' were IIRC wooden huts surrounded by a muddy ditch and a picket fence at the time of the Founders. (I personally don't believe in Atlantis or primordial matriarchies, but I also don't believe in flying carpets or House Elves. A large part of the gimmick of the Potterverse is that many things which are familiar folklore or fantasy motifs which every reader *knows* aren't real, *are* real (altho' often garbled) in the Potterverse. So I think I'm tremendously amusing to add Atlantis and primordial matriarchies to the list of things that Muggles are too stupid to believe in.) I believe that their plumbing empties into the lake via a magical cleaning spell that transmutes all the waste products into pretty flowers or such, but I fear that that mgical cleaning spell was put in place by the lake's inhabitants, such as the merpeople, rather than by the castle's occupants. Even tho' I believe that wizards have had indoor plumbing with hot and cold running water and flush toilets for over nine thousand years, I have no evidence that medieval wizards had a higher concern for clean drinking water and pleasant smelling surroundings than their Muggle contemporaries did. I believe that Potterverse wizarding folk's late twentieth century indoor plumbing and Renaissance 'replica' castles didn't need wizards to know any plumbing, hydraulics, metallurgy, stonecarving, or architecture because they made their bathrooms and castles by MAGIC! However, Muggles who visted wizards and saw the nice things the wizards had, had to invent all that technology in order to imitate the wizarding goodies. There is a long history of Muggles trying to imitate wizarding plumbing: Minoan, Classical Roman, etc. The wizarding folk teach their children a lot of self-enhancing falsehoods. One is that they teach their children that Muggles use technology to imitate what wizards do by magic. Technology probably *started* that way, Muggles trying to figure out how to make bathrooms and castles and swords like the wizards had ... this may have remained true up to the Steam Age, with Muggles inventing railroads to imitate wizarding self-propelled wagons like at Gringotts, gaslight to imitate the magical self-lighting candles on the wall of wizarding houses ... but by then the discovery and invention of science and technology had become self-propelling themselves, and with Electricity, Muggles went on to invent things that the wizarding folk copy. The Wizarding Wireless Network is obviously an imitation of Muggle radio, because it's named after "wireles", the British Muggle name for radio. The wizarding folk would have no other reason to name it "wireless", because they didn't have a preceeding technology named "wire" (the telegraph). The kindly condescension to Muggles shown by the older Weasleys IS a little off. They say, isn't it marvellous that Muggles and their cute little toys are able to make do without magic? One common Muggle cute little toy, the telephone, can send a message a great deal faster than an owl! Other listies have mentioned Muggle bombs that blow up a great deal more than one street and twelve people. From quigonginger at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 05:40:25 2006 From: quigonginger at yahoo.com (quigonginger) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 05:40:25 -0000 Subject: Percy's sickle In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150754 > zgirnius: > My observation about the coin names is that they are all alliterative > with the name of the metal of which they are made. The lowest > denomination, the Knut, is a copper coin. The next coin, the Sickle, > is silver; Galleons, the most valuable, are made of gold. > Ginger: Except that knuts are bronze. Which would make them bnuts. (I put that in to avoid a one-liner.) Ginger, making salad From doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 06:02:30 2006 From: doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com (doddiemoemoe) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 06:02:30 -0000 Subject: Chamber of Secrets In-Reply-To: <4437D1F7.000006.04036@D33LDD51> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150755 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Donna" wrote: > > Donna Asks: > > I know this has been discussed long before I joined the group but I'm > rereading "the Chamber of Secrets" and, being as slow as I am, I just > realized that the entrance to the chamber is a large pipe located under a > sink complete with water taps. Now, my question is: did people living over > a thousand years ago have sinks and water taps for plumbing? **snip** Well as DD being headmaster...(I wouldn't be surprised if plumbing could be updated by magic.) All hail DD.... Just like DD muttered a few words so that he and Harry could fly brooms over the Hogwarts walls.....I;m sure DD could fix said plumbing..So he could assure MM returning to hogwarts. DeeDee Who would not actually be surprised that DD arranged said plumbing so that moaning myrtle could return to hogwarts. (ahh.. a great mental picture...MM along with DD inspecting the bathrooms of Hogwarts..) D From bboyminn at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 06:09:51 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 06:09:51 -0000 Subject: Chamber of Secrets In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150756 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "richter_kuymal" wrote: > > Donna Asks: entrance to the chamber is a large pipe located > under a sink complete with water taps. Now, my question is: did > people living over a thousand years ago have sinks and water taps > for plumbing? ... > > PAR: > yes, there were water plumbing systems that would allow for > sinks and water fountains --- ... King Minos of Crete owned the > world's first flushing water closet over 2800 years ago. ... > > The problem is that even so, the best of water systems needs > periodic upkeep and creating a bathroom complete with faucets > ... and toilets that flushed would have required occasional > upgrades and modifications. So either some wizard did the > work who knew about the chamber and put the snake on the tap, > the upkeep is done by House Elves (who keep the secrets of the > founders), the castle itself modifies according to need (part > of the original enchantment) or, possibly the upkeep has been > done by wizards but the snake on the faucet was done by LV. > > PAR. bboyminn: I think you've answered the question, the key is the nature of Magical contruction or remodeling. I suspect there is a lot more wand waving, and a lot less hammering, stone work, and actual hands on plumbing. Consequently, the castle wouldn't be tore up and a lot less exposed than it would with normal muggle plumbing. So, I can see the remodeling happening very easily, almost like wishing things would be new. Further, I think even if wizard remodelers made the periodic changes to the plumbing, Slytherin magic could very easily adapt the Chamber entrance to fit nicely with the changes. Just a thought. Steve/bboyminn From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 06:15:55 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 06:15:55 -0000 Subject: Percy's sickle In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150757 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "quigonginger" wrote: > > > zgirnius: > > My observation about the coin names is that they are all > alliterative > > with the name of the metal of which they are made. The lowest > > denomination, the Knut, is a copper coin. > Ginger: > Except that knuts are bronze. > Which would make them bnuts. > (I put that in to avoid a one-liner.) zgirnius: Bronze knuts. I'll have to remember that. I always thought of them as looking like US pennies, which *look* copper, anyway. (Copper plated zinc, says ask.com.) Well, at least bronze is an alloy consisting of copper and other metals... From foxmoth at qnet.com Sun Apr 9 12:50:15 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 12:50:15 -0000 Subject: House characteristics (LONGish) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150758 > > > Alla: > > Pippin, I said DRACO has to earn being called "GOOD", not Slytherins > and I absolutely stand by it. I think Slytherins have to reject > their "pureblood superiority" philosophy and I also stand by it. Pippin: Are you saying that nobody who believes in pureblood superiority can be called good? I thought we agreed that Regulus and Slughorn were flawed but good. Anyway I am not clear on how the Marauders can be flawed but good when they were endangering people with a werewolf and laughing about it, but Draco doesn't qualify. The Hat never says Slytherin is the house for those who think purebloods are superior. It sounds as if this philosophy became associated with the House during the "divided/sought to rule" era. I think all the Houses have to reject it, and they also have to reject feeling superior because they're not Slytherin. Alla: And as I said many many times in the past, of course I would have > huge problems with eleven year olds being called evil by > association in RL. > In fiction - not so much, especially since we agree that JKR does > not go there, but I do think she is portraying this philosophy as > the one to needs to be abolished, so I agree with Lupinlore(I think) > initial point that JKR needed villains in the story and that is why > she gave such philosophy to Slytherin House, etc. Pippin: If we say that *Harry* needed villains, then I agree. He needed to see Slytherin House as bad so he could see the Gryffindors as good, even when they weren't speaking to him, or were being bossy, or were leading a monster through a village. His own ideas of good and evil were still forming, and he needed groups as models. But now that he has a clearer picture in his own mind of who he is and who he wants to be, he can see himself as an individual and can judge others as individuals too instead of as part of a group. He might even be able to see that a Slytherin who lacks compassion but has courage could be superior in virtue to a compassionate Gryffindor who lacks it. I would expect JKR to do something like that if she really believes that courage is the ultimate virtue. I disagree that she is portraying the majority of Slytherins as pureblood fanatics who are falling prey to Voldemort. If she wanted to write that most of the Slytherins remained seated when Harry was toasted she could have. Instead we only see that many of them did. Harry hasn't paid any attention to those other Slytherins, the ones who honored him, which probably means they're important. Otherwise why would they be there at all? I don't think any new characters are going to emerge from that mass, but I think they will support whatever needs to be done on their part to unify the Houses. Pippin From amiabledorsai at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 13:00:09 2006 From: amiabledorsai at yahoo.com (amiabledorsai) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 13:00:09 -0000 Subject: Ginny's best friend (Was: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics)) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150759 Betsy Hp: > It's not a written in stone thing, but on the flip side Hermione's > best friends are boys, and Ginny doesn't have a female best friend. > It's a tone thing, I guess, and frankly I doubt it's anything JKR > did on purpose. > No one close enough for Ginny to consistently hang out with. I'm > sure she has tons of friends, but going with how JKR writes her > favorite girls, I would be surprised if Ginny had an invisible to > Harry best friend. AD: There is this one girl that Ginny confides in an awful lot--tells her all kinds of things about borrowed brooms and unrequited loves... I've got a feeling that Harry knows Ginny's best female friend tolerably well. Amiable "Hide in plain sight" Dorsai From finwitch at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 13:13:01 2006 From: finwitch at yahoo.com (finwitch) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 13:13:01 -0000 Subject: Percy's sickle In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150760 > Tonks: > Sickle is the cutting mechanism of a reaper. (Like what the Grim > Reaper carries. So maybe is means something to do with death. Or > reaping what you sow for Percy.) Finwitch: Also, Sickle's been a smaller cutting device - and ancient Druids may have used one to cut their Herbs with. I think it's possible that in the days when wizards and Muggles still were together, the price for a sickle (made by a blacksmith, who might have been a wizard, too... at least there are tales of the 'magical' reputation of smithery.) was a Piece of Silver of certain weight. Thus, a Silver Sickle. Tonks: > Galleon is A large three-masted sailing ship with a square rig and > usually two or more decks, used from the 15th to the 17th century > especially by Spain as a merchant ship or warship. Finwitch: And that, also, follows my theory. A ship like that would certainly be worth Gold, wouldn't you say? Tonks: > Knut: king of Denmark and Norway who forced Edmund II to divide > England with him; on the death of Edmund II, Canute became king of > all England (994-1035) [syn: Canute, Cnut, Knut, Canute the Great] > > I seached the web for Canute the Great and found some interesting > information and a picture that I have seen somewhere before. And it > may have been in connection with the HP books, but I am not sure. > Here is the link: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canute_the_Great Finwitch: Well... Curiously, that king looks like the king in Tarot cards! Plus he was elevated by a body with a name that sounds like Wizengamot. So there's at least *something* here inspiring Rowling's collection of names. Additionally, though, knut is Swedish for knot. I'm not certain, but Knut may have been an old word for knot... And speaking Danish/Norwegian king -- a descendant of vikings. Vikings used Runes! Finwitch From finwitch at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 14:09:25 2006 From: finwitch at yahoo.com (finwitch) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 14:09:25 -0000 Subject: Danger at the Wedding? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150761 Karen: > I've gotten the impression that underage magic is detected based on > the area where the underage wizard lives. Finwitch: Yes, me too - and not the least for Fudge saying that no other registered wizard but Harry Potter lives in the Neighbourhood. Also, the case of Dobby shows clearly that they cannot tell who does it. In addition, I think that Harry-being-accused/tried on Underage Magic has been done with for good in OOP. For several reasons. 1: Ministry has, since the end of OOP, more than admitted that Voldemort&DEs are about. With that in mind, I doubt that Scrimgeour cares much for Underage Magic. If they spot something like hoovering charm in a Muggle Area, they'd just send Accidental Magic Reversal Squad there to obliviate the Muggles. 2: Rufus Scrimgeaour clearly wants Harry's assistance for good publicity, and putting charges on him would bring the worst... 3: Harry won't be alone at the Dursleys - thanks to Ron&Hermione. At least Arthur would know that Ron's there as well, wouldn't he? Finwitch From puduhepa98 at aol.com Sun Apr 9 14:57:28 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2006 10:57:28 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: R.A.B Message-ID: <1f5.1db9e6a0.316a7ad8@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150762 > Magda Grantwich wrote: > > My personal assumption (I wouldn't call it a theory) about RAB is > > that RAB is Regulus and that Regulus switched the lockets BEFORE > the locket got put in the cave, Snip > Potioncat: > Me too! I suspect that whoever placed the locket in the basin is still in > the lake...and that could be RAB. Or RAB, as a "loyal" DE and > favorite cousin of Bella's may have helped her place the locket. He tricked her and replaced the locket prior to taking it to the lake. > Shortly after that, it was determined he had lost interest in the > overall program and was killed. But no one knew yet that he had > switched the locket. > Tonks: Makes sense. That is that RAB is in the lake. Perhaps he was sent with Bella to place the locket in the cave and was never expected to come out alive. Maybe Bella stayed on the bank and he went across in the boat. She doesn't seem to have any problem killing a relative. If it was known that he might be having second thoughts it could have been set up for him to die there. After all it seems to be a dangerous job to get to the pensive in The question is: Is the real locket still a horcrux? It can't be opened therefore, I think that it is still a horcrux and that it was in the stuff that Mundungus had in the bag when Tonks saw him. Who has it now? Nikkalmati: So glad you all agree with my previous posts. See 150465, 150531, 150548, and 150602. Now if we can only bring Carol along! I can see that Bella could have brought RAB along and either he was pushed in the lake or he fell in on the way back, but I do not think Bella is without family feeling. She seems on good terms with Cissy at Spinners End (they are quarreling, but it pretty much like sisters do and if Cissy did not trust her she would have abandoned the visit to SS entirely when Bella followed her). If LV suspected RAB and ordered Bella to push him in the lake, I am sure she would do it, but if he was under suspicion it would be harder for him to switch the locket. She may have sent him out to do the hard part in the center of the lake and he fell in by accident, but this job is so sensitive and important, I don't think she or LV would trust it to a kid. It seems more likely to me that he was killed later by another DE when his changed loyalties were discovered or that he was killed trying to open the locket. Maybe he asked SS to help with he locket and SS betrayed him? Does anyone have an opinion on when LV got the locket and where it was before he put on the island it in the lake? Are the other horcruxes so well protected or was it the last one to be hidden and so it was the best guarded? The locket at GP is most likely a horcrux and it seems to be the prevailing opinion that Dung sold it to Abeforth or Kreacher has it hidden away. Nikkalmati [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com Sun Apr 9 18:59:03 2006 From: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com (HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com) Date: 9 Apr 2006 18:59:03 -0000 Subject: Weekly Chat, 4/9/2006, 1:00 pm Message-ID: <1144609143.16.87077.m29@yahoogroups.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150763 Reminder from the Calendar of HPforGrownups http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/cal Weekly Chat Sunday April 9, 2006 1:00 pm - 1:00 pm (This event repeats every week.) Notes: Don't forget, chat happens today, 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern, 7 pm UK time. Chat times do not change for Daylight Saving/Summer Time. Chat generally goes on for about 5 hours, but can last as long as people want it to last. To get into Chat, just go to the group online: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups and click on "Chat" in the lefthand menu. If you have problems with this, go to http://www.yahoo.com and in the bottom box on the left side of the page click on "Chat". Once you're logged into any room, type /join *g.HPforGrownups ; this should take you right in. If you have an Set up birthday reminders! http://us.rd.yahoo.com/cal_us/rem/?http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/cal?v=9&evt_type=13 Copyright 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.yahoo.com Privacy Policy: http://privacy.yahoo.com/ Terms of Service: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com Sun Apr 9 03:03:06 2006 From: Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com (coldsliversofglass) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 03:03:06 -0000 Subject: The unknown factor...... The apparent ease at which DD was killed. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150764 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "David" wrote: > > One thing that has always bothered me about DD's death was the > apparent ease at which it happened. Granted the stuff he had to > drink in the cave was not very healthy, but you would think that a > man of his experience and stature, let alone knowledge, wouldn't be > defenseless. Nor, would you think that he could have misplaced his > trust in Snape THAT badly. Sure, he has said himself that he does > make mistakes, and in his case, they tend to be rather large ones, > but for some reason I just don't buy it. > Here is my theory... Both Snape and DD knew what was going to happen and that in order to get Snape back into the 'fold', they put into motion of series of events that would culminate in the ultimate sign he was back to the death eaters... the murder of DD himself. CH3ed wrote: >>The ease of DD's death was what really jarred me when I first read >>HBP too. I expected DD to die in this book but not in this fashion. >>I thougth it would be something spectacular. But then this maybe >>what JKR wanted to convey. Even the great men among us are human and >>are not bullet-proof. Afterall, JKR isn't a mollycoddler. To me, >>having DD dies from a simple AK by someone perceived by most to be >>ordinary and inside his own school, makes the death more real. Even >>the strongest and healthiest person can die from the flu or other >>unspectacular means. coldsliversofglass: I think that the ease of DD's death foreshadows what's to come. I mean, Dumbledore and Voldemort are considered the two most powerful players, right? Now DD has just been AKed. What could that imply about Voldemort? I'm not saying that it's going to be easy to kill Voldemort, but the fact that Snape could so easily kill Dumbledore serves as a reminder that Voldemort's downfall might not come through some great and dramatic battle, but rather a more subtle confrontation. Also interesting is the fact that it was Snape who wound up killing Dumbledore. Snape-the man who joined the Death Eaters, betrayed them to work as a spy, betrayed the Order by killing Dumbledore-at least that's how it'll appear to the Order-now has an excuse to return to the Death Eaters. It seems to make sense that Snape should go to Voldemort since Snape did just kill the one man Voldemort was actually afraid of. I assume Snape has to put Draco somewhere, but now the Order has someone standing awfully close to Voldemort (I'm assuming Snape's going to return to Voldemort, and not go somewhere else). Wouldn't it be ironic if the man who killed Dumbledore also plays a huge role in killing Voldemort? The other thing that strikes me is that-sad as DD's death is-I think he had to go. Otherwise, Harry remains a figurehead for the Order. With Dumbledore dead, Harry can actually step forward as a leader, or at least play a more active role in his own fate. coldsliversofglass From little_scottie6 at hotmail.com Sun Apr 9 06:08:32 2006 From: little_scottie6 at hotmail.com (Victoria Scott) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 16:08:32 +1000 Subject: Chamber of Secrets large pipe In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150765 PAR: the best of water systems needs >periodic upkeep and creating a bathroom complete with faucets (as >opposed to fountains) and toilets that flushed would have required >occasional upgrades and modifications. So either some wizard did the >work who knew about the chamber and put the snake on the tap, the >upkeep is done by House Elves (who keep the secrets of the >founders), the castle itself modifies according to need (part of the >original enchantment) or, possibly the upkeep has been done by >wizards but the snake on the faucet was done by LV. G.C. Suggests: I am thinking that Slytherin himself put an enchantment on the large pipe and the entrance to the chamber so only when the snake was entering through it or someone who spoke parletongue was opening it then the pipe would expand. It would explain alot. Slytherin could have made sure that the enterance was always marked by something and that is how the snake appeared on the pipe. We all know that Salazar was able to perform extraordinary magic and that the other founders didn't know about the chamber so these enchantments could may well have been there all that time. G.C From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Sun Apr 9 18:35:26 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 14:35:26 -0400 Subject: Marauder's Map Folly? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150766 In Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry, Ron, and Hermione go to see Hagrid before Buckbeak's execution. While they are in his hut, Ron finds Scabbers (a.k.a. Peter Pettigrew). Lupin becomes aware of the fact that Pettigrew is still alive based on the Marauder's Map he is looking at at the time. My question is - when Harry and Hermione use the Time-Turner to save Buckbeak and Sirius, why does Lupin not see two Harrys and two Hermiones? Snape as well does not notice this when he arrives to give Lupin his potion and sees the map. Is there any explanation for this? ~ Rachel From AllieS426 at aol.com Sun Apr 9 20:39:07 2006 From: AllieS426 at aol.com (allies426) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 20:39:07 -0000 Subject: Danger at the Wedding? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150767 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" wrote: <> > > I don't see any good, logical, or productive way of attacking the > wedding, but then Voldemort has never been very good, logical, or > productive in any of his actions. > > So, in summary... > > ...maybe...maybe not. > > Steve/bboyminn > Peter Pettigrew murdered 13 people with a single curse by causing some type of massive explosion (I wonder what THAT curse was!). A small sneak attack with a few well-placed explosions could easily devastate that wedding. But I agree that Voldemort has never been good, logical, or productive at anything. Allie (warns Gabrielle to watch out and winks at Carol) From kchuplis at alltel.net Sun Apr 9 20:50:57 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2006 15:50:57 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Danger at the Wedding? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <63083A48-758C-459B-82B9-B938CD8FBAAB@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150768 > allie: > > Peter Pettigrew murdered 13 people with a single curse by causing > some type of massive explosion (I wonder what THAT curse was!). A > small sneak attack with a few well-placed explosions could easily > devastate that wedding. But I agree that Voldemort has never been > good, logical, or productive at anything. > > > kchuplis: I still maintain it was a big *ss reducto curse that really did hit a gasline. I still believe PP meant a huge distraction while he fake killed himself, but accidentally blew up the whole street. From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Sun Apr 9 21:00:14 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 21:00:14 -0000 Subject: Snape=Judas? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150769 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tonks" wrote: > Tonks: > Is JKR really Cassandra? > > Makes you wonder doesn't it? I don't mean that she actually buried > a jar, but how does she KNOW these things. Let me explain: > When 9-11 happened my first rational thought after cursing the idiot > we have for a president (or what JKR calls "that horrible man") > was "thank god all of those children read the 4th book of Harry > Potter." By that I mean that I think reading about how LV came back > helped children understand real evil and maybe somehow it prepared > them for it. And then real evil happened in our Muggle world. > > Again last year JKR was going to read from the first chapter of HPB > on July 16th but had to switch chapters because on July 10th > terrible things really did happen in London. And throughout the > books the parallels between the evil that is happening in our world > and what is happening in the books are so real. Now one could argue > that evil is evil and the connections are just there because of > that, and I would agree. On the other hand, it does make you stop > and wonder. Geoff: I agree with your premise that there are notable comparisons between the real world and Harry's but I feel that to draw parallels between Voldemort's actions and those of the terrorists who carried out the 11th September attacks in New York, the 7th July bombings in London and the Madrid atrocities in 2004 is not accurate. I see Voldemort as more directly comparable with Adolf Hitler ? and in more recent times - Slobodan Milosevic. The terrorist attacks of recent years have been executed by Islamic fundamentalists whose aim is to strengthen the hold of their own fanaticism on their own culture and secure a grasp on non-Islamic countries which they attempt to do by attempting to destabilise the lifestyle and beliefs of people of other faiths. They do also include folk from their own countries who profess the Christian faith and faiths other than Islam. There is a worrying increase in the reports of Christians throughout the world who are being discriminated against, oppressed, attacked and even killed in an attempt to silence the gospel. That is not the aim of Voldemort. His plan is more in line with that of ethnic cleansing which was practised by Hitler (though not under that name) and aimed at specific national groups. In the real world, Hitler targeted easily recognisable groups such as the Jews; in the Wizarding world, JKR makes Voldemort's aim along the same lines ? the elimination of a perceived "underclass". This covers Muggles and halfbloods and Muggle-born wizards. In other words, it is not based on a question of faith but the continued superiority of an imagined "Herrenvolk" who can produce all the required evidence of a lineage untainted by inter-marriage with Muggles. Tonks: > Now the story of the Gospel of Judas is just coming out. Like > others, I too thought about Snape and DD when I saw this on TV. I > think that I was one of the first here to say that DD was a Christ > figure and Snape was Judas, but still DD's man. (I have said all > along that JKR is using many Christian symbols in the books and > telling a metaphorical story about ultimate truth from a Christian > perspective.) But how does JKR know about these discoveries about > Judas before they are made public? Does she have a friend that is > one of the scientist? Geoff: I think the answer here is that these ideas are not being aired for the first time. Many years ago, I remember coming across a book in my local public library ? which I did not continue to read ? in which the opening chapter was set in heaven after the Ascension and in which the author visualised Jesus with his disciples and Judas was being praised for the part he had taken in events. Those of us who are Christians believe that Jesus died on the cross to carry our sins for us and open the way to salvation and ultimate life with God; this had to be achieved by his arrest and trial. In the author's story line, Judas' actions had been necessary to ensure the arrest of Christ. So the idea that Judas may have been working for good is not a new one. However, I remain to be convinced that this was a possibility. Tonks: > Oh an intuitive level, which connects with the subconscious where > our collective unconscious resides, I just sense that there is > something in these books that are so much more than just an > interesting and enjoyable tale. There is deep truth here, and I > wonder if there is even more. Is JKR the next Moses? Is there a > burning bush behind that locked door? What is this woman really > doing? Geoff: I have said previously I believe that Jo Rowling, like Tolkien with LOTR, reveals a covert faith in her books. God is present but not openly worshipped. Many people, myself included, identify so strongly with her books because the stories are based on the deep truth which she hints at in her stories and the symbolism of Harry as an everyman on his journey through life. From a_svirn at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 21:19:37 2006 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 21:19:37 -0000 Subject: Snape=Judas?/House characteristics In-Reply-To: <00a101c65ab0$422fca50$10ba400c@Spot> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150770 > Magpie: > > The Heir of Slytherin is obviously unacceptable, but then isn't the point > rather that heirs don't matter? a_svirn: Frankly, I think they do matter very much. The heir certainly mattered for Slytherin, since he built in a chamber of secrets specially for the use of the said heir. It matters very much to the story-line that the arch-villain is not just another Slytherin, but the Founder's heir. It matters too that Harry although not a descendant of another Founder, yet so true a Gryffindor, that he could get the Gryffindor's sword from the Hat. The whole thing started a millennium ago because the admission requirements of the four founders proved to be incompatible and it is still the case. If the Hat could simply leave one of the criteria out and thus bring the desirable harmony, surely it would have been done by now? Apparently neither the Hat, nor the long line of successive headmasters has had the authority to do so. From gelite67 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 23:15:28 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 23:15:28 -0000 Subject: Was Percy's sickle /Percy's Betrayal In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150771 >Angie wrote: > >I thought there was some sort of tradition about finding a coin in food > >being good luck. But then again, when I first read about Percy finding > >the sickle, for some reason, I thought of Judas and the 33 pieces of > >silver. > > > > E.T. again- > > You're right, Angie. Finding the coin is supposed to bring you > good luck. Then again, Percy almost broke his tooth on it! > Your Judas association is interesting and sort of leads in the same > direction. Are you thinking that Percy will betray someone into the > hands of LV? A family member perhaps? We've grown so attached to the > rest of the Weasley's (including Harry as honorary member) that if he > gave up one of them to LV it would be truly horrendous! Or perhaps > just the fact that he's basically estranged himself from his family and > allied himself with the "official" ministry is in itself the ultimate > betrayal and all that was being foretold? > Angie again: Perhaps the sickle symbolizes Percy's career with the Ministry -- it appeared to be what he hoped for -- but the fact that he nearly broke his tooth on it symbolizes that it, in fact, was not what he hoped it would be (not what it was cracked up to be? :) ) I sincerely hope that Percy's betrayal is limited to the family betrayal. I have a hard time believing Percy would deliberately betray anyone to LV. Percy is a pompous git, but I don't believe he's evil. However, I believe he could betray someone inadvertently, Bagman-style. Then again, I think there's enough canon-fodder so that it wouldn't be too contrived a stretch if he did it deliberately. JKR has planted just enough seeds to keep us guesssing. At least Ron wouldn't be too surprised, it seems. If Percy does betray someone, I think it will either be Harry or a family member. Given that it appears the Ministry promted Percy in the hopes that he could get them inside information on his own family, I think it is significant that the Ministry kept Percy in his "lofty" position even after it was clear that he was estranged from his family. Unless my calculations are off, Percy's position as a Weasley was of no actual use to the Ministry for at least a year-and-a-half (during Christmas in HBP). I guess the Ministry banked on Percy kissing and making up at some point. Which raises a question to me: did the Ministry believe that Percy would deliberately give them info on his family or inadvertently? From ms-tamany at rcn.com Sun Apr 9 23:28:28 2006 From: ms-tamany at rcn.com (Tammy Rizzo) Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2006 19:28:28 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Marauder's Map Folly? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <4tf3li$6jc5et@smtp02a.lnh.mail.rcn.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150772 Rachel asks: In Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry, Ron, and Hermione go to see Hagrid before Buckbeak's execution. While they are in his hut, Ron finds Scabbers (a.k.a. Peter Pettigrew). Lupin becomes aware of the fact that Pettigrew is still alive based on the Marauder's Map he is looking at at the time. My question is - when Harry and Hermione use the Time-Turner to save Buckbeak and Sirius, why does Lupin not see two Harrys and two Hermiones? Snape as well does not notice this when he arrives to give Lupin his potion and sees the map. Is there any explanation for this? ~ Rachel [Now Tammy says:] While I don't have my canon readily to hand, I do believe that Hagrid's hut doesn't show up on the Map, which is one good reason why Pettigrew, who helped write the Map, would have hidden out there. Also, if I remember rightly, at the time when Lupin and Snape would have each had a look at the Map, the Time-Turned Harry and Hermione were still over near Hagrid's place, hence off the Map. At least, that's my explanation for it. I hope that helps. :-) Tammy Rizzo ms-tamay at rcn.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From gelite67 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 23:29:46 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 23:29:46 -0000 Subject: The Kreacher-Mundungus-Regulus Connection Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150773 This may be old hat, but since I'm rereading OOP, here goes. First, I must say I that, after reading BHP, I have a new appreciation for COS and OOP. Second, I just read the chapters concerning the Black household. I know there are theories floating around that RAB is the person who left the locket in the cave in HBP. I agree, but the point of this is not to rehash that -- that theory is simply my point of departure. I believe others have suggested that Kreacher helped RAB to get into the cave. Well, if Kreacher is required to do what members of the Black family ask him to do, then I think it's likely that RAB has been Horcrux-hunting since that time and that Kreacher helped him. (I'm assuming that Kreacher returned to the Black household before Sirius's return from Azkaban, of course.) There is this great mystery in OOP about what Kreacher has been doing for the past ten years. I think the answer is, he was Horcrux hunting with RAB, who forbade him at least from spilling the beans to any of Voldemort's followers. I think he would have to tell Harry if Harry asked him, "What have you been up to the past 11 or 12 years?" (whatever the appropriate time frame would be when Harry asks the question). I also think it's likely that Mundungus has nicked one of the Horcruxes. Perhaps RAB stored one at the Black household but never got the chance to destroy it. Otherwise, it seems to me the entire house-cleaning-Mundungus-RAB plotlines add little to the story. From sbarthell2001 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 18:36:31 2006 From: sbarthell2001 at yahoo.com (sarah barthell) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 18:36:31 -0000 Subject: Hog's Head owner Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150774 I have figured out that Dumbledore's brother is the owner of the Hog's Head. Dumbledore says he is friendly with Aberforth in book 6. Harry thinks he looks sort of familiar to Harry and the bar smells somewhat of goats which is what he was tried for-practicing inappropriate charms on a goat and he's not very smart which would explain how Umbridge knew about the group so quickly. From rdoliver30 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 9 21:44:46 2006 From: rdoliver30 at yahoo.com (lupinlore) Date: Sun, 09 Apr 2006 21:44:46 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose (Was Re: lily/snape) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150775 Betsy Hp: > I agree with Magpie. Snape is Snape is Snape. I seem to recall > Sydney predicting that when the big reveal of Snape is done, those > who've always hated him will continue to do so, and those who've > always loved him will continue to do so. True. And I'll add a corollary: Dumbledore is Dumbledore is Dumbledore. All of the ideas about Dumbledore having some grand plan in mind for Snape treating Harry a certain way ignores several straightforward facts about his character -- especially the fact that he is a 150 year old man who admittedly sometimes has a lot of problems relating to how other people feel about things. From his vantage, it is very easy to take a tolerant attitude toward Snape. After all, it's just a potions class, and he probably long ago came to regard behavior such as Snape's as sad and faintly ridiculous. It's easy to think that way when you're over a hundred. For that matter, it's easy to think that way when you're over 30. When you add that to DD's evident feelings about Harry, well -- disaster is in the making. Like a lot of people possessed of strongly positive feelings for another person, he can't imagine, emotionally (as opposed to intellectually) that other people don't see things the same way when they are in possession of all the facts. He thinks that surely as Snape gets to know Harry the potions master will get over his old grudges -- and he alludes to this in his speech to Harry at the end of OOTP. So there is no need for any subtle plans or plots or manipulations on DD's part. Even when it comes to Harry, JKR says that he "unwillingly allows Harry to confront certain situations," not that he deliberately sets Harry up for particular challenges or learning experiences. His attitude seems to grow quite naturally from the facts about his character. That is, he seems to think "It's very sad about Severus, but there are all kinds of people in life, and at least the students get a chance to see what that kind of thing does to a person. If it puts somebody off potions -- well, we can deal with it if that gets to be an important issue [I know we have no direct evidence for this last, but can anyone really imagine Dumbledore letting someone who would make a great auror, for instance, be washed up because of a personal conflict with Snape?]. With regard to Harry, this is a good thing for Severus -- he'll have the chance to get over his problem with James Potter. I'm sure he can do it. After all, once he really gets to know Harry, he will be forced to confront the distortions in his own thinking. As for Harry himself, well, I'm sad to think what might be coming, but it's probably worse than Severus." Actually, that kind of policy might have worked fairly well for a number of years. As several people have pointed out, Snape's attitude toward Harry and his friends seems to be a special case, and it may well be that the Snape seen in the books is not precisely the Snape a student, even a Gryffindor, and maybe not even a Neville, would typically see. Perhaps, just guessing, Snape's more typical attitude toward Gryffindors is similar to Hagrid's attitude toward Slytherins -- i.e. I don't like you very much but if you stay out of the way we'll live and let live. As I recall, Percy's comment about Snape in PS/SS was something about "not liking Gryffindors much" and didn't really indicate the kind of active antagonism seen from day one with Harry's class. Of course the problem is that, when it comes to the Snape we see in the books, DD is wrong on almost every count. He doesn't understand the hatred Snape has for Harry, he doesn't understand the hatred Harry has for Snape, and he doesn't recognize the distortions in his own thinking until it's too late to rectify the damage that's been done. And thus is the stage set for the tragedies of both OOTP and HBP. Not because of plots or plans or manipulations, but just from three people reacting to a given situation according to their respective natures. Lupinlore From quigonginger at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 00:37:29 2006 From: quigonginger at yahoo.com (quigonginger) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 00:37:29 -0000 Subject: Marauder's Map Folly? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150776 Rachel wrote: > In Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry, Ron, and Hermione go to see Hagrid before > Buckbeak's execution. While they are in his hut, Ron finds Scabbers (a.k.a. > Peter Pettigrew). Lupin becomes aware of the fact that Pettigrew is still > alive based on the Marauder's Map he is looking at at the time. > > My question is - when Harry and Hermione use the Time-Turner to save > Buckbeak and Sirius, why does Lupin not see two Harrys and two Hermiones? > Snape as well does not notice this when he arrives to give Lupin his potion > and sees the map. Is there any explanation for this? Ginger: I read PoA last night for the first time since Sirius died. I just didn't have the heart until now. This has been discussed before, so I did my reading with this in mind. Tammy's response was very near the mark. She said she didn't have her books with her, but I bet if she had, she'd have hit it dead on. (She's a pretty sharp cookie;o) So I'll elabourate. First, let's look at what the Map shows. When Harry first gets the map, he is in a classroom, and doesn't appear on it. When he steps out into the corridor, he appears on it. So we know all the places in the school don't appear, only the ones the MWPP "programmed" into the map. Hagrid's hut doesn't, the Forest doesn't seem to, and I'd be willing to bet broom closets don't either. Now let's go to Lupin's POV that night. The original Harry, Ron and Hermione (HRH) go down to dinner, and then wait in a chamber off the Entrance Hall until they hear a last pair of people scurrying across the hall and a door slamming. That last pair of people was Harry and Herm, time-turned (HH) running into the broom closet. So, Lupin is at supper, then goes back to his office to stare at the map and wait for HRH to go see Hagrid. By the time he gets back to his office, HH are hidden in the broom closet, therefore, off the map. Lupin sees HRH go to Hagrid's. Once they are inside Hagrid's house, they aren't on the map anymore, but he knows where they are. All he has to do is keep a close eye on Hagrid's and he will see when they come out. This means that when they make a run from the castle to the Forest, his eyes are focused on Hagrid's. He is watching out for them, not anyone else, and has no reason to believe that they are anywhere other than Hagrid's. Later, when HRH leave Hagrid's, Ron has Scabbers with him. Scabbers reads as PP on the map. Lupin later states that he couldn't believe his eyes, and we can assume that he is, therefore, transfixed on that spot. He watches as HRH and PP go from Hagrid's to the WW, and Sirius drags Ron and PP into it. During this time, HH are still in the Forest, although keeping to the edge so they can see what is going on. HH see HRH and PP leave Hagrid's and go back towards the castle. Lupin would be watching that foursome, not the area around Hagrid's. Time-turned Harry releases Buckbeak and they head straight back into the Forest. TTH would have been on the map, briefly, but Lupin would not have been paying attention to that spot at that time. >From their hiding place in the Forest, HH see HRH, PP and Sirius go into the WW, and a few moments later, Lupin comes sprinting out of the castle. He is obviously not watching the map at this time. A few minutes later, Snape joins the WW party. HH were in the forest at the time Snape would have been looking at the map as well, so would not have been seen by him either. After that point, no one is watching the map at all. Lupin is in the Forest as a Werewolf, and Snape is busy conjuring stretchers for everyone and getting them all up to the castle (which was mighty nice of him, considering how he felt about all involved). All of this assumes that the Forest can't be seen on the map, but I think we have reason to believe this. First of all, we have canon for blank spots on the map (the classroom, Hagrid's) and secondly, we know that Sirius was spending his time in the Forest during the school year. Since we know that even as Padfoot he shows up on the map, (Lupin sees him when he drags Ron and PP into the WW) and since Lupin later tells Harry that he watched the map for signs of Sirius from the time he, Lupin, confiscated it, we know that Lupin didn't see Sirius in the Forest on the map. Since we know that's where Sirius was, and that Lupin was looking for him, I think we can assume that the Forest simply doesn't register on the map. Did that help any? Or was I too confusing? Ginger, glad she read PoA again. It really was a good book. From h2so3f at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 01:12:26 2006 From: h2so3f at yahoo.com (h2so3f) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 01:12:26 -0000 Subject: Marauder's Map Folly? In-Reply-To: <4tf3li$6jc5et@smtp02a.lnh.mail.rcn.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150777 CH3ed: I have been wondering about why Lupin didn't see 2 Harry and Hermione when he looked at the Map in PoA also. It does seem to me that the Map covers most of Hogwarts ground, including the Forest (tho I'm not sure about the interior of Hagrid's hut). The bits of canon I recall supporting the Forest being on the map come in GoF when Harry asked the fake Moody if he had used the Map in his search for the then missing Mr. Crouch. The fake Moody, IIRC, said he did by taking a leaf out of Harry's book (summoning it from his office). This bit may or may not be true (as the fake Moody was probably eager to make Harry trust him, and that could be an embellish story to compliment Harry), but it is backed up by his confession under the influence of veritaserum later that he had used the map to monitor the ground for Mr. Crouch after recieving a message from LV that Crouch had escaped, and that he did spot his father entering the ground on the map. So my best explanation is that either time-travellers don't show up on the map, or that they do show, but it was luck of the draw that Lupin noticed the real time Harry and Hermione first, and he concentrated on them so much he didn't notice another Harry and Hermione in the vinicity. CH3ed hoping he hadn't goofed on his recollection. Just moved to California and the books are in still in the boxes. :O) From Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com Mon Apr 10 01:38:39 2006 From: Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com (coldsliversofglass) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 01:38:39 -0000 Subject: Chamber of Secrets In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150778 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "richter_kuymal" wrote: > Donna Asks: entrance to the chamber is a large pipe located > under a sink complete with water taps. Now, my question is: did > people living over a thousand years ago have sinks and water taps > for plumbing? If these "modern" conveniences were added > much, much later after the chamber was built, when installing the > new conveniences, why didn't someone investigate the huge pipe and > check it for leaks, etc? >>PAR replied: The problem is that even so, the best of water systems >>needs periodic upkeep and creating a bathroom complete with faucets >>(as opposed to fountains) and toilets that flushed would have >>required occasional upgrades and modifications. So either some >>wizard did the work who knew about the chamber and put the snake on >>the tap, the upkeep is done by House Elves (who keep the secrets of >>the founders), the castle itself modifies according to need (part >>of the original enchantment) or, possibly the upkeep has been done >>by wizards but the snake on the faucet was done by LV. coldsliversofglass: I recieved the impression from the books that the bathroom wasn't used that much anyway, and that it wasn't all that up-to-date either. I mean, running water yes, but there was an "out of order" stall and Myrtle even mentioned that the Chamber of Secrets sink didn't work. This makes me think that maybe the upkeep wasn't given any real priority. Also, from the description, I imagined it as the sort of bathroom students only use if they're absolutely desperate: the sort of bathroom where one takes the time to go to the next floor to use alternative facilities if at all possible. After all, this is the bathroom students hide out in (Myrtle from Olive/Hermione hides in there after Ron insults her in the hallway/Draco hides there too in HBP) when they want to avoid their classmates. Assuming that no one else used the room, maybe there were spells put onto it to prevent people from being interested in repairing it. Other points of interest: according to the HPLexicon, the room is on the same floor as the HeadMaster's office. This isn't the sort of floor people are going to want to hang around, so chances are that students haven't used it much over the years anyway. The placement encourages students to avoid the room, which encourages the school to put off bothering to repair or modernize it. The perfect way to keep the chamber a secret. The HPLexicon also mentions that this floor holds the DADA classroom: I'm curious just how new the class itself actually is. From the school's inability to find any good teachers, I didn't really sense that DADA was a well estabilished tradition. I thought the class was introduced more as a result of Dumbledore's battle with Grindelwald or because of the threat of Voldemort. Also, the scene in which Harry notices the snake implies that the snake was well hidden. Harry was looking for a clue to the Chamber's location: most of the others in the room wouldn't be. Even if they saw the snake, they might not recognize it as a snake. Someone else might have assumed it was just a scratch in the copper. If they did recognize it, one would expect them to assume that the snake was etched into the tap by some slytherin student who just wanted to leave a mark on the school. I mean, how many times has a student walked into a bathroom and found at least some sign of graffitti in the bathroom stalls or on the walls? coldsliversofglass From belviso at attglobal.net Mon Apr 10 02:06:47 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2006 22:06:47 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Chamber of Secrets References: Message-ID: <02ca01c65c43$6d13b490$58ba400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 150779 > coldsliversofglass: > Also, from the description, I imagined it as the sort of bathroom > students only use if they're absolutely desperate: the sort of > bathroom where one takes the time to go to the next floor to use > alternative facilities if at all possible. After all, this is the > bathroom students hide out in (Myrtle from Olive/Hermione hides in > there after Ron insults her in the hallway/Draco hides there too in > HBP) when they want to avoid their classmates. Magpie: Just to be accurate, Draco hides out in a different bathroom--the boy's bathroom. Myrtle is just going to see him there in that scene; it's not her bathroom. And now that I think of it...I'm not sure it's the one Hermione hides in in PS/SS either. Do we know that for sure? Or does she just pick a different one? In CoS I think we're told the reason nobody goes to that bathroom usually is that Myrtle is there. -m From zgirnius at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 02:47:09 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 02:47:09 -0000 Subject: DADA class (was Re: Chamber of Secrets) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150780 > coldsliversofglass: > The HPLexicon also mentions that this floor holds the DADA classroom: > I'm curious just how new the class itself actually is. From the > school's inability to find any good teachers, I didn't really sense > that DADA was a well estabilished tradition. I thought the class was > introduced more as a result of Dumbledore's battle with Grindelwald > or because of the threat of Voldemort. zgirnius: What we know about the DADA position: Tom Riddle wanted it right out of school. At the time, the course was taught by a witch named Galatea Merrythought, who was very old and planning to retire. This suggests she had taught the class for some time, which would mean it long predates the defeat of Grindelwald (which occured in 1945, while Riddle was at Hogwarts). We also know that Riddle did not get the position initially. He applied again in the interview we saw as a Pensieve memory in HBP. This interview, according to Dumbledore, occured about ten years after the Pensieve memory of Riddle talking to Hepzibah Smith. That would have been within a short time after Riddle's finishing of Hogwarts-I can't imagine Tom Riddle worked for many years as an employee of Borgin and Birke's. So, this interview occured in the same general timeframe as the borth of Snape and the Marauders. Consequently, the school had been having to hire a new DADA instructor every year for something like 30-40 years. I think this might help to explain the difficulty of obtaining a highly qualified individual to teacvh the class. From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Mon Apr 10 03:24:30 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 03:24:30 -0000 Subject: Orphans - Harry and Tom Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150781 Tonight I was looking for something else entirely (Does JKR have a duty to present feminist issues in her books because she is female? Do you think Google!Mort is being helpful?) and ran across the summary of a lecture about the books. One point really intrigued me - the place of orphan in a story. The point: Yet orphanhood also a technique of liberation (see Harry's wanderings in Diagon Alley) ? orphan goes where he pleases, he has adventures http://www.english.und.ac.za/English2/Potterlec3_2005.htm The lecture was written before HBP came out. Harry, Tom and Hagrid are orphans, or were left in the same situation. Orphans are supposed to elicit sympathy, yet their state also liberates them from parental constraints. We don't know much about Hagrid's early life and his relationship toward his parents, but we are shown Tom's and Harry's. Both without parents as they begin their education, both left on their own, yet Harry accepts and warms to his guide into the WW, while Tom rejects any such guide. The typical orphan story I read as a child shows good, dutiful orphans, polite, eager to please (The Boxcar Children, Cinderella), spit upon by life but getting by on pluck and goodwill. Harry isn't nearly as compliant as the older versions, but he still has the same feelings they do - the wish for family, honoring his dead parents, knowing he would have had a better life if they had lived, longing to belong. Harry, while fighting his situation, still remains within bounds and when he crosses them, he expects to be punished. He looks for better without trying to undo everything around him. Tom turns all that on its head. And I find that curious. At nearly the same time as Shirley Temple was dancing down the tables of her movie-set orphanage singing 'Animal Crackers', Tom was frightening other students, stealing their toys, killing their pets, and doing who-knows-what to them in seaside caves. When he is offered guidance in his first trip into the WW, he refuses it. No one can constrain Tom. He is more powerful than the matrons at the home, he is more powerful than his mother who was weak enough to die, he is more powerful than anyone, until he meets Dumbledore. And by then, it seems that his lack of self-restraint has become a part of him. I understand that Tom is supposed to turn out bad. But this changes the whole orphan thing, at least for me. He does not wish for family, he wishes to be unique. He does not honor the mother who died giving birth to him and he kills the father who left him and his mother. He doesn't mention anything to Dumbledore about wishing for his parents, and he doesn't show much feeling about the subject - all he wants is revenge. He seems to have nothing but contempt for his mother's 'weakness'. He doesn't want to belong, he wants to rule and let others belong to him. I was taken by the obvious differences between them. Maybe it's just JKR showing how bad Tom is. But, I am getting something else thrown in now, the dangers of liberation without constraint, and the huge gulf between Tom and Harry. Ceridwen. From OctobersChild48 at aol.com Mon Apr 10 03:40:22 2006 From: OctobersChild48 at aol.com (OctobersChild48 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2006 23:40:22 EDT Subject: Danger at the Wedding? Message-ID: <319.245ddd5.316b2da6@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150782 Kim wrote: > I'm curious about the "coming of age" factor for the summer before Harry > and > Neville turn 17. Ginny won't be 17 for some time yet. How can Harry and > crew begin Horcrux Hunting if Harry can't perform magic? > > If there's trouble at the wedding and the wedding happens before their 17th > birthdays then will Harry and Neville (surely he and gran are invited?) be > called into a hearing to prove that they were in danger if they should have > to defend themselves or others with magic? I don't recall a date being mentioned for the wedding, but Harry won't be hunting for Horcruxes until he comes of age because, as per Dumbledore's request, he is returning to Privet Drive until his birthday. If the wedding occurs before Harry's birthday and there is trouble I would think that, under the circumstances, the ban on underage wizardry would be overlooked, especially with Harry's birthday so near. Sandy From dontask2much at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 04:10:45 2006 From: dontask2much at yahoo.com (rebecca) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 00:10:45 -0400 Subject: LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank Know "Something" Message-ID: <00ab01c65c54$be189c50$6401a8c0@MITRE.ORG> No: HPFGUIDX 150783 So, lots of discussions thus far about Snape (good Snape, bad Snape, just general Snape-itis) - all good and all great points. After looking back through my non Snape notes, I thought I'd ask the patience of the group whilst we explore that seeming unanswerable question, "why did LV choose Harry" to mark as his equal at GH. And who might have known the Dark Smarmy Lord was going to visit and perform the dasterdly deeds he did that fateful night Harry rec'd his car and his first motorcycle ride. ( Yes indeedy, those of us Harley- obsessed are happy to have another convert in our midst) We all know what we've been able to pick up in the books about this. We also know that Neville Longbottom could have just as been easily chosen as the Other in the prophecy, but wasn't. And who knew about the Prophecy? Dumbledore did, of course, as apparently did Snape. As DD says in OoP, both the Longbottoms and the Potters were in the Order and I think were alerted to the prophecy or danger at some point. Surely someone in the Ministry knew of the prophecy's existence. The Potters, we know, chose to go into hiding. What did the Longbottoms do if they knew? The question this all begets is why *Frank Longbottom* would be tortured for information about LV's whereabouts after GH? I say Frank first because the way that the Penseive passage is written; it *starts* with Frank being tortured and then his wife when Frank wouldn't talk - Barty Crouch in DD's Penseive scene of GoF is what we base our understanding upon. Would not talk about "what"? How would Frank know anything about where LV went? Couple this with JKR's statement that the LeStranges weren't in on the secret of the prophecy - and according to herself, Bella et all were sent directly to the Longbottoms only a few weeks after LV's disappearance but not to kill Neville. They specifically were the ones the DE's wanted. (Another question: who the hell *sent them* if LV was MIA? Don't blame me for asking, blame Rowling for her site's answer to the question of the choice.) Wouldn't that line of thought perhaps lead one to the speculation Frank saw what happened at GH? JKR's also mentioned before that we maybe haven't see the last of the time turners -could it be that Ministry would have allowed a time turner's use to find out just what happened to the most notorious terrorist in years? In PoA, time isn't to be meddled with and bad things happen to wizards who do; per Hermoine, noboby but nobody is supposed to change time. Frank could have witnessed the whole thing and since we know Ministry employed DE's exist, maybe the rumor got out.... The other alternative is one that I feel slightly queasy about, and hate to even mention. What if Gran's darling Frank did something that might not be so Order-ish - like trying to save his family in lieu of the Potters' demise. rebecca, who thinks this is reaching but can't account for another reason why the Longbottoms would be singled out From h.m.s at mweb.co.za Mon Apr 10 06:33:40 2006 From: h.m.s at mweb.co.za (H.M.S) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 08:33:40 +0200 Subject: Snape in the role of Judas Message-ID: <003c01c65c68$d3597fd0$ccd217c4@Sharon> No: HPFGUIDX 150784 A South African News program last night featured a "Gospel of Judas" which has just come to light. So I did a Google search this morning and found at www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/science/06cnd-judas.html?_r=1&oref=slogin the following: "An early Christian manuscript, including the only known text of what is known as the Gospel of Judas, has surfaced after 1,700 years. The text gives new insights into the relationship of Jesus and the disciple who betrayed him, scholars reported today. In this version, Jesus asked Judas, as a close friend, to sell him out to the authorities, telling Judas he will "exceed" the other disciples by doing so. " YOU MUST READ THIS ARTICLE How weird is this!! Is it possible that JKR had some knowledge of the rumours surrounding this gospel which, according to the article, has been searched for by the experts for years! Does this give us a clue to the true story behind the death of Dumbledore? Are all those people who believe Snape killed DD on DD's instructions, correct after all?? I CAN'T WAIT FOR BOOK 7 Sharon From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Mon Apr 10 06:40:38 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 06:40:38 -0000 Subject: Snape in the role of Judas In-Reply-To: <003c01c65c68$d3597fd0$ccd217c4@Sharon> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150785 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "H.M.S" wrote: Sharon: > A South African News program last night featured a "Gospel of Judas" which > has just come to light. > How weird is this!! Is it possible that JKR had some knowledge of the > rumours surrounding this gospel which, according to the article, has been > searched for by the experts for years! Does this give us a clue to the true > story behind the death of Dumbledore? Are all those people who believe > Snape killed DD on DD's instructions, correct after all?? Geoff: I did say in message 150769 which I posted yesterday that I had come across ideas about Judas' role in the events leading up to the crucifixion many years ago so although the news about the supposed gospel is very topical, the idea that Judas may have played a hidden part in this is not new. From bboyminn at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 07:39:49 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 07:39:49 -0000 Subject: Danger at the Wedding? In-Reply-To: <319.245ddd5.316b2da6@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150786 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, OctobersChild48 at ... wrote: > > Kim wrote: > > > I'm curious about the "coming of age" factor for the summer > > before Harry and Neville turn 17. ... How can Harry and > > crew begin Horcrux Hunting if Harry can't perform magic? > > > > If there's trouble at the wedding ... then will Harry ... be > > called into a hearing to prove that they were in danger... > > Sandy: > > I don't recall a date being mentioned for the wedding, but > Harry won't be hunting for Horcruxes until he comes of age > because, as per Dumbledore's request, he is returning to > Privet Drive until his birthday. ... > > I would think that, under the circumstances, the ban on underage > wizardry would be overlooked, especially with Harry's birthday > so near. > > Sandy > bboyminn: Actually, that's not quite correct, although it is a common assumption that Harry has to stay until his birthday. Harry only has to stay for a week, or two at the most, for the 'protection' to continue. Dumbledore ask Harry to return to the Dursley one more time, because his return assured that his 'protection' would continue until his birthday. If Harry has left at the beginning of the school year with no intention of every returning, the protection would have ended then. By getting the Dursley and Harry to agree to Harry returning one more time, they have insured that the protection continues for another full year until it normally terminates at Harry's 17 birthday. I think, and this is just one man's opinion, that Harry, more or less, has a premanent exemption on the Restriction on Underage Magic. Given the circumstance that he is in, given that he could be attacked at any moment, I don't think the Ministry is too worried about underage magic. In fact, I think Fudge's persecution of Harry was completely out of proportion to what would have happened to any other underage wizard. Fudge was looking for any excuse at all to discredit Harry and by implication Dumbledore. The underage magic was simply that excuse. Further, if the Wedding is attacked there will be dozen of witnesses including members of the Ministry, so I don't think there would be any hearing. It would be crystal clear that defensive magic by any and all available persons was necessary, and therefore justified. In this group, and others, we have discussed (actually speculated) the sequence of events in Harry's first month of his holiday, leading up to his birthday. In order to encorporate all the events that we speculate are likely to happen, this was the conclusion we reached. - Harry returns to Privet Drive with Ron and Hermione. (a week or two) - Harry goes to the Bill's Wedding. - Harry goes to Godric's Hollow. - Harry returns to Privet Drive for his birthday, or just after his birthday, to gather all his things and move out of Privet Drive for good. This allows the comedy of Ron and Hermoine at the Dursely's. It allows for a Wedding and potential attack at the Wedding. It allows Harry to discover whatever secrets Godrics Hollow may hide. It allows Harry to either have his birthday at the Burrow, or possibly at Privet Drive. And, it allows for an attack at Privet Drive, thereby resulting in Harry having to offer refuge to the Dursleys. Then it's off to Grimmauld Place with the lot of them. I think, in looking at a Wedding attack, we have to weigh the likelihood of a Privet Drive attack. Is it likely one or the other, or could it possibly be both? Further, if there is likely an attack on Hogwarts, does this all add up to too many attacks? Ignoring a Hogwarts attack, which seems very likely, is two attacks at the beginning of the book too many, or can a feasable story be woven around that? Two attacks within a period of two or three weeks seem like a bit much, but then Dumbledore, the great protector, is gone. The presences of Voldemort and the Death Eaters is indisputable. There isn't much reason for Voldemort to hide or in any way restrain himself. It seems like all out war now, where as previously the war seemed somewhat covert. While I see the Wedding as a place where many people could be attacked, it is likely to be a well defended place. First by additional security, and second by the shear volume of wizard likely to be there. So, I'm more certain of an attack on the undefended Dursleys than on the very defendable Wedding. I also question whether Voldemort can afford to waste the DE's that will certainly be captured or killed in a Wedding attack. I see the Wedding as a great opportunity but a bad plan, where as the undefended Dusleys is both a great opportunity and a better plan. Still...I'm uncertain. Steve/bboyminn From foxmoth at qnet.com Mon Apr 10 14:11:04 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 14:11:04 -0000 Subject: Who sent was Re: LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank Know "Something" In-Reply-To: <00ab01c65c54$be189c50$6401a8c0@MITRE.ORG> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150787 Rebecca: > Would not talk about "what"? How would Frank know anything about where LV > went? Couple this with JKR's statement that the LeStranges weren't in on > the secret of the prophecy - and according to herself, Bella et all were > sent directly to the Longbottoms only a few weeks after LV's disappearance > but not to kill Neville. They specifically were the ones the DE's wanted. > (Another question: who the hell *sent them* if LV was MIA? Don't blame me > for asking, blame Rowling for her site's answer to the question of the > choice.) > Pippin: Ah, yes, that *sent* comment is a gift to the ESE! theorist. One could hardly ask for a juicier hint in that direction. It would have to be a powerful DE who could give commands in LV's absence. We can eliminate Snape because of the conversation at Spinner's End. Bella accused Snape of having done nothing in aid of the Dark Lord's return, and Snape claimed that he thought LV was finished, neither of which would make sense if Bella thought she was talking to the person who'd 'sent' her. It would also have to be someone who could reasonably claim to have information about what Frank knew. One might suspect a spy in the Order, but our known spy, Pettigrew, had safely faked his death and had no reason to take any risks on behalf of his disembodied master. Also, I can't imagine Bella letting Pettigrew send her anywhere. But who says there can only be one spy? If Dumbledore had a number of useful spies, shouldn't Voldemort have the same advantage? Let us say that the second spy is in no great hurry for LV's return, but is anxious, nay desperate, to eliminate anyone who knows that Pettigrew is not the only traitor in the Order. So he sends the rest of his cell after the Longbottoms and arranges for them to get caught. There was a chance that they'd implicate him, and it must have given our traitor a nervous moment when Crouch Sr started cutting deals, but still, it was safer to have them in Azkaban than walking free and expecting him to be involved in their plans for LV's return. Of course they might go mad in Azkaban and blurt out his name anyway, but that wouldn't matter if he was using an alias. If they sometimes spoke about "Wormtail" as if he was still alive, Sirius would just think they were raving, and no one else would know what they meant at all. So my guess is that it didn't matter what Frank and Alice knew. The sender only chose them because they were popular and powerful aurors, and an attack on them would surely land the perpetrators in Azkaban despite the vagaries of wizarding justice. Pippin From donnawonna at worldnet.att.net Mon Apr 10 16:05:47 2006 From: donnawonna at worldnet.att.net (Donna) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 12:05:47 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) Subject: What if......? Message-ID: <443A825B.000009.02080@D33LDD51> No: HPFGUIDX 150788 Donna states/asks: Okay, I am now going to commit social suicide and, should that fail, virtual murder. We all know that there is a spy in the Order. We know that there is some one very powerful working with and for LV. Many suspect Snape. Many feel that PP doesn't have the intellect? We know it's not Bella. I have no real reason for stating the following except for a feeling: What if that powerful wizard is Dumbledore - the last one on earth any one would suspect? [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From rdoliver30 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 13:27:41 2006 From: rdoliver30 at yahoo.com (lupinlore) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 13:27:41 -0000 Subject: Slytherin redemption In-Reply-To: <20060408170121.46000.qmail@web61324.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150789 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Joe Goodwin wrote: > > > To me this means that one of the lesser known Slytherins, say Goyle or even Parkinson is going to step and and decided that it is their best interest to work against Voldemort. Note I don't think they will do it because they are wonderful people but because they recognise what the wizarding world would be like if Voldemort won. I understand where you're coming from, and I agree with your reservations. Having said all that, I think in order for this scenario to really be effective it requires either another major character or a set of minor characters to step forth from Slytherin, and it's awfully late in the day for that. It is possible JKR will do it anyway. I do think she sometimes has problems with timing in the series as a whole -- i.e. she waits too long to introduce important points. Thus we have Ginny rushing out of the wings in HBP when a more gradual development over two or three books would have been better, and Draco's sudden development dropped out of the sky as well (I know some say it was foreshadowed but sorry, I just don't buy that). So I guess I'm saying I agree with you, and I think it may well happen (and the hints about the deleted scene with Theodore Nott from earlier books seem to lean in that direction), but it seems like an eleventh hour development if there ever was one. I wonder if this was the role the Weasley cousin was originally supposed to play? > > It just seems to me and Snape and Draco both working for the good guys after having seen the error of their ways is a good bit too contrived for a writer as imaginative as JKR. If that happened I would expect everyone to join hands and sing Christmas Carols in Whoville. > I agree. We also should remember that Peter Pettigrew is lurking out there as a possible figure of redemption. I know a lot of people don't like that possibility, and I suppose I understand why (although I don't think that Pettigrew's sins are all that much different than Snape's). But JKR has pretty much said, via Dumbledore, that Pettigrew and his life debt to Harry will be important. Are we going to have three redemption stories simultaneously? Oh well, DaHoo DoeRay. Lupinlore From orgone9 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 15:38:28 2006 From: orgone9 at yahoo.com (Len Jaffe) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 08:38:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: golpolott's third Message-ID: <20060410153828.64303.qmail@web80615.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150790 Another thing that's been nagging at me lately after listening to HBP on CD about 12 times is this: Why didn't H&DD try to take some of the green potion out of the cave and try to figure out an antidote? Why would the biggest brain of the age just gulp down random poison, set out by LV? The only logical conclusion I can come to is that DD's incapacitation/death (I'm not convinced he's dead, but that's a whoel other thread) is part of a much bigger plan that DD and Snape must have hatched. otherwise prudence would have dictated an attempt to determine what the green kool-ade was before drinking. Another thing in the cave that struck me was that the description of the lake's behavior was eerily similar to the description of the bahvior of draught of living death. It could be a way to store the people who failed to retrieve the horcux until LV gets around to checking on it, and can interrogate them on his own time. For all we know, Regulus could be sleeping in the lake, and not actually dead. Although, since Harry is in control of #12GoP, this is unlikely, unless the enchantment that govern things like ownership don't account for things like "he's alive, but barely, and he's in LV's lake", and for all intents he is dead. Len. From orgone9 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 15:28:13 2006 From: orgone9 at yahoo.com (Len Jaffe) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 08:28:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Protective curses on horcuxes Message-ID: <20060410152813.37902.qmail@web80605.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150791 The diary did not have any apparent anti-destruction cures upon it (else the powerfully magical basilisk fang / residual poison acted as a curse breaker), but the ring had enough of a curse on it to cost DD his arm, and we can presume that DD was a fairly adept cursebreaker (CB). So how on Earth can HRH assume that they'll be able to just destroy the remaining horcuxes. Have they become master CBs during the interstitial periods of the books? Are they planning to entrust their secret to Bill, who is a professional CB, or will they have Bill teach them? The only other ideas I have involved other "trustworthy" OOP members / aurors, Moody/Tonks/Shaklebolt. Beyond that, nothing. What do you think? Len. Leonard A. Jaffe lenjaffe at jaffesystems.com Leonard Jaffe Computer Systems Consulting Ltd. Columbus, OH, USA 614-404-4214 F: 530-380-7423 From spirittalks at gmail.com Mon Apr 10 16:37:49 2006 From: spirittalks at gmail.com (Kim) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 12:37:49 -0400 Subject: What if......? References: <443A825B.000009.02080@D33LDD51> Message-ID: <008b01c65cbd$1bc00060$6501a8c0@your27e1513d96> No: HPFGUIDX 150792 Donna states/asks: What if that powerful wizard is Dumbledore - the last one on earth any one would suspect? Kim replies: Donna, your invitation to the wedding has just been cancelled. However... which of us hasn't wondered about this secretly and agreed it was possible and shoved it aside, throwing it violently into the backs of our brains and chastizing it for even rearing it's ugly head? My only defense for Dear Dumbledore is lack of motive. Can't really be power, can it? He's not going to bow down to little Tom Riddle. The little brat has always feared him. In fact, most wanted him for MOM but he turned it down preferring to stay at Hogwarts. So in my very onesided brain I suggest that Dumbledore is the bestest wizard ever. Kim From spirittalks at gmail.com Mon Apr 10 16:32:41 2006 From: spirittalks at gmail.com (Kim) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 12:32:41 -0400 Subject: Danger at the Wedding? References: Message-ID: <008601c65cbc$647257a0$6501a8c0@your27e1513d96> No: HPFGUIDX 150793 bboyminn explains: Dumbledore ask Harry to return to the Dursley one more time, because his return assured that his 'protection' would continue until his birthday. If Harry has left at the beginning of the school year with no intention of every returning, the protection would have ended then. By getting the Dursley and Harry to agree to Harry returning one more time, they have insured that the protection continues for another full year until it normally terminates at Harry's 17 birthday. Kim replies: Yes, that works well, I think you have that one right on. And thank you for the summary of the results of the previous discussions on the likelihood of events in the summer months. I have a bit to add. I believe that by the time we rejoin the characters there will be a lot more death eaters so they'll be able to strike frequently and hard. First; who's guarding Azkaban? Not the Dementors, they're busy breeding like bunnies all over the world. So we can probably add the Azkaban DEs (slimy!Lucius and company) to the battlefield. When we left the giants, they were listening to the DEs so we may be able to add them. We heard that the werewolves that were gathered in a community weren't law abiding so we may be able to add them, and so on. bboyminn >Further, if the Wedding is attacked there will be dozen of witnesses including members of the Ministry, so I don't think there would be any hearing. It would be crystal clear that defensive magic by any and all available persons was necessary, and therefore justified. Kim: Again, I agree. And I'd like to add: To use my mom's expression; "My memory is like a sieve." Yes, I'm becoming my mother. I'm rerererereading the series and am on GOF. I remember a few days ago coming across a passage that I should have sent in and now I can't remember it. Rats! It referred to the Quidditch World Cup, I believe, and the fact that the DEs acted up there. I remember a comment, maybe someone will remember it better, about how the Death Eaters found happy gatherings a convenient place for attacks. I hope someone remembers it. I'll continue looking. It might be a hint about the wedding. bboyminn >While I see the Wedding as a place where many people could be attacked, it is likely to be a well defended place. First by additional security, and second by the shear volume of wizard likely to be there. So, I'm more certain of an attack on the undefended Dursleys than on the very defendable Wedding. I also question whether Voldemort can afford to waste the DE's that will certainly be captured or killed in a Wedding attack. Kim replies: I think the book can hold two attacks early on. Starting off this final, all out war, book that way would be setting the tone and would give people an idea of what living during this time is like. It's sort of like living in a place where war is THERE! You aren't even safe shopping. You aren't safe anywhere because war is everywhere. I realize a Weasley wedding is not likely to be compared with the QWC in the WW society pages, but I'd say that the Weasleys are a popular bunch. At the QWC the Weasley tent was set up on a throughway and Arthur was greeted by dozens of passersby. Many stopped to chat including higher ups in the MOM. We know that many of the OOPs will be there and we know that Charlie has a lot of friends. Certainly we can consider the possibility that other wizarding families like the Longbottoms and Diggorys would be invited as well as Hermione's family (an excuse for Arthur to drill them on ins and outs of zippers). If the DEs weren't afraid to work their brand of magic at the QWC and their numbers will probably be higher than ever, I think it's likely we'll see a Weasley wedding attack, despite the protections. A Dursley home attack with the Dursleys going with Harry for protection is a gift to readers that I'm afraid to hope for. It's almost like wanting a Firebolt for Christmas and fearing you're going to get a Comet. Boy would I love that Firebolt! Kim (hoping too, for an attack free wedding) From celizwh at intergate.com Mon Apr 10 18:39:43 2006 From: celizwh at intergate.com (houyhnhnm102) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 18:39:43 -0000 Subject: Snape in the role of Judas In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150794 Geoff: > I did say in message 150769 which I posted yesterday > that I had come across ideas about Judas' role in the > events leading up to the crucifixion many years ago so > although the news about the supposed gospel is very > topical, the idea that Judas may have played a hidden > part in this is not new. houyhnhnm: In "Tres versiones de Judas", published in 1944, Jorge Luis Borges wrote a story about a fictional scholar whose premise was that the "betrayal" by Judas was actually a sacrifice of Judas, one equivalent to the sacrifice of Jesus. >From an English translation published in 1964: ********************* He then refuted those who maintain we know nothing of the inexplicable traitor; we know, he said, that he was one of the apostles, one of those chosen to announce the kingdom of heaven, to cure the sick, to clean lepers, to raise the dead and cast out demons (Matthew 10: 7-8; Luke 9:1). A man whom the Redeemer has thus distinguished merits the best interpretation we can give of his acts. To attribute his crime to greed (as some have done citing John 12:6) is to resign oneself to the basest motive. Nils Runeberg proposes the opposite motive: a hyperbolic and even unlimited asceticism. The ascetic, for the greater glory of God, vilifies and mortifies his flesh; Judas did the same with his spirit. He renounced honor, morality, peace and the kingsom of heaven, just as others, less heroically, renounce pleasure. . . Judas sought Hell because the happiness of the Lord was enough for him. ********************* Before Dan Brown there was Eco, and before Eco there was Borges. From tonks_op at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 19:02:48 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 19:02:48 -0000 Subject: Snape in the role of Judas In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150795 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "houyhnhnm102" wrote: > > > In "Tres versiones de Judas", published in 1944, Jorge Luis Borges > wrote a story about a fictional scholar whose premise was that the > "betrayal" by Judas was actually a sacrifice of Judas, one equivalent to the sacrifice of Jesus. > Tonks: My gosh, doesn't that name remind you of anything? I can't find the name that was on the UK adult version of the book, but it is a lot like that. Wasn't it Borage or something. Makes you wonder doesn't it? Tonks_op From bboyminn at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 19:11:52 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 19:11:52 -0000 Subject: Protective curses on horcuxes In-Reply-To: <20060410152813.37902.qmail@web80605.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150796 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Len Jaffe wrote: > > ... > > So how on Earth can HRH assume that they'll be able to > just destroy the remaining horcuxes. > > Have they become master CBs during the interstitial > periods of the books? > > Are they planning to entrust their secret to Bill, who > is a professional CB, or will they have Bill teach > them? > > ... > > What do you think? > > Len. > > Leonard A. Jaffe... > bboyminn: I'm not sure if it was in this group or another where a similar subject was being discussed and I pointed out that in the beginning Bill can train Harry in Curse Breaking and recognising residual magic without knowing the details of the Horcruxes. The specific object is irrelevant to the curses protecting it. In Bill's case, the curses are mostly protecting tombs and buried treasure, but the detection and de-activation of the spells and curses is the same regardless of what is being guarded. So, Bill can take Harry a long way on the path of becoming a Curse Breaker without Harry having to disclose that he is seeking Horcruxes. We also assume Harry needs to learn to defend himself. Moody can train Harry in offensive and defensive spell with no questions asked. Harry and Voldemort have gone head-to-head several times in the past, and everyone naturally assumes it will happen again. So, there would need to be no disclosure of secret to get Moody's assistance. I see Harry extending trust and accepting assistance very slowly and cautiously. But at some point, he has to realize that he is in over his head, and needs to draw on the resources around him. I suspect Lupin will be the first to gain Harry's confidence. Still I don't think Harry will disclose everything immediately. Later I think Moody and Bill will be brought in. Then gradually Harry's trust in these people will evolve and he will disclose more. Eventually, the whole Order will be brought it, but, just as Dumbledore did, Harry will only disclose what ever each Order member needs to do the immediate job at hand. Too many people see only an all-or-nothing approach, either Harry reveals every secret to everyone or he trusts no one. But I am confident that there is plenty of middle ground that allows bits and pieces to be disclosed on an as-needed basis. I suspect that before the end of the next book there will be a few people close to Harry who know close to everything, but the remaining member of the Order, teachers, fellow DA Club members, etc... will only know what they need to know and only when they need to know it. Just a thought. Steve/bboyminn From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Mon Apr 10 19:14:52 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 15:14:52 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Protective curses on horcuxes In-Reply-To: <20060410152813.37902.qmail@web80605.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060410191452.96731.qmail@web37015.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150797 Len: the ring had enough of a curse on it to cost DD his arm, and we can presume that DD was a fairly adept cursebreaker (CB). So how on Earth can HRH assume that they'll be able to just destroy the remaining horcuxes. Catherine now: Someone in a previous post a few weeks back had a very good notion that perhaps Harry is somehow protected from any curse, since Voldemort transferred some powers back to Harry that fateful night. Maybe it will be Harry the DADA teacher at the end of book 7 as he will be the only one to defeat the jinx. Catherine --------------------------------- 7 bucks a month. This is Huge Yahoo! Music Unlimited [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From manawydan at ntlworld.com Mon Apr 10 19:12:02 2006 From: manawydan at ntlworld.com (manawydan) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 20:12:02 +0100 Subject: [HPforGrownups] LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank Know "Something" References: <1144653742.1561.9791.m19@yahoogroups.com> Message-ID: <001401c65cd2$a799cd40$163a6751@f3b7j4> No: HPFGUIDX 150798 Rebecca wrote: > but not to kill Neville. They specifically were the ones the DE's wanted. > (Another question: who the hell *sent them* if LV was MIA? Don't blame me > for asking, blame Rowling for her site's answer to the question of the > choice.) Very good question. Not Lucius, perhaps: too young at the time and not one of the top DEs. I'm not totally clear about the timeline of the arrests and trials of the DE leadership, how long it took the Ministry and/or the Order to round them up. Likely that at least some of them were arrested the following day, it's reasonable to speculate that Dumbledore and the rest of the Order were busy doing that rather than partying or making sure that Harry was safely conveyed to Little Whinging. > Wouldn't that line of thought perhaps lead one to the speculation Frank saw > what happened at GH? JKR's also mentioned before that we maybe haven't see > the last of the time turners -could it be that Ministry would have allowed a > time turner's use to find out just what happened to the most notorious > terrorist in years? In PoA, time isn't to be meddled with and bad things _Someone_ had to pass on the message that LV was gone, and that someone had to be a reliable enough witness to be believed by the Ministry and the media. Word was out very early the following morning for Vernon to see the wizards out on the streets on his way to work. Couldn't have been Hagrid who had to get Harry away before anyone arrived and tried to thwart his orders. Couldn't have been Sirius who had vanished in hot pursuit of Peter (and it couldn't have been Peter, for the same reason). Also, I couldn't imagine Dumbledore sending Hagrid on his own without being sure that Voldemort was no longer a threat, Hagrid's a good guy in a fight but sending him against Voldemort on his own is certain death. The Longbottoms are a reasonable surmise to have gone with him. They were perhaps scouting to see if there were any DEs in the vicinity when Sirius arrived, conversed with Hagrid, and left again, returning in time to deal with any arriving Muggles and report to the Ministry clean-up squad. If they were then on the front page of the Prophet as eye-witnesses, then that's enough to make them marked men for the surviving DEs. And they had to have sufficient information to convince everyone that Voldemort was gone, not just thwarted and retreated to carry on his nefarious activities. I've wondered whether they and Hagrid arrived just in time to see the final curse that dissipated LV but too late to make a difference for James or Lily. But JKR alone knows all hwyl Ffred O Benryn wleth hyd Luch Reon Cymru yn unfryd gerhyd Wrion Gwret dy Cymry yghymeiri From celizwh at intergate.com Mon Apr 10 19:46:53 2006 From: celizwh at intergate.com (houyhnhnm102) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 19:46:53 -0000 Subject: Marauder's Map Folly? In-Reply-To: <4tf3li$6jc5et@smtp02a.lnh.mail.rcn.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150799 Rachel asks: > My question is - when Harry and Hermione use the > Time-Turner to save Buckbeak and Sirius, why does > Lupin not see two Harrys and two Hermiones? Snape > as well does not notice this when he arrives to give > Lupin his potion and sees the map. Is there any > explanation for this? [Now Tammy says:] > > While I don't have my canon readily to hand, I do > > believe that Hagrid's hut doesn't show up on the > > Map, which is one good reason why Pettigrew, who > > helped write the Map, would have hidden out there. > > Also, if I remember rightly, at the time when Lupin > > and Snape would have each had a look at the Map, > > the Time-Turned Harry and Hermione were still over > > near Hagrid's place, hence off the Map. houyhnhnm: Lupin says: "The important thing is, I was watching it carefully this evening, because I had an idea that you, Ron, and Hermione might try and sneak out of the castle to visit Hagrid before his hippogriff was executed ..." And "I watched you cross the grounds and enter Hagrid's hut. Twenty minutes later, you left Hagrid and set off back toward the castle. But you were now accompanied by somebody else." Where were Time-Traveling Harry and Hermione when HRH1 were arriving at and leaving Hagrid's hut? ***************** They tore across the vegetable gardens to the greenhouses, paused for a moment behind them, then set off again, fast as they could, skirting around the Whomping Willow, tearing toward the shelter of the forest. They made their way silently through the trees, keeping to the very edge of the forest. Then, as they glimpsed the front of Hagrid's house, they heard a knock upon Hagrid's door ... And Harry heard his own voice. [...] Harry watched the grass flatten in patches all around the cabin and heard three pairs of feet retreating. He, Ron, and Hermione had gone...but the Harry and Hermione hidden in the trees could now hear what was happening inside the cabin through the back door. ***************** It is possible they were off the map while on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, and it does look, too, from Lupin's statement, that the interior of Hagrid's hut does not show up on the map. However, Lupin should have been able to see them running through the vegetable gardens, past the greenhouses and around the Whomping Willow. So it must be that Time Travelers, unlike people in invisibility cloaks, do not show up on the Marauders' Map. Or--consider the difficulty of locating any single person or even two or three on a map that shows the presence of hundreds. Once Lupin had located the Trio, it's unlikely he would have paid much attention to the multitude of other figures moving on the map. He was not expecting to see another Harry or Hermione. Snape would not have either, although under normal circumstances I think his eyes would have been quick to spot any figure labeled "Harry Potter". He saw an unmedicated Lupin running through the passageway towards the infamous Shreiking Shack and took off in pursuit, probably with little thought of anything else. At this time, Harry2 and Hermione2 were still hiding on the edge of the forest, so they may have, indeed, been off the map. From rdoliver30 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 12:00:56 2006 From: rdoliver30 at yahoo.com (lupinlore) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 12:00:56 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose /Pansy Parkinson In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150800 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Deb" wrote: > > Deb here: > Snape as Harry, etal's teacher ... and IMO as DDM!Snape ... has > to teach them much much more than just potions. He knows that > Harry has been selected by LV to be the child in the prophecy > (per DD's explaination to Harry at the end of OOP). Of all the > members of OOP Snape knows the most about LV's character and way > of doing things as he was when he became Vapomort - given that > Snape had been a DE. > Snape and DD know that in order for Harry to do what he needs to > do, in order for him to survive any and all confrontations with > LV and the DEs he has to not only master his magical skills but > also he has to develop emotionally and intellectually to the point > that he can withstand LVs verbal and emotional assaults as well as > his magical ones. Harry has had some experience dealing with > emotional abuse prior to coming to Hogwarts having lived with the > Dursleys. However that had not made him tough enough. If this turns out to be the case, I guess my response would be to paraphrase Sydney who was paraphrasing a very wise and insightful person in saying (not Sydney's opinion) that the child-abuse celebrating books would be worth nothing more than high-priced wood chipper fodder. Sorry, but that's just the way, imo, it is. JKR will have failed reprehensibly and revealed, imo, a deep set of moral flaws in so doing. Then again, the world needs good wood-chipper fodder more than it needs books that celebrate the abuse of children, in any case. Lupinlore From deepthi_b1 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 14:07:58 2006 From: deepthi_b1 at yahoo.com (deepthi_b1) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 14:07:58 -0000 Subject: Harry Potter: A Horcrux Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150801 Voldemort thinks that death is the greatest thing. In the prophecy he heard the part that only one survives. Voldemort, you should admit, being sensible as he is may have kept Harry as the horcrux as if Harry killed Voldemort then he'd be the remaining part of the horcrux. Voldemort underestimates Harry thinking that he will not kill himself to save others (recall my first point). Thus I think he purposefully chose Harry. Also the horcrux had to be Gryffindor's. I think that Voldemort, knowing that there was a very low chance of Neville being a Gryffindor, he could be a Hufflepuff for all we know - well, I remember recalling in the previous books that Neville's grandmother thought that Neville would be a squib. However on Harry's side there was a guarantee that he was magical (obtained info from Pettigrew perhaps) and that he would be in Gryffindor since he has strong roots in the Potter family..all of whom are Gryffindors (I recall reading this from one of J.K's interviews). There was a rumour that the last word ended with scar and the last line was 'Harry, where's your scar?' This line ends the possibilities of Harry dying in the Last Battle and has no relevance to my theory but read: it's only a rumour. "deepthi_b1" From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 21:43:32 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 21:43:32 -0000 Subject: Slytherin redemption In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150802 > >> Joe Goodwin: > > > > To me this means that one of the lesser known Slytherins, say > > Goyle or even Parkinson is going to step and and decided that it > > is their best interest to work against Voldemort. > > > >>Lupinlore: > > So I guess I'm saying I agree with you, and I think it may well > happen (and the hints about the deleted scene with Theodore Nott > from earlier books seem to lean in that direction), but it seems > like an eleventh hour development if there ever was one. I wonder > if this was the role the Weasley cousin was originally supposed to > play? Betsy Hp: I agree with your reservations, Lupinlore (which I snipped), that it's awfully late in the day for unknown, or barely known, Slytherins to come forth and help rejoin their house to the Hogwarts whole. (I've discounted Theo Nott since the deleted scenes bit on JKR's website. I think Nott's story has gone the way of Dean's.) > >>Joe Goodwin: > > It just seems to me and Snape and Draco both working for the > > good guys after having seen the error of their ways is a good > > bit too contrived for a writer as imaginative as JKR. > > > >>Lupinlore: > I agree. We also should remember that Peter Pettigrew is lurking > out there as a possible figure of redemption. > Betsy Hp: But, Peter Pettigrew is a Gryffindor. What could he possibly do to help the Slytherin end of a Hogwarts uniting party? Frankly, I've been waiting for Draco to join Harry's gang since book one. It's a classic bit for the school-days genre, IIRC, for former peer enemies to become friends. (Just as classic as the new understanding and respect for the curmudgeonly teacher. ) But beyond that, Draco *is* the face of Slytherin for Harry (and therefore, the readers). We're talking about the healing of a rift centuries old. There has to be a profound coming together to overcome something that embedded into the school consciousness. Something beyond a few "rebel" or "minor" Slytherins. That Draco comes from two major Slytherin families is important, I think. Just as Harry befriended the major Gryffindor family (the Weasleys), I feel like Draco's role as the Slytherin heir, in spirit if not reality, will be important. Betsy Hp From kkersey at swbell.net Mon Apr 10 21:46:41 2006 From: kkersey at swbell.net (kkersey_austin) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 21:46:41 -0000 Subject: Was Percy's sickle /Percy's Betrayal In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150803 Angie wrote, in part: > Given that it appears the Ministry promted Percy in the hopes that > he could get them inside information on his own family, I think it > is significant that the Ministry kept Percy in his "lofty" position > even after it was clear that he was estranged from his family. > Unless my calculations are off, Percy's position as a Weasley was of > no actual use to the Ministry for at least a year-and-a-half (during > Christmas in HBP). I guess the Ministry banked on Percy kissing and > making up at some point. Elisabet, proudly pinning on a D.O.P.E* badge: Oh, come on now, whatever factors may have influenced his initial hiring / promotion, don't you think that once Percy was in there he didn't make the bestest, bestest junior bureaucrat ever? Bright, capable, hard-working, compliant, deferent to his superiors... Who wouldn't want him working his you-know-what off in their department? He may not be one's first choice to hang out with at the pub after work, but as long as he's making his boss look good**, he's going to have a place in the organization. Angie: > Which raises a question to me: did the Ministry believe that Percy > would deliberately give them info on his family or inadvertently? ...perhaps not *believe*, yet still *hope for* either eventuality. And even if he never gets around to betraying his family, he's doing a job he may very well have gotten in any case. Arthur's assessment not withstanding, Percy is an asset (as well as an ass). Elisabet *D.O.P.E. -- "Defender of Percy's Exemplariness" **He did manage to cover for Imperiused!Crouch for, um, how long was that again? It's not your everyday underling that can pull that off. He seems to have not had any trouble bringing that kind of wholesale devotion to his job to his new positions. From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 22:02:32 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 22:02:32 -0000 Subject: Ginny's best friend (Was: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics)) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150804 > Amiable Dorsai: > There is this one girl that Ginny confides in an awful lot--tells her > all kinds of things about borrowed brooms and unrequited loves... > I've got a feeling that Harry knows Ginny's best female friend > tolerably well. Betsy Hp: Well, yes. I agree that Hermione and Ginny are friends. Probably the closest female friend either of them have. However, they're not really "best" friends. They share a room when Hermione comes to stay for the summer, and Hermione must notice Ginny sneaking out at night to do her clandestine broom riding. (The logistics of that still bug me, but ah well.) And I'm sure there's quite a bit of after lights out chatter (they do get along for the most part, after all). But they don't hang together that much at school. Of course, Hermione *can't* have a best friend outside of Ron and Harry, because that would have either added a fourth to their trio or pulled her away from her boys. Ginny could have had a best friend of some sort because she's not a part of Harry's core group. But JKR hasn't given her one (either male or female, for that matter). I mean, I suppose Ginny might call Hermione her best friend, but Hermione wouldn't return the favor, which leads to a rather unbalanced friendship, to my mind. Not something Spunky!Ginny would put up with, I would think. So the trend of only silly or shallow girls having female best friends remains unbroken. :) Betsy Hp From tonks_op at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 22:06:13 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 22:06:13 -0000 Subject: Snape's Cruelty Has Purpose /Pansy Parkinson In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150805 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lupinlore" wrote: > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Deb" wrote: > > > > Deb here: > > Snape as Harry, etal's teacher ... and IMO as DDM!Snape ... has > > to teach them much much more than just potions. (snip)> > > > Lupinlore said: > If this turns out to be the case, I guess my response would be to > paraphrase Sydney who was paraphrasing a very wise and insightful > person in saying (not Sydney's opinion) that the child-abuse > celebrating books would be worth nothing more than high-priced wood chipper fodder. Sorry, but that's just the way, imo, it is. JKR will have failed reprehensibly and revealed, imo, a deep set of moral flaws in so doing. Tonks: I am inclined to think that one of the many lessons that we will learn in the books is that what ever bad things comes our way they can be used for good. It will not be that bad things happen for a reason, or that bad things happen to teach us. (You sometimes hear people say crap like that, but it is just very bad theology.) I am sure that JKR would never imply that in her books. Bad things happen to people. As the saying goes "it rains on the just and the unjust alike". What we chose to do in response to the bad events in our life will determine the outcome. It is like LV when he interprets the prophesy. Or as some might say "you can curse the darkness or light a candle". When life gives you a lemon, make lemonade", etc. What I am saying is that Snape is the person that he is and the Dursley's are like they are. Harry has had a hard time of it because of both of them. DD did not set it up that way, he did the best he could under the situation. (Lets not get into the arguement about that.) Life is not a bed of roses for anyone of us. There is no grand plan to mess up our life to teach us, things just happens because of the fallen nature of man. However, sometimes we can use the negative events of our life to make us better and stronger people if we choose to do so. It is a small distinction but an important one. Tonks_op From amiabledorsai at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 22:37:15 2006 From: amiabledorsai at yahoo.com (amiabledorsai) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 22:37:15 -0000 Subject: Ginny's best friend (Was: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics)) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150806 > > Amiable Dorsai: > > I've got a feeling that Harry knows Ginny's best female friend > > tolerably well. > > Betsy Hp: > Well, yes. I agree that Hermione and Ginny are friends. > Probably the closest female friend either of them have. However, > they're not really "best" friends. > Of course, Hermione *can't* have a best friend outside of Ron and > Harry, because that would have either added a fourth to their trio > or pulled her away from her boys. > I mean, I suppose Ginny might call Hermione her best friend, but > Hermione wouldn't return the favor... > So the trend of only silly or shallow girls having female best > friends remains unbroken. :) Amiable Dorsai: So... Hermione chose, as the only person she trusted with the identity of her Yule Ball date, a casual friend, not someone she, you know, felt any special connection to? And the casual friend just sat on the juiciest bit of gossip in all of Gryffindor Tower? Without signing anything? Amiable Dorsai From gelite67 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 22:38:46 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 22:38:46 -0000 Subject: Was Percy's sickle /Percy's Betrayal In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150807 > Angie wrote, in part: > > Given that it appears the Ministry promoted Percy in the hopes that > > he could get them inside information on his own family, I think it > > is significant that the Ministry kept Percy in his "lofty" position > > even after it was clear that he was estranged from his family. > > Unless my calculations are off, Percy's position as a Weasley was of > > no actual use to the Ministry for at least a year-and-a-half (during > > Christmas in HBP). I guess the Ministry banked on Percy kissing and > > making up at some point. > > Elisabet, proudly pinning on a D.O.P.E* badge: > > Oh, come on now, whatever factors may have influenced his initial > hiring / promotion, don't you think that once Percy was in there he > didn't make the bestest, bestest junior bureaucrat ever? Bright, > capable, hard-working, compliant, deferent to his superiors... Who > wouldn't want him working his you-know-what off in their department? > He may not be one's first choice to hang out with at the pub after > work, but as long as he's making his boss look good**, he's going to > have a place in the organization. > *D.O.P.E. -- "Defender of Percy's Exemplariness" > >Angie Again: (Laughing at the DOPE thing, which is new to her!) Oh, I've no doubt Percy is a zealous junior bureaucrat; and please note, I didn't say he was of no use to the Ministry -- just that his position as a Weasley was of no immediate use to the Ministry. In any event, I firmly believe that not just any zealous bureaucrat with Percy's identical qualities/skills would have been promoted following such a major bungle. Retained, perhaps, or shunted sideways, ala Crouch or Bertha, but not promoted. From rkdas at charter.net Mon Apr 10 23:04:04 2006 From: rkdas at charter.net (susanbones2003) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 23:04:04 -0000 Subject: Ginny's best friend (Was: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics)) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150809 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "amiabledorsai" wrote: > > SNIPPED Betsy wrote: > > I mean, I suppose Ginny might call Hermione her best friend, but > > Hermione wouldn't return the favor... > > > > > So the trend of only silly or shallow girls having female best > > friends remains unbroken. :) > > Amiable Dorsai: > So... Hermione chose, as the only person she trusted with the > identity of her Yule Ball date, a casual friend, not someone she, > you know, felt any special connection to? > > And the casual friend just sat on the juiciest bit of gossip in all > of Gryffindor Tower? > > Without signing anything? > > Amiable Dorsai > Jen D. here, This round and round about "friendship" got me to thinking. It seems that Hermy and Ginny have a great friendship but they understand the boundaries. And has anyone mentioned that Hermione gave Ginny a winning strategy (took years to execute but worth waiting for...) in order to get Harry's notice? Each girl has her own circle and sometimes, many times, they intersect as well and it seems to have grown over the years. That's why it was such a cruel and surprising thing when Ginny snarled at Hermione not to pretend she understood anything about quidditch. Their bond was just an accepted fact, nothing to wonder about. I appreciate JKR's demonstration of many kinds of friendship, many levels and that she shows friendship developing naturally. If we say the girls are or aren't friends for one set of facts, occuring at one time or the other, we lose sight of the whole organic process. Jen D. (wishing she could have been this mature about friendship in her teen years!) From gelite67 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 23:05:30 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 23:05:30 -0000 Subject: Snape's Final Straw Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150810 OK, calling all Snape-Haters and Snape-Lovers. A series of related questions: 1) How do you think JKR will reveal Snape's true character in Book 7? 2) If Snape is really DD's man, what will it take to convince Harry and the rest of the Order? 3) Will Snape take Draco to LV, given that he made the unbreakable vow to protect Draco? Angie From gelite67 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 23:07:41 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 23:07:41 -0000 Subject: Harry's Ability to Find and Destroy Horcruxe Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150811 (This is the second post; I forgot to include my name on the first, so I deleted it; hope the delete goes thru.) I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around how, as a practical matter, Harry is going to find and destroy four Horcruxes in Book 7, when it apparently took DD years to find and destroy two, which ultimately contributed his death. If finding and destroying Horcruxes was so difficult for the greatest wizard in recent history, how is Harry going to pull it off? DD gave instructions only on what a Horcrux is and possible things to look for -- but he did not explain how to determine a Horcrux is a Horcrux or how to destroy it. I suppose Harry can consult DD's portrait in the headmaster's office at HW, but Harry said he wasn't going back to HW. Assuming DD cannot communicate with Harry from the beyond outside of HW, I guess there are two options: either Harry figures it out on his own (meaning with Ron's and Hermione's help) or JKR is going to raise another guide for Harry (IM0, Regulus). But wouldn't it be, well, juicy, if somehow Snape and LV had a falling out, Snape escaped, and he and Harry had to hunt Horcruxes together? I don't really see this as a possibility b/c I think Snape will do whatever he can to stay in LV good graces so he can protect Harry, but what a twist that would be! Angie From steve at hp-lexicon.org Mon Apr 10 23:08:48 2006 From: steve at hp-lexicon.org (hp_lexicon) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 23:08:48 -0000 Subject: Timelines (was: Re: Rights?) In-Reply-To: <108907398.20060323153648@mindspring.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150812 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Dave Hardenbrook wrote: > > IMO, I don't think we can assign strict Muggle dates (e.g. > July 31, *1980*) to events in the HP Universe -- I doubt Jo > meant to make things that set in stone, or else she would have > ironed out the anachronisms and other temporal contradictions. > > -- > Dave, who thinks the best we can say is that Voldemort will be > vanquished in June of the Year 19 HPE. (HPE = "Harry Potter Epoch") Actually, Jo has now officially stated that Draco was born in 1980 (that's according to the Black Family Tree that she recently created). So regardless of all the contradictory evidence and questions, the dates of the series are now canon. Steve The Lexicon From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Mon Apr 10 23:09:34 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 19:09:34 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Harry Potter: A Horcrux In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150813 >deepthi_b1: >Also the horcrux had to be Gryffindor's. I think that Voldemort, >knowing that there was a very low chance of Neville being a >Gryffindor, he could be a Hufflepuff for all we know - well, I >remember recalling in the previous books that Neville's grandmother >thought that Neville would be a squib. However on Harry's side >there was a guarantee that he was magical (obtained info from >Pettigrew perhaps) and that he would be in Gryffindor since he >has strong roots in the Potter family..all of whom are Gryffindors >(I recall reading this from one of J.K's interviews). Rachel: I believe the horcrux has to be something that Godric Gryffindor had and not just a member of his house. Also - Harry could have been a squib, there would be no way of Voldemort (and Pettigrew even) of knowing this. Lastly - although families do have a knack for being in the same house, this is not always the case (see Padma and Parvati Patil, for instance). I have heard the theory of Harry being a horcrux before, however I don't think Harry can be the horcrux which is Gryffindor's. ~ Rachel _________________________________________________________________ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From witherwing at sbcglobal.net Mon Apr 10 22:33:54 2006 From: witherwing at sbcglobal.net (Rebecca Scalf) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 15:33:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Protective curses on horcuxes In-Reply-To: <20060410152813.37902.qmail@web80605.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060410223354.78794.qmail@web81202.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150814 >Len Jaffe wrote: >The diary did not have any apparent anti-destruction >cures upon it (else the powerfully magical basilisk >fang / residual poison acted as a curse breaker), but >the ring had enough of a curse on it to cost DD his >arm, and we can presume that DD was a fairly adept >cursebreaker (CB). >So how on Earth can HRH assume that they'll be able to >just destroy the remaining horcuxes. Witherwing: If Harry does get additional training, I don't think we will get to read much about it... Only one more book to go, after all. I think Harry already has all he needs. How could he possibly have known a basilisk fang had the power to destroy a horcrux? Here is the quote: "Then, without thinking, without considering, as though he had meant to do it all along, Harry seized the basilisk fang on the floor next to him and plunged it straight into the heart of the book." -HPCS p.322 It's his instinct, isn't it? -Witherwing From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Mon Apr 10 19:49:47 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 15:49:47 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Protective curses on horcuxes In-Reply-To: <20060410191452.96731.qmail@web37015.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150815 > Len: >the ring had enough of a curse on it to cost DD his >arm, and we can presume that DD was a fairly adept >cursebreaker (CB). > >So how on Earth can HRH assume that they'll be able to >just destroy the remaining horcuxes. > Rachel Here: As JKR said, Harry will do a lot of growing up in book 7. I expect he'll be extremely cautious with anything involving the horcruxes and will not resort to the same types of behaviors we've seen in previous books (i.e. temper tantrums, going solely by gut feelings, etc.) and he will most likely ask for help from members of the Order. I believe we'll be seeing much more efforts from those outside of HRH and unlike in OOTP, they'll probably start to be included within the plans. As before mentioned by other people, Bill will undoubtedly prove a wonderful resource. _________________________________________________________________ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From katbofaye at aol.com Mon Apr 10 19:42:40 2006 From: katbofaye at aol.com (katssirius) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 19:42:40 -0000 Subject: Neville is the wizard to gain power later in life Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150816 I always thought Petunia was the closet witch or at least a Squib but JKR refutes that on her site. My next guess was Dudley and although I can make a good argument for it I see one big problem. JKR considers magical ability a gift she gives to the characters she likes. The better she likes them, the more they have. JKR does not like the Dursleys and I hope she does some consciousness raising about making Diddykins and Vern fat, but thats a tangent. Anyway, I think she means Neville. Neville is on the way. I was disturbed by his absence in HBP but I think Neville has a date with destiny and he needs the power to win. I see him as the next Dumbledore 100 years from now. He has the wand and for the first time in his life he has a proud, supportive family. These are life changing. Neville is a hero waiting for his hero power. I think he is the exception that JKR mentions of magical ability coming later life. Remember his family worried he might be a squib. He has made progress in courage with the help of his plant now the skills and power to use his courage. By the by, of course, the villains have magical power too but that is a necessary plot device as opposed to a gift from the author. katssirius From katbofaye at aol.com Mon Apr 10 19:13:25 2006 From: katbofaye at aol.com (katssirius) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 19:13:25 -0000 Subject: Singing in Whoville/Slytherin redemption Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150817 Multiple redemptions seems too cumbersome with only one book left. The remaining Slytherins have very little in the way of character development and I believe only Pansy has ever had more than one line. Pettigrew could pay his debt without redemption. I seem him finally fed up with the scorn he receives from Voldy et al. He will strike back with a big screw you curse that saves Harry but is done only out of anger and bitterness. As others have mentioned I think Malfoy just made his final exit from the books. JKR finishes people off. Lupin and Sirius and all the DADA teachers are excellent examples. Moody just barely hangs on. Too many people need to see the light to begin to save minor characters and I do not think it is JKR's intention to create an evil free world. Umbridge is her example. Saving them all could only happy on Cindy lou who's watch. katssirius From rdoliver30 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 10 16:41:17 2006 From: rdoliver30 at yahoo.com (lupinlore) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 16:41:17 -0000 Subject: What if......? In-Reply-To: <443A825B.000009.02080@D33LDD51> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150818 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Donna" wrote: > > Donna states/asks: > > Okay, I am now going to commit social suicide and, should that fail, virtual > murder. > > We all know that there is a spy in the Order. We know that there is some > one very powerful working with and for LV. Many suspect Snape. Many feel > that PP doesn't have the intellect? We know it's not Bella. > We all know this? Uhmmm, I guess I'd have to say I don't know this, as as I'm approximately one five billionth of everyone on the planet and one twenty thousandth or so of the list, I guess that means we all DON'T know this. A spy in the Order? Why? I don't recall anything that has happened that definitively points to such. Sure a lot of the present Order's secrets were spilled -- by Kreacher. There isn't any mystery about that, nor any need for further information. Do you mean a spy in the Order in its previous incarnation? Once again, I suppose there could have been, and I guess there definitely was if Pettigrew was an Order member. But we don't know if he was or not, and it really isn't very important. Snape's role in pinpointing James, et. al. has been explained, and Pettigrew need not have been an Order member to have been the Secret Keeper. Someone very powerful working with and for LV? Sure, several such someones. But none of them (leaving Snape and Pettigrew aside for the moment) have anything to do with the Order. Could there be a spy in the Order? I guess so, but I don't see where that explains anything, particularly. Lupinlore From foodiedb at optonline.net Mon Apr 10 17:51:48 2006 From: foodiedb at optonline.net (David) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 17:51:48 -0000 Subject: RAB = Alphard? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150819 Hi all, sorry if this has been covered, but is there any chance that Uncle Alphard Black is RAB? If there was some way to work a R into his name, and the fact that he left all that gold for Sirius. foodiedb From kchuplis at alltel.net Tue Apr 11 00:08:43 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 19:08:43 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Protective curses on horcuxes In-Reply-To: <20060410223354.78794.qmail@web81202.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060410223354.78794.qmail@web81202.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <94DD059F-B75E-4D36-9E73-4C5C6B345E54@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150820 On Apr 10, 2006, at 5:33 PM, Rebecca Scalf wrote: > > > Witherwing: > If Harry does get additional training, I don't think > we will get to read much about it... Only one more > book to go, after all. > > I think Harry already has all he needs. How could he > possibly have known a basilisk fang had the power to > destroy a horcrux? > > Here is the quote: > "Then, without thinking, without considering, as > though he had meant to do it all along, Harry seized > the basilisk fang on the floor next to him and plunged > it straight into the heart of the book." -HPCS p.322 > > It's his instinct, isn't it? kchuplis: I think this is somewhat true. I think in some situations, Harry needs things pointed out, but in others, when he just DOES he gets it and gets it bigtime. I'm reminded of the beginning of PoA. The exploding glass in Aunt Marges hand; the (basically) exploding Aunt Marge, magically exploding open the cupboard containing his trunk. Though it was unspoken magic (and as a side bar, I wonder if unspoken, wandless magic is a bit more difficult to pin down than wand work), it was VERY specific and effective. A result of uncontrolled emotions? Yes. But uncontrolled magic, no. In fact, I sometimes have this image of Harry just being able to think "get that DE behind me" and blowing them off their feet without even thinking. He's already so much more comfortable in his knowledge in book six (I think specifically of his threatening to hex anyone not really there for quidditich tryouts as though it were breathing), that just getting out and actually doing instead of worrying about doing it right will be the unleashing of Harry. Sometimes, "proper learning" fetters us. From gmeuse at telus.net Mon Apr 10 16:42:20 2006 From: gmeuse at telus.net (Gary Meuse) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 09:42:20 -0700 Subject: Lupin Means Wolf References: Message-ID: <003501c65cbd$bc90fa30$6400a8c0@MeuseFamily> No: HPFGUIDX 150821 Potioncat wrote: So, way back when, when PoA was new, and you didn't yet know his name was Remus or that he had a furry problem, did you see Professor Lupin in the same way that you might have seen Professor Flowers or Profesor Rose? (Both of those are real names.) It just seems to me that if you know it's a flower, the name Lupin makes him seem so much more gentle. Never mind it also sounds like looping, or makes one think: Lupine. Gary: I do not know about lupins, but when we first met him on the train, I KNEW right away, before it was revealed tha he was a werewolf. I guess it is all the stories I heard growing up about the loup garou. Gary It is the duty of every Christian to be Christ to his neighbor. Martin Luther From belviso at attglobal.net Tue Apr 11 01:09:39 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 21:09:39 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Was Percy's sickle /Ginny's best friend/Slytherin redemption/Neville References: Message-ID: <005c01c65d04$9c693230$2672400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 150822 >>Angie Again: > > (Laughing at the DOPE thing, which is new to her!) > > Oh, I've no doubt Percy is a zealous junior bureaucrat; and please > note, I didn't say he was of no use to the Ministry -- just that his > position as a Weasley was of no immediate use to the Ministry. In any > event, I firmly believe that not just any zealous bureaucrat with > Percy's identical qualities/skills would have been promoted following > such a major bungle. Retained, perhaps, or shunted sideways, ala > Crouch or Bertha, but not promoted. Magpie: I have a problem with calling it a bungle at all, whatever Harry thinks it was. There's no reason a minor young assistant at the Ministry should notice anything amiss with Crouch. It's not Percy's business to know whether his boss' attendence record is poor or whether or not he should be communicating through notes. It's the higher-up people who should have noticed something wrong. Granted Percy probably enjoyed Crouch's absence far too much to even allow himself to think about speaking up about it; he was running the department. Imperius is hard to detect, we know--and Arthur and Bagman barely reacted to Bertha disappearing. That's a bigger flub, imo. I always find it ironic that Harry thinks about Percy's "not noticing his boss was under Voldemort's thumb" for a year as if this is a big screw-up when Dumbledore didn't even notice his old friend and new teacher was not only under Voldemort's thumb but not even the same guy. Maybe we're supposed to think Percy's promotion is suspicious but unfortunately it makes sense to me--he proved himself during a bad time by keeping the Ministry running. Amiable Dorsai: So... Hermione chose, as the only person she trusted with the identity of her Yule Ball date, a casual friend, not someone she, you know, felt any special connection to? Magpie: Oh, I think they're more than casual friends--I've been noting Hermione and Ginny's relationship throughout the discussion. Hermione is one of the important people in Ginny's life and we know it. I always think of them as sisters-in-law. katssirius: As others have mentioned I think Malfoy just made his final exit from the books. JKR finishes people off. Lupin and Sirius and all the DADA teachers are excellent examples. Moody just barely hangs on. Too many people need to see the light to begin to save minor characters and I do not think it is JKR's intention to create an evil free world. Umbridge is her example. Saving them all could only happy on Cindy lou who's watch. Magpie: Malfoy has been a supporting character in every single book from PS through HBP and he's a peer of Harry's. Even in the book when he had the smallest role he got tied closer into the central Voldemort story. It's very different dropping out him than it is dropping out the guest star DADA teacher whom we all know lasts for one year and then leaves. Betsyhp: I agree with your reservations, Lupinlore (which I snipped), that it's awfully late in the day for unknown, or barely known, Slytherins to come forth and help rejoin their house to the Hogwarts whole. (I've discounted Theo Nott since the deleted scenes bit on JKR's website. I think Nott's story has gone the way of Dean's.) Magpie: I don't think Nott ever had a story. JKR said she hated to lose that scene because it showed *Draco* speaking to an equal and contrasted *Draco's* upbringing to Harry's--we got to see the Malfoy Manor. I think she just gave his basic description on the site to give us a sense of who he was, but she's got that kind of bio on all the kids in Harry's class. Theo's still in the books with the same father. katssirius: I think he is the exception that JKR mentions of magical ability coming later life. Remember his family worried he might be a squib. He has made progress in courage with the help of his plant now the skills and power to use his courage. Magpie: But we already know Neville isn't a Squib and he's already got power. He's not that bad of a student and always had courage. He didn't have a lot of confidence, but that grew in the DA. He's fought in two major battles against Death Eaters. -m From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 11 02:26:22 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 02:26:22 -0000 Subject: Orphans - Harry and Tom In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150823 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Ceridwen" wrote: > Harry, while fighting his situation, still remains within bounds and > when he crosses them, he expects to be punished. He looks for better > without trying to undo everything around him. > > Tom turns all that on its head. And I find that curious. At nearly > the same time as Shirley Temple was dancing down the tables of her > movie-set orphanage singing 'Animal Crackers', Tom was frightening > other students, stealing their toys, killing their pets, and doing > who-knows-what to them in seaside caves. When he is offered guidance > in his first trip into the WW, he refuses it. > > No one can constrain Tom. He is more powerful than the matrons at > the home, he is more powerful than his mother who was weak enough to > die, he is more powerful than anyone, until he meets Dumbledore. And > by then, it seems that his lack of self-restraint has become a part > of him. > > I understand that Tom is supposed to turn out bad. But this changes > the whole orphan thing, at least for me. He does not wish for > family, he wishes to be unique. He does not honor the mother who > died giving birth to him and he kills the father who left him and his > mother. He doesn't mention anything to Dumbledore about wishing for > his parents, and he doesn't show much feeling about the subject - all > he wants is revenge. He seems to have nothing but contempt for his > mother's 'weakness'. He doesn't want to belong, he wants to rule and > let others belong to him. > > I was taken by the obvious differences between them. Maybe it's just > JKR showing how bad Tom is. But, I am getting something else thrown > in now, the dangers of liberation without constraint, and the huge > gulf between Tom and Harry. Alla: Lovely post, Ceridwen. I am not sure I agree with your ultimate conclusions though, if I understand them correctly. Are you saying that with Tom's story JKR basically changes the "orphan story set up" completely? You see, if Tom was the only orphan in the story , I would probably agree with you, but as you said she contrasts Tom and Harry and between those two, her sympathies lie with Harry. SO, I am afraid that my answer will sound trivial and I indeed thought about it, because I wanted to do your post justice, but I could not change my answer. Yes, I think she just wanted to show that Tom was inherently bad from the early childhood. Oh, and are you sure that Tom (just as any oprhan in the stories you listed) is not searching for the family? I mean, he is searching for the family with the evil purposes, but he still wants the family, no? He wants to know who his father and his mother were. I mean, sure, I guess if we look only on Tom's character, it is a different "orphan" from what we know and from what we expect, but if we look at his place within the story, that he is supposed to be the main Evil of the story, I guess I think that JKR brought him up ( besides to be Harry's rival) to show Harry's likeability more. Alla, who is not sure who much sense she made and thinks that she has this feeling way too often lately. From dossett at lds.net Tue Apr 11 02:27:40 2006 From: dossett at lds.net (rtbthw_mom) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 02:27:40 -0000 Subject: the Weasley Cousins, In-Reply-To: <20060406022717.20995.qmail@web80613.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150824 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Len Jaffe wrote: > > > latoya: > > Molly introduces her [ deletio ] > > with more Hogwarts students. > > > > Catherine now: > > [ edito sommorro] So either they were killed, or > > moved to other countries and attend other wizarding > > institutions. Or JKR didn't think ahead this far and > > now has to write herself out of this little > > conundrum.... > > Len: > Perhaps there are more schools in England, but we only > concern ourselves with hogwarts. The idea of other > wizarding schools is never broached until Gof, so the > idea that the Weasley cousins go to other schools > isn't so far fetched. > > If Hogwarts is Eaton, then surely there's enough > wizard kids to support a Smeltings, and maybe even a > St. Brutus'. > > Then again, we only ever meet three or four new > characters everybody else at the school are just a > bunch of shadows. So they could be there, but not > play any role in the parts of Ron's life that get > written about. Or maybe the rest of the weasley > family shuns the Ottery-St. Catchpole faction. Maybe > they're sick of looking at the plug collection :-) > > Len. > Sorry to be so behind in reading all the posts, but I just wanted to interject here, that the Weasleys we know are the only Weasleys at Hogwarts. Near the end of OtP, the twins have already left and when Umbridge catches Harry in her office, Ron and Ginny are among those she intends to expel, and she makes the comment that "Hogwarts will soon be a Weasley-free zone." (quoted from memory) So, any cousins must either be older or younger than our group. ~Pat From xxneuman07xx at yahoo.com Tue Apr 11 01:01:00 2006 From: xxneuman07xx at yahoo.com (xxneuman07xx) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 01:01:00 -0000 Subject: Harry's Ability to Find and Destroy Horcruxes In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150825 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "gelite67" wrote: > > (This is the second post; I forgot to include my name on the first, > so I deleted it; hope the delete goes thru.) > > I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around how, as a practical > matter, Harry is going to find and destroy four Horcruxes in Book 7, > when it apparently took DD years to find and destroy two, which > ultimately contributed his death. Well, if Gollum!Lily is correct, then he has at least one horcrux handed to him on a silver plater, and if R.A.B. is Regulas, then it might be easier to get the second, and if Draco redeems himself, then that's 3, and if the Nagini is the fourth, then that's it. So to recap: 1: Lily stole it(But didn't know what it was.)Currently in the bank. Hermoine decodes the anagram written on Lilys headstone. 2: Regulas stole it(Totaly independantly of Lily.) He left it in the Black house, which was robbed by Mundungus, which he sold to Aberforth. 3: Entrusted to Bella. Then stolen by Draco/DDM!Snape and given to HRH. 4: The Snake. With LV. There we go. Four reasonably easy-to-get horcruxes that are very time consuming and interesting to read. > Assuming DD cannot communicate with Harry from the beyond outside of > HW, I guess there are two options: either Harry figures it out on > his own (meaning with Ron's and Hermione's help) or JKR is going to > raise another guide for Harry (IM0, Regulus). Regulus is dead. -Neuman From puduhepa98 at aol.com Tue Apr 11 02:36:01 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 22:36:01 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank Know "Something" Message-ID: <336.2175196.316c7011@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150826 Rebecca wrote: re:the Longbottoms > but not to kill Neville. They specifically were the ones the DE's wanted. > (Another question: who the hell *sent them* if LV was MIA? Don't blame me > for asking, blame Rowling for her site's answer to the question of the > choice.) > Wouldn't that line of thought perhaps lead one to the speculation Frank saw > what happened at GH? JKR's also mentioned before that we maybe haven't see > the last of the time turners -could it be that Ministry would have allowed a > time turner's use to find out just what happened to the most notorious > terrorist in years? In PoA, time isn't to be meddled with and bad things >Ffred: >_Someone_ had to pass on the message that LV was gone, and that someone had >to be a reliable enough witness to be believed by the Ministry and the >media. Word was out very early the following morning for Vernon to see the >wizards out on the streets on his way to work. >The Longbottoms are a reasonable surmise to have gone with him. ,snip> If they >were then on the front page of the Prophet as eye-witnesses, then that's >enough to make them marked men for the surviving DEs. Nikkalmati: Good thought here. I, however, had thought that whoever sent the DE's found out right away LV had disappeared after going to GH. James and Lily were dead, so he had been there and they clearly didn't kill him. What was the next stop on his list? I don't think LV would take any chances with making a mistake when killing the "one born in July". I think he planned to go directly to the Longbottoms after taking care of Harry and get Neville (a la Herod killing all the baby boys in Bethlehem to get Jesus). Therefore, they went to the Longbottoms figuring that LV had gone there and the Longbottoms could tell them what happened. That still leaves the question who sent Bella and Company? Nikkalmati [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From kjones at telus.net Tue Apr 11 02:39:05 2006 From: kjones at telus.net (Kathryn Jones) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 19:39:05 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Harry Potter: A Horcrux In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <443B16C9.6040203@telus.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150827 deepthi_b1 wrote: > There was a rumour that the last word ended with scar and the last > line was 'Harry, where's your scar?' This line ends the possibilities > of Harry dying in the Last Battle and has no relevance to my theory > but read: it's only a rumour. > > "deepthi_b1" KJ writes: JKR has agreed that so far the last word in the story is "scar". This brings up the fact that a surprising number of characters are now sporting scars. We have Harry, with his forehead scar, Bill, with his facial scars, Hermione, with her chest scar(perhaps), Snape, with a dark mark scar, if he lives and Voldemort doesn't. Peter Pettigrew has a scar where his finger was cut off, Ron had scars on his arms from the brain attack, and I'm willing to bet that Dudley has a scar on his arse from having his pig tail surgically removed. So who will have the winning scar?? KJ From maidne at yahoo.com Tue Apr 11 03:01:58 2006 From: maidne at yahoo.com (maidne) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 03:01:58 -0000 Subject: Marauder's Map Folly? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150828 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Rachel Crofut" wrote: > > In Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry, Ron, and Hermione go to see Hagrid before > Buckbeak's execution. While they are in his hut, Ron finds Scabbers (a.k.a. > Peter Pettigrew). Lupin becomes aware of the fact that Pettigrew is still > alive based on the Marauder's Map he is looking at at the time. > > My question is - when Harry and Hermione use the Time-Turner to save > Buckbeak and Sirius, why does Lupin not see two Harrys and two Hermiones? > Snape as well does not notice this when he arrives to give Lupin his potion > and sees the map. Is there any explanation for this? > > ~ Rachel > I just had a thought (not a frequent occurrence, I assure you)... Maybe Dumbledore saw the map too (or had his own version of it), and he did notice the multiple Harry/Hermiones, and even saw Buckbeak hiding with them in the forest. That could be how he knew that they used the time-turner to save Buckbeak and Sirius. Susan From kking0731 at gmail.com Tue Apr 11 03:48:15 2006 From: kking0731 at gmail.com (Kathy King) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 23:48:15 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] RAB = Alphard? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150829 On 4/10/06, David wrote: > > Hi all, sorry if this has been covered, but is there any chance that > Uncle Alphard Black is RAB? If there was some way to work a R into > his name, and the fact that he left all that gold for Sirius. > > > foodiedb > Snow: How about this?Regulus decides that he wants out of the newfound deatheaters club once he learns what he is asked to do and asks Uncle Alphard for some assistance (RAB=Regulus and Alphard Black). The dates of their deaths add up nicely according to the release of the Black Family Tree but not so good according to canon. The Black Tree states that Regulus was born in '61 and died in '79 making him eighteen (not fifteen like OOP states). Uncle Alphard had left a decent bit of gold to Sirius when Sirius was seventeen. Sirius was imprisoned when he was 21 or 22, which would put Alphard's date of death in '76 or '77 when Sirius turned seventeen?but If Regulus died in '79 when he was eighteen (according to the Tree) then Sirius was three or four years older when Regulus died, because in the Fall of '81 Sirius was imprisoned at age 21-22. If Sirius is at least three years older than Regulus then in '76-'77 when Sirius was seventeen and received his inheritance from Alphard, Regulus was fourteen-ish. The Tree puts the timing accurate enough for Regulus to have been in cahoots with Alphard and both of them were killed in (mid?) '79. Maybe someone with a better forte in maths could make this plainer than I have but I think it is doable with Regulus and Uncle traitor to the family bloodline to have hoisted the Slytherin heirloom together. Snow [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From kchuplis at alltel.net Tue Apr 11 03:51:02 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 22:51:02 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] RAB = Alphard? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6B82BEFC-93FC-4142-8C1C-F9FEE874D745@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150830 > > Snow: > > > How about this > Regulus decides that he wants out of the newfound deatheaters > club once he learns what he is asked to do and asks Uncle Alphard > for some > assistance (RAB=Regulus and Alphard Black). The dates of their > deaths add up > nicely according to the release of the Black Family Tree but not so > good > according to canon. The Black Tree states that Regulus was born in > '61 and > died in '79 making him eighteen (not fifteen like OOP states). > kchuplis: I thought it was 15 years previously, not that he was 15 years old? Perhaps I am remember wrong? From kking0731 at gmail.com Tue Apr 11 03:56:41 2006 From: kking0731 at gmail.com (Kathy King) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 23:56:41 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] RAB = Alphard? In-Reply-To: <6B82BEFC-93FC-4142-8C1C-F9FEE874D745@alltel.net> References: <6B82BEFC-93FC-4142-8C1C-F9FEE874D745@alltel.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150831 > > > kchuplis: > I thought it was 15 years previously, not that he was 15 years old? > Perhaps I am remember wrong? > > Snow: > That would make it what year then? [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From brahadambal at indiatimes.com Tue Apr 11 04:14:05 2006 From: brahadambal at indiatimes.com (latha279) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 04:14:05 -0000 Subject: Harry Potter: A Horcrux In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150832 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "deepthi_b1" wrote: > > > Also the horcrux had to be Gryffindor's. >"deepthi_b1" > Brady: Is that so? Didn't DD say that the horcrux had to be Rowena Ravenclaw's OR Godric Gryffindor's? And why are we so stuck with the Gryffindor horcrux anyway? We have seen mention of the cursed necklace right from CoS. As someone pointed out here quite a while back that we have been introduced to each of the horcruxes before we see them, doesn't that ring a bell (Katie Bell too!!)? I (as Steve also has pointed out before) DO NOT agree that Harry or his scar are the horcrux. Deepthi - will you please explain why Voldy is keen to kill Harry if he has made Harry a horcrux? Agreed Harry may not kill himself (wouldn't that amount to suicide? And I don't think Harry is cowardly enough to do that), but would Voldy himself want to destroy his own horcrux that he has so painstakingly created? I think not. Voldy may come across as a very underestimating guy, but he is definitely not a fool. Secondly, as JKR herself said, a horcrux is not something that will attract attention towards itself (like the sorting hat), so it is mor elikely like the cup of hufflepuff and the locket that wouldn't open in GP. Also like the cursed necklace in B&B's that no one would touch. It makes sense to protect the necklace with a curse just like the ring was. So, Harry who is always getting into adventures that may see him dead and ALWAYS in the limelight, would definitely not be a horcrux. Thirdly, why would Harry suffer mortal agony when Voldy possessed him briefly in the MoM? If he were a horcrux, he should have definitely been comfortable being in close proximity with another part of voldy inside him. Is he already has one piece of Voldy in him and lives in relative peace, another piece would do him no harm either. Right? Just my tuppence. Brady. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 11 04:23:32 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 04:23:32 -0000 Subject: Lupin Means Wolf In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150833 Potioncat wrote: > > > So everyone of them has several (at least several) scenes that take > place in the English Garden. It appears to be a requirement of the > genre that the garden and all its flowers are described in great > detail. Every garden ever mentioned has lupins. > > So, although I've learned at this site that Lupin is a flower, I > didn't realise it was a common flower and that every decent person > in the UK grew it in their garden....or else! > > So, way back when, when PoA was new, and you didn't yet know his > name was Remus or that he had a furry problem, did you see > Professor Lupin in the same way that you might have seen Professor > Flowers or Profesor Rose? (Both of those are real names.) It just > seems to me that if you know it's a flower, the name Lupin makes him > seem so much more gentle. Never mind it also sounds like looping, or > makes one think: Lupine. > Carol responds: As I'm pretty sure you know (actually, I*know* you know), I'm not English (do Mayflower ancestors count?), but I do know a bit about lupine (the flower), which is spelled (in American English, anyway) with an "e" on the end, exactly like the adjective "lupine" (wolflike), in both singular and plural forms. The name comes from the belief that lupine (Latin, Lupinus) had a "wolflike" tendency to eat up all the nutrients in the soil. I suppose we could say that the flower resembles Lupin (and wolves and werewolves, if you like) in being unfairly maligned. OTOH, some species are poisonous to both humans and animals. (Don't ask *me* to fathom how a lupine's mind works.) Here's a photo of the variety of lupine that grows along the roadside in Arizona: http://www.deancooley.com/~bestinthewest/happytrails/indianhill/ih_hikepic/2.jpg Carol in Tucson, where the lupine would be blooming if we hadn't had such a dry winter From brahadambal at indiatimes.com Tue Apr 11 04:34:37 2006 From: brahadambal at indiatimes.com (latha279) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 04:34:37 -0000 Subject: RAB = Alphard? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150834 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Kathy King" wrote: > > > > > > > kchuplis: > > I thought it was 15 years previously, not that he was 15 years old? > > Perhaps I am remember wrong? > > > > Snow: > > > > That would make it what year then? > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > That would make it about or around the year Harry was born. Because in OotP, Harry was fifteen and the book said " a death date some 15 years previous" (quote is mine). Therefore Regulus had died around the time Harry was born. Maybe in the process of destroying the locket horcrux? That would coincide so beautifully. Brady. From kking0731 at gmail.com Tue Apr 11 04:43:59 2006 From: kking0731 at gmail.com (Kathy King) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 00:43:59 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: RAB = Alphard? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150835 On 4/11/06, latha279 wrote: > > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Kathy King" > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > kchuplis: > > > I thought it was 15 years previously, not that he was 15 years > old? > > > Perhaps I am remember wrong? > > > > > > Snow: > > > > > > > That would make it what year then? > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > That would make it about or around the year Harry was born. Because > in OotP, Harry was fifteen and the book said " a death date some 15 > years previous" (quote is mine). Therefore Regulus had died around > the time Harry was born. Maybe in the process of destroying the > locket horcrux? That would coincide so beautifully. > > Brady. > > > > Snow: > > Except that the Black Family Tree that was recently released states that > Regulus died in '79 not '80. > > Are we dealing with months???? > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Tue Apr 11 04:46:25 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 04:46:25 -0000 Subject: Orphans - Harry and Tom In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150836 Alla: > > Lovely post, Ceridwen. I am not sure I agree with your ultimate > conclusions though, if I understand them correctly. Are you saying > that with Tom's story JKR basically changes the "orphan story set > up" completely? Ceridwen: She changed the window dressing of the orphan story with Harry, even before she changed it with Tom. Harry doesn't act like a house elf, which is what all those poor but honest orphans (and partial orphans, since I do own a copy of The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew) sound like. Thankful for a moldy crust of bread, dew-eyed and subservient. Harry made the orphan realistic, with feelings and pride. Tom completely upended it, yes, in contrast with Harry. who gave the traditional orphan more believability. Alla: > You see, if Tom was the only orphan in the story , I would probably > agree with you, but as you said she contrasts Tom and Harry and > between those two, her sympathies lie with Harry. SO, I am afraid > that my answer will sound trivial and I indeed thought about it, > because I wanted to do your post justice, but I could not change my > answer. Ceridwen: Even with Tom not being the only orphan in the story, we all knew he was orphaned, and I think very few of us expected the completely evil from day one child we were shown. Our expectations of the orphan set us up to be surprised. Alla: > Oh, and are you sure that Tom (just as any oprhan in the stories you > listed) is not searching for the family? > > I mean, he is searching for the family with the evil purposes, but > he still wants the family, no? He wants to know who his father and > his mother were. Ceridwen: Tom gives up on his family when his expectations are destroyed. Unlike Harry, who still reveres his father, though sees him as more human after Snape's Worst Memory. Tom only wants to know, so he can validate his impressions. His mother couldn't be a witch, she *died*, for Pete's sake! His father must have been the wizard because of the power he exercised over Tom and his mother. He is tentatively happy to be named for his father when he thinks that his father is as powerful as he is. Once he finds out that he was a 'mere' Muggle with no magic, he does not want to have the name of Tom because it is too common. He must have known that there were others who were named Tom before then, but when it symbolized a father with power, it was all right. But, yes, he does go after his relations on both sides, for evil purposes. He frames his maternal uncle, he kills his paternal grandparents and his father. To me, this does not show him as having any of the usual feelings of curiosity about his past and his ancestry. These were only people who had wronged him, I think, after Dumbledore's revelations. His interest in them peaks when he finds out about his own powers. After that, they're nothing. Alla: > I mean, sure, I guess if we look only on Tom's character, it is a > different "orphan" from what we know and from what we expect, but if > we look at his place within the story, that he is supposed to be > the main Evil of the story, I guess I think that JKR brought him up > ( besides to be Harry's rival) to show Harry's likeability more. Ceridwen: But she didn't have to make him an orphan. Such an amoral person can be shown in many ways, and there are many more common ways to do it. He could have been presented as someone like Draco, who had the money and the family name behind him to get him started on his path. With his father being rich, she could have brought him from there. Or, he could have been from a family of outright criminals. The Gaunts are creepy and dark, but they don't come across to me as organized gangster types, or slippery politicians. They are base. And the handsome, smooth-talking Tom M. Riddle doesn't seem to take after them in personality. (I do think he got his crazy streak from them!) There are many ways to show a lack of restraint, and a lack of constraining limits. The orphan was a very different way of doing that, I think. She took the allure of the orphan, which is his freedom from having to be home by dark and in bed by nine and so on (though the orphan longs for the parents who make those rules) and stretched it until it crossed into dangerous territory. And, you're making sense just fine. I think it's me who isn't! *g* Ceridwen. From Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com Tue Apr 11 02:36:06 2006 From: Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com (coldsliversofglass) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 02:36:06 -0000 Subject: Chamber of Secrets In-Reply-To: <02ca01c65c43$6d13b490$58ba400c@Spot> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150837 coldsliversofglass: > > Also, from the description, I imagined it as the sort of bathroom > > students only use if they're absolutely desperate: the sort of > > bathroom where one takes the time to go to the next floor to use > > alternative facilities if at all possible. After all, this is the > > bathroom students hide out in (Myrtle from Olive/Hermione hides in > > there after Ron insults her in the hallway/Draco hides there too > > in HBP) when they want to avoid their classmates. Magpie: > Just to be accurate, Draco hides out in a different bathroom--the boy's > bathroom. Myrtle is just going to see him there in that scene; it's not her > bathroom. And now that I think of it...I'm not sure it's the one Hermione > hides in in PS/SS either. Do we know that for sure? Or does she just pick > a different one? In CoS I think we're told the reason nobody goes to that > bathroom usually is that Myrtle is there. coldsliversofglass: Oops. You're right about Myrtle meeting Draco in the boys' bathroom. I was a bit confused about that in the first place, since I thought he couldn't have been in the girl's bathroom.. All these bathrooms have me confused: then again, people avoid asking me directions to place for a reason. Anyhow, as far as Hermione, I think the bathroom is the same one, but it's a little bit confusing because of the question of floors and sometimes the book doesn't reveal straight out which floor the students are on after going up and down stairs(UK vs US). JK's Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone (Chapter 10): The passage says that Harry and Ron begin to follow Percy upstairs, but change directions to follow the Hufflepuffs. They duck off into a side passage in order to go off and find Hermione. They note that Snape is heading towards the Third floor (so they can't be on that floor). I inferred, from that, that Ron and Harry were on the Second Floor (according to the HPLexicon, the stairs on the main floor lead up towards the Hufflepuff common room-seperate from the main stairs, apparently-so we know that the kids weren't on the main floor or the first floor since there's no mention of a bathroom there) and tried to lock the troll in Myrtle's bathroom (though I'm not sure where Myrtle is at this point). Most of the current students avoid the bathroom because Myrtle is there, but I just found it interesting that Myrtle chose to hide out in there. I mean, that's where Myrtle hid when she avoiding Olivia, so I'm assuming that, when Myrtle was a student, it was just the sort of place that attracted the least amount of students. coldsliversofglass From jazmyn at pacificpuma.com Tue Apr 11 05:06:01 2006 From: jazmyn at pacificpuma.com (Jazmyn Concolor) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 22:06:01 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Snape's Final Straw In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <443B3939.9070608@pacificpuma.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150838 gelite67 wrote: >OK, calling all Snape-Haters and Snape-Lovers. A series of related >questions: > >1) How do you think JKR will reveal Snape's true character in Book 7? > > > When Snape gets the chance to turn on Voldemort and have a hand at getting rid of him.. >2) If Snape is really DD's man, what will it take to convince Harry and >the rest of the Order? > > Hard to say, but frankly, many of the order still think of Harry as a 'kid' and might not even fully believe him about Snape... >3) Will Snape take Draco to LV, given that he made the unbreakable vow >to protect Draco? > > Voldemort will very likely use the vow to protect Draco to control Snape. He may even have set all this up to force a leash on Snape through it in the first place.. "Do my bidding Severus or the kid gets it....and you die trying to protect him from... me..." >Angie > > > > > >Before posting to any list, you MUST read the group's Admin File! >http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin_Files/HBF_Text__MUST_READ > >Please use accurate subject headings and snip unnecessary material from posts to which you're replying! > >Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > > > From kjones at telus.net Tue Apr 11 05:45:41 2006 From: kjones at telus.net (Kathryn Jones) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 22:45:41 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Harry Potter: A Horcrux In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <443B4285.8040602@telus.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150839 latha279 wrote: > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "deepthi_b1" > wrote: > > > > > > Also the horcrux had to be Gryffindor's. > >"deepthi_b1" > > > > Brady: > I (as Steve also has pointed out before) DO NOT agree that Harry or his > scar are the horcrux. Deepthi - will you please explain why Voldy is > keen to kill Harry if he has made Harry a horcrux? Agreed Harry may not > kill himself (wouldn't that amount to suicide? And I don't think Harry > is cowardly enough to do that), but would Voldy himself want to destroy > his own horcrux that he has so painstakingly created? I think not. > Voldy may come across as a very underestimating guy, but he is > definitely not a fool. KJ writes: While this is a good point on the surface, JKR has stressed on several occasions that the effect of the protection given by Lily had never happened before, ever. The effects could not be known, guessed at, or suspected, and therefore may not follow rules of logic. The fact is that Harry has some part of Voldemorte in him that was put there inadvertently. This is canon. It was particularly pointed out that Voldemorte did not do anything specifically to cause this particular happening. What he wanted was a dead Harry. Voldemorte would also have no way of knowing that Harry might possess a shard of his soul. He would have nothing in mind other than Hary's destruction. Brady > Secondly, as JKR herself said, a horcrux is not something that will > attract attention towards itself (like the sorting hat), so it is mor > elikely like the cup of hufflepuff and the locket that wouldn't open in > GP. Also like the cursed necklace in B&B's that no one would touch. It > makes sense to protect the necklace with a curse just like the ring > was. So, Harry who is always getting into adventures that may see him > dead and ALWAYS in the limelight, would definitely not be a horcrux. KJ: JKR also pointed out that using a living being as a horcrux was not a wise thing to do. Creatures with free will are not to be counted on to be there when needed. Harry could be killed at any time, and if he ended up as the last part of Voldemorte's soul, his life expectancy is going to be very poor indeed. The necklace is also a very good choice, but I do not see it as having quite the effect on the plot-line as Harry "the accidental horcrux" would. Brady > Thirdly, why would Harry suffer mortal agony when Voldy possessed him > briefly in the MoM? If he were a horcrux, he should have definitely > been comfortable being in close proximity with another part of voldy > inside him. Is he already has one piece of Voldy in him and lives in > relative peace, another piece would do him no harm either. Right? KJ: This is also a good point but I believe that it could be explained by the fact that there was no spell to actually construct a horcrux. Nothing in canon says that any of the soul pieces, once severed would be comfortable with each other. In fact, if each piece was able, like the diary, to completely take over another person, causing more than one Voldemorte to exist simultaneously, they would need to kill each other. Only one Voldemorte can be dominant. It could also be explained by the protections given him by Lily and by the kindness of his own nature, that it is extremely painful for both of them to be that conjoined. We have seen, in fact, that Voldemorte can not possess Harry. We have not been shown that Harry would be unable to possess Voldemorte. His own soul is whole and more powerful. I don't know if I would care for that ending to the book, but I do see it as an open loophole, and maybe the only way that Harry could remain alive at the end of Book 7. We also see Harry destroy the diary horcrux without injury. This could be because there were no protections in place, but it could also mean that Harry is protected by having a piece of Voldy within him. We won't know about this until we see Harry actually destroy a protect horcrux like the locket or cup. Perhaps that is what gives Harry " the power the Dark Lord knows not" and the power to vanquish Voldy. It is an interesting question that will keep us all arguing until the next book. KJ From finwitch at yahoo.com Tue Apr 11 05:45:49 2006 From: finwitch at yahoo.com (finwitch) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 05:45:49 -0000 Subject: Snape's Final Straw In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150840 Angie asked: > > 1) How do you think JKR will reveal Snape's true character in Book 7? Finwitch: Well, to me she already has, in a way. She has described Snape as a 'horrible person.' Dumbledore trusted Severus Snape. None other did. Dumbledore stood by Severus Snape. Dumbledore loved Severus Snape. (JKR did say Snape was loved and that mad him more culpable than Voldemort...) In a way, Dumbledore was Severus Snape's salvation from his DE-past. And then what happened? Severus Snape killed Dumbledore. That deed - well, can you grasp just how horrible a person must be in order to be able to kill someone who trusts you? Someone who loves you? Someone who believes in you? I wonder if Bloody Baron's wandering soul bleeds because he did something like that... And as to Dumbledore's trust... no, there IS no secret reason. Sure, many believed so. Maybe if it was someone else. But not with Dumbledore. You know, the man whose idea of few words is "Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!" Remember the reply to Harry's "Sir? Professor Dumbledore? Can I ask you something?" 'Obviously, you have just done so,' Dumbledore smiled. 'You may ask me one more thing, however.' Or later, with the question of saying Voldemort: 'Always use the proper name for things.' That's what Dumbledore does - and in so doing, he's very *literal*. So, when he says 'I trust Severus Snape' - quite often - that's precisely what it is. Trust. In the deepest possible sense. To give any reason here would be trust to that reason, not Severus Snape. As to why Dumbledore would do so, well -- think of the people you trust. Could you explain the 'why' to anyone who doubts? It's between me and him is quite possible the truest answer there is when you think about it, and Dumbledore certainly does think. Dumbledore has this life-principle, "Innocent until proven guilty." He truly lives by that by trusting first. Most often, his trust remains trust as it's not tested - Dumbledore being one of the most powerful wizards, but those who prove faithful - like Fawkes (how many times Fawkes has taken AK for him?) - he greatly appreciates. I think that, well - Harry's true loyalty (shown by his ability to summon Fawkes in CoS) is the most important reason Dumbledore always loved Harry so much. In addition, I think that only a wizard as trusting as Dumbledore is able to tame a Phoenix. (Explains why so few of them can). Finwitch From doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com Tue Apr 11 05:59:20 2006 From: doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com (doddiemoemoe) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 05:59:20 -0000 Subject: Harry's Ability to Find and Destroy Horcruxe In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150841 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "gelite67" "angie"wrote: > > (This is the second post; I forgot to include my name on the first, > so I deleted it; hope the delete goes thru.) > > I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around how, as a practical > matter, Harry is going to find and destroy four Horcruxes in Book 7, > when it apparently took DD years to find and destroy two, which > ultimately contributed his death. > > If finding and destroying Horcruxes was so difficult for the greatest > wizard in recent history, how is Harry going to pull it off? **snip ** Actually a great deal of difficulty would be removed if Harry is a Horcrux...(which is what I believe) Even if Harry "HAD" been a horcrux...I think he may have latent memories..... What if Cedric died because voldy needed a horcrux to revive himself but did not want to share this info with wormtail??? What if this is why DD had that gleam in his eye... Also, what if this is why DD was so amiss in helping Harry in OOP until he had the "in essence divided moment".(So after the attack on arthur... Snape was in charge of Occlumency lessons--because DD knew that Snape thought Harry may be a new "lord he could follow") Doddie (who still believes that Harry may have been made a horcrux gone horribly wrong for voldy...and created a miracle for Lily's sacrifice) From kjones at telus.net Tue Apr 11 06:26:23 2006 From: kjones at telus.net (Kathryn Jones) Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 23:26:23 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Snape's Final Straw In-Reply-To: <443B3939.9070608@pacificpuma.com> References: <443B3939.9070608@pacificpuma.com> Message-ID: <443B4C0F.30502@telus.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150842 > gelite67 wrote: > > >OK, calling all Snape-Haters and Snape-Lovers. A series of related > >questions: > >1) How do you think JKR will reveal Snape's true character in Book 7? KJ writes: I don't see Snape's character truly being revealed until the last possible moment. I don't believe that killing is what JKR had in mind for Harry to do. That is definitely Snape's role. I can see Harry coming face to face with both of them, and Snape, at the last moment, giving up his life to take out Voldemorte. It seems to me that this is the only role left for Snape if he is to live up to the "redemptive" quality discussed by JKR. > >2) If Snape is really DD's man, what will it take to convince Harry and > >the rest of the Order? KJ: I think that none of them will know until the final confrontation, although there may be a few clues given, such as mysterious messages, or the unexplained death of Nagini:-) > >3) Will Snape take Draco to LV, given that he made the unbreakable vow > >to protect Draco? KJ: Snape will have to return Draco to Voldemorte if he expects to keep his position with him. There is no place indicated so far that would be a safe place to put Draco. Snape could tell Voldemorte that he killed Draco for his failure, but I think that the UV will protect Snape and Draco. So far, Snape is the only DE that can manage to get the job done unlike Lucius. I can't see Voldemorte risking him yet. He may give Draco to him as a reward. KJ From finwitch at yahoo.com Tue Apr 11 08:11:11 2006 From: finwitch at yahoo.com (finwitch) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 08:11:11 -0000 Subject: House characteristics (LONGish) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150843 > Pippin: > Are you saying that nobody who believes in pureblood superiority > can be called good? I thought we agreed that Regulus and Slughorn > were flawed but good. Anyway I am not clear on how the Marauders > can be flawed but good when they were endangering people with > a werewolf and laughing about it, but Draco doesn't qualify. > > The Hat never says Slytherin is the house for those who think purebloods > are superior. Finwitch: Not really -- but 'those whose blood is purest', was Slytherin's criteria. (I think it was in OOP). Ron commented that he had no idea Slytherin had began all that pure-blood stuff. As for good/evil... well, guess not. What with the entire ancient Egyptian royalty, where the pharaoh was to marry his sister by custom in order to keep the royal blood 'pure'? No, this 'bloodism' doesn't lead to 'evil' - incest would be a more accurate word, I'd say. Finwitch From greatraven at hotmail.com Tue Apr 11 09:15:57 2006 From: greatraven at hotmail.com (sbursztynski) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 09:15:57 -0000 Subject: Singing in Whoville/Slytherin redemption In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150844 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "katssirius" wrote: > > Multiple redemptions seems too cumbersome with only one book left. The > remaining Slytherins have very little in the way of character > development and I believe only Pansy has ever had more than one line. > Pettigrew could pay his debt without redemption. I seem him finally > fed up with the scorn he receives from Voldy et al. He will strike > back with a big screw you curse that saves Harry but is done only out > of anger and bitterness. As others have mentioned I think Malfoy just > made his final exit from the books. JKR finishes people off. Lupin > and Sirius and all the DADA teachers are excellent examples. Moody > just barely hangs on. Too many people need to see the light to begin > to save minor characters and I do not think it is JKR's intention to > create an evil free world. Umbridge is her example. Saving them all > could only happy on Cindy lou who's watch. > > katssirius Sue here, You're probably right to say there will be no multiple redemptions, but I'm holding out for Malfoy - that's a loose end that needs tying. I suspect you're right about Pettigrew and frankly, I'm not sure there's much of him to redeem anyway. I see it as more of a Grima Wormtongue ending, where he's had one bit of abuse too many and takes Voldy by surprise. I think JKR will keep her redemptions/loose-end-tying for the major characters. > From katbofaye at aol.com Tue Apr 11 05:27:24 2006 From: katbofaye at aol.com (katssirius) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 05:27:24 -0000 Subject: RE Neville is the one Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150845 Magpie: "But we already know Neville isn't a Squib and he's already got power. He's not that bad of a student and always had courage. He didn't have a lot of confidence, but that grew in the DA. He's fought in two major battles against Death Eaters." Except that JKR does not say that it is a squib that gets power as an adult. That is what been assumed but not what she actually said. This is the actual question and the answer. Will there be, or have there been, any "late blooming" students in the school who come into their magic potential as adults, rather than as children? By the way, I loved meeting you, and hearing you speak, when you came to Anderson's in Naperville. I can hardly wait until you tour again. Ahhh! I loved the event at Anderson's. It was one of my favorites. That is completely true. No, is the answer. In my books, magic almost always shows itself in a person before age 11; however, there is a character who does manage in desperate circumstances to do magic quite late in life, but that is very rare in the world I am writing about katssirius From belviso at attglobal.net Tue Apr 11 13:56:13 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (sistermagpie) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 13:56:13 -0000 Subject: RE Neville is the one In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150846 katssirius > Except that JKR does not say that it is a squib that gets power as > an adult. That is what been assumed but not what she actually > said. This is the actual question and the answer. > > Will there be, or have there been, any "late blooming" students in > the school who come into their magic potential as adults, rather > than as children? By the way, I loved meeting you, and hearing you > speak, when you came to Anderson's in Naperville. I can hardly wait > until you tour again. > > Ahhh! I loved the event at Anderson's. It was one of my favorites. > That is completely true. No, is the answer. In my books, magic > almost always shows itself in a person before age 11; however, there > is a character who does manage in desperate circumstances to do > magic quite late in life, but that is very rare in the world I am > writing about Magpie: But she still seems to be being asked if people ever *do* magic for the first time as adults rather than as children, which indicates the person is asking about either Squibs or Muggles--non magical people finding out they can do magic. She says "find out their magic potential" but it seems to be referring to their ability to do magic, not how good a wizard they will be. She says someone will "in desperate circumstances do magic quite late in life," but Neville's been doing magic regularly for six years, starting out the regular age. He could certainly do something impressive at this point, but that wouldn't make him one of these rare people as far as I can see--he's already gotten an EE in DADA, which indicates to me he's pretty adept. I think we're supposed to take McGonagall's word for it when she says his biggest problem is lack of confidence. He doesn't need desperate circumstances to do magic. -m From h2so3f at yahoo.com Tue Apr 11 15:27:15 2006 From: h2so3f at yahoo.com (h2so3f) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 15:27:15 -0000 Subject: golpolott's third In-Reply-To: <20060410153828.64303.qmail@web80615.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150847 Len wrote: "Why didn't H&DD try to take some of the green potion out of the cave and try to figure out an antidote?" CH3ed: Well, I think we should keep in mind the state of mind of Harry and DD in the cave. They were being attacked by a swarm of inferi and just made it back to the boat. DD was severely weakened. I think it is perfectly understandable and realistic that the thought of taking a sample of the horcrux basin potion with him might be a good idea didn't pop up in Harry's head just then. Len wrote: "Why would the biggest brain of the age just gulp down random poison, set out by LV?" CH3ed: That does seem reckless to me, too. Tho I would give DD the benefit of the doubt that he knows about magical potions and how LV's mind works more than I do, and made the best guess anyone could have made about the way the potion works. Len wrote: "The only logical conclusion I can come to is that DD's incapacitation/death (I'm not convinced he's dead, but that's a whole other thread) is part of a much bigger plan that DD and Snape must have hatched. otherwise prudence would have dictated an attempt to determine what the green kool-ade was before drinking." CH3ed: But DD did try repeatedly to determine what the potion was before concluding that the only way to get rid of it (and it's shielding effect on the locket it was guarding) was to drink it. DD stood over it for quite a while trying to vanish it or turn it into something else without success. Also, drinking the unknown potion in an isolated cave where help cannot come quickly doesn't strike me as being part of a bigger plan that would benefit Harry and the WW. If things turn out wrong and DD drops dead in the cave, Harry's safety would be severely compromised. I really don't think DD would risk dying in short order and leaving Harry stranded in that kind of situation without ensuring that someone will get Harry out of it (there was Snape on the Tower in the following chapter). Len wrote: "Another thing in the cave that struck me was that the description of the lake's behavior was eerily similar to the description of the behavior of draught of living death. It could be a way to store the people who failed to retrieve the horcux until LV gets around to checking on it, and can interrogate them on his own time." CH3ed: Yep, sounds good a theory to me. Tho I doubt that all the inferi in the cave are people who have attempted to get to LV's horcrux. CH3ed :O) ...still not caught up with the posts yet. Going thru them one subject at a time. From foxmoth at qnet.com Tue Apr 11 16:34:13 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 16:34:13 -0000 Subject: Snape's Final Straw In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150848 Angie: > 1) How do you think JKR will reveal Snape's true character in Book 7? Pippin: Snape will rescue Ginny. Angie: > 2) If Snape is really DD's man, what will it take to convince Harry and > the rest of the Order? Pippin: The above, plus ESE!Lupin's confession Angie: > 3) Will Snape take Draco to LV, given that he made the unbreakable vow > to protect Draco? Pippin: Hiding from LV never works. If LV wants to kill Draco then Draco will die, regardless of where Snape takes him. I think LV will want Draco back with his mother and at Hogwarts if it reopens. It will be claimed he was under the Imperius curse. Pippin From celizwh at intergate.com Tue Apr 11 18:15:23 2006 From: celizwh at intergate.com (houyhnhnm102) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 18:15:23 -0000 Subject: LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank Know "Something" In-Reply-To: <336.2175196.316c7011@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150849 Nikkalmati: > Good thought here. I, however, had thought that > whoever sent the DE's found out right away LV had > disappeared after going to GH. James and Lily were > dead, so he had been there and they clearly didn't kill > him What was the next stop on his list? I don't think > LV would take any chances with making a mistake when > killing the "one born in July". think he planned to > go directly to the Longbottoms after taking care of > Harry and get Neville (a la Herod killing all the > baby boys in Bethlehem to get Jesus). houyhnhnm: This makes sense to me. Since Voldemort was unaware that he would "mark [the prophecy child] as his equal" he may well have intended to kill both boys, and his decision to attack the Potters first was purely arbitrary. Another bit of evidence that the prophecy was more of a self-fulfilling premise than a revelation of the future carved in stone. I also like the possibility that Frank Longbottom observed the events at Godric's Hollow (in lieu of Hermione's father) and that he was tortured not for information about Voldemort's whereabouts, but to find out how much (and whom)he had seen. I like the idea (or rather I like the dramatic irony; it's a gruesome thought actually) that someone knows exactly what happened that night and who was there, but has been unable to communicate that knowledge because he is insane and shut up at St. Mungo's. Longbottom could not have been at Godric's Hollow on account of its being the Potters' hiding place, due to the Fidelius Charm, but what if he had been following someone in his capacity as an auror? He would not have been able to see the house, but he would have seen those who approached it and after the explosion he would have seen who came out. Perhaps he had begun to suspect Peter Pettigrew and hadn't had time to share his suspicion. But there must have been someone else. The someone who sent the Lestranges, who may also have been present at Godric's Hollow. From mandorino222 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 11 16:41:56 2006 From: mandorino222 at yahoo.com (mandorino222) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 16:41:56 -0000 Subject: Snape's Final Straw In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150850 Angie wrote: 3) Will Snape take Draco to LV, given that he made the unbreakable vow to protect Draco? In the unbreakable vow, Snape only vowed to protect Draco in his quest to kill Dumbledore. Now that that particular goal has been accomplished, I would have to assume that Snape owes no further obligation to Draco and Narcissa. Nick From manawydan at ntlworld.com Tue Apr 11 19:25:13 2006 From: manawydan at ntlworld.com (manawydan) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 20:25:13 +0100 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Was Percy's sickle /Ginny's best friend/Slytherin redemption/Neville References: <1144730642.2522.45844.m27@yahoogroups.com> Message-ID: <000e01c65d9d$a9611b80$163a6751@f3b7j4> No: HPFGUIDX 150851 Magpie wrote: >I have a problem with calling it a bungle at all, whatever Harry thinks it >was. There's no reason a minor young assistant at the Ministry should >notice anything amiss with Crouch. It's not Percy's business to know >whether his boss' attendence record is poor or whether or not he should be >communicating through notes. It's the higher-up people who should have Ah, but this is _Percy_ we're talking about, the person who more than anyone you'd expect to know the rule book off by heart. I'm sure that he took the personnel handbook home on his very first weekend and memorised it! >noticed something wrong. Granted Percy probably enjoyed Crouch's absence >far too much to even allow himself to think about speaking up about it; he >was running the department. Imperius is hard to detect, we know--and Arthur >and Bagman barely reacted to Bertha disappearing. That's a bigger flub, >imo. Though Percy did seem more ratty than usual at this time. I wonder if he was going through a fairly deep internal struggle that on the one hand, the rules are being broken right and left and on the other hand, Mr Crouch could do no wrong for him so everything must be ok. And yet not ok. >I always find it ironic that Harry thinks about Percy's "not noticing his >boss was under Voldemort's thumb" for a year as if this is a big screw-up Perhaps even more tragic than that. Just suppose that Barty, desperately trying to resist the Imperius, managed to do something that was so dramatically against the rules that his uptight snotty young assistant _must_ notice something wrong and bring it to someone's attention. Only hero-worshipping Percy just ignores the breach of rules, because Mr Crouch could do no wrong. >when Dumbledore didn't even notice his old friend and new teacher was not >only under Voldemort's thumb but not even the same guy. Maybe we're >supposed to think Percy's promotion is suspicious but unfortunately it makes >sense to me--he proved himself during a bad time by keeping the Ministry >running. And maybe even thereby doomed Barty. Just suppose once again that the second string to his fight for survival was that "Weatherby", his callow and inexperienced young assistant for whom he has so little regard that he can't even remember his name, would foul up so badly that someone would notice that Barty was missing. Only Percy is a Weasley, and proves that he's very intelligent and capable, so capable that he's able to do the job of a head of department without getting it wrong. Percy's promotion makes sense to me too. Crouch obviously recognises that despite what's happened, Percy is obviously a bright young man who can do a good job. He's also someone who will be firmly under Crouch's thumb. The investigation could easily have damned Percy for ever, if not sent him to Azkaban as an accessory to the kidnap and murder of his superior. Offered a second chance, who can blame him for taking it? hwyl Ffred O Benryn wleth hyd Luch Reon Cymru yn unfryd gerhyd Wrion Gwret dy Cymry yghymeiri From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Tue Apr 11 16:55:40 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 12:55:40 -0400 Subject: Why Dumbledore Had to Die Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150852 There's been a lot of debating over whether or not Dumbledore is dead for various reasons; however I'd like to recall one of the major themes of the Harry Potter book series -- overcoming challenges. In my mind in order to have a satisfying ending to the series Harry will need to prove himself more so than he has done already. In previous books he has always had a mentor to help and guide him, even if he never fully took advantage of their presence. Dumbledore has been there as a pillar for Harry, and Harry knew that whenever he found himself in serious trouble Dumbledore would always be there to help him. With Dumbledore and Sirius gone, the two living people Harry has looked up to the most, Harry will need to face Voldemort without their guidance. This is my opinion on why Dumbledore and Sirius are dead for good -- their coming back will not allow Harry to live up to his fullest potential. ~ Rachel (who wishes to see Dumbledore and Sirius again but knows JKR to be a 'ruthless killer') _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From dracojadon at yahoo.co.uk Tue Apr 11 17:45:06 2006 From: dracojadon at yahoo.co.uk (dracojadon at yahoo.co.uk) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 18:45:06 +0100 Subject: Plumbing in Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150853 I had just typed out this post when I read the backlog of posts in my HPfGU folder, and found someone had just asked the first question, but I'm including it here for the sake of completeness, and because I'm not convinced there _wasn't_ a pre-Tom opening: Who built in the sink at the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets? Tom had nothing to do with it - he said he _found_ the chamber. Did Salazar Slytherin have modern plumbers around? If not, who discovered the chamber before Tom did, ensured a disguised entrance was built over it, and what did they do there? [The consensus seems to be that the castle magically shapes itself to include modern plumbing] Point #2: Did they hatch the basilisk? Tom didn't (did he?), but how old is the basilisk? It's 20 feet long - that sounds small. The HP Lexicon says basilisks "grow up to 50 feet in length" and "can live for at least 900 years given an adequate food supply". (Is that from _Fantasic Beasts_? I don't have a copy here.) Is it really 1000 years old? (Aside: did someone try to hatch a basilisk under Trevor at one point, or is that my imagination?) The pipes in the bathroom sound semi-modern, too. Only the crumbling stone tunnel really sounds like it was built 1000 years ago. Building in the pipes sounds like major work, if they're younger than the chamber itself. Could it have been done in secret? And who scratched the serpent onto the side of the tap "that's never worked" - that wasn't Tom. Myrtle knew that because she'd been using the bathroom before Tom found/used the chamber. "dracojadon" From dracojadon at yahoo.co.uk Tue Apr 11 17:45:12 2006 From: dracojadon at yahoo.co.uk (dracojadon at yahoo.co.uk) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 18:45:12 +0100 Subject: Myrtle: Blood Status, and the Basilisk attacks of 1943 Message-ID: <6709D128-F3D7-462A-AD8D-9BEEDEE0C3CF@yahoo.co.uk> No: HPFGUIDX 150854 Was Moaning Myrtle a muggle-born? (Bear with me.) Draco calls her a mudblood (CoS chpt.12), but what does he know? He's already admitted to 'Crabbe' and 'Goyle' that his father won't tell him anything, and 'mudblood' isn't exactly a precise designation. The question is: was Myrtle singled out for attack, or was she just in a bad place at the wrong time? Red Hen makes a point of saying that of course Tom would have wanted to kill her - anyone would (http://www.redhen-publications.com/Hagrid.html), but that contains a bit too much speculation for me. It depends on how many girls bathrooms Hogwarts has for people to go and cry in. What form did the other basilisk attacks take in 1943? Petrifications? Is this how Dumbledore can so confidently say (paraphrased) that 'It means, Minerva, that the Chamber of Secrets is indeed open once more'? "dracojadon" *wondering what will be the fate of HPfGU after book seven* From sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 11 18:38:54 2006 From: sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com (sugaranddixie1) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 18:38:54 -0000 Subject: Snape's Final Straw In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150855 >Angie wrote: > OK, calling all Snape-Haters and Snape-Lovers. A series of related > questions: > > 1) How do you think JKR will reveal Snape's true character in Book 7? > > 2) If Snape is really DD's man, what will it take to convince Harry and > the rest of the Order? > > 3) Will Snape take Draco to LV, given that he made the unbreakable vow > to protect Draco? E.T. here- 1)Regarding your first question- Not sure, but if he does turn out to be DD's man, he'll have to perform some major heroics! With the rather cryptic comment JKR made in response to the word "redemptive" being used regarding Snape, (she didn't deny the quality might apply to him), I wouldn't be totally suprised if he sacrificed his life to save someone. 2)As for what it will take to convince Harry et al.- I think that DD's reason for believing in Snape was more than just his gut feeling. I think it was something more concrete. I even have a feeling that DD was shown not to be infallible to set us up for what's coming. In other words, we started seeing some of the mistakes DD's made & that leads us to believe he's made a huge mistake where Snape's concerned. He resisted giving Snape the DADA position & I think this was to lead us to think that DD wasn't 100 percent sure of Snape's loyalties. Maybe, however, it was more a matter of DD trying to help Snape by keeping him away from temptation. Not questioning his allegiance, but recognizing his weaknesses. So what I think will happen is that the reason DD trusted Snape will be revealed & it will be such a valid reason that (along with the above-mentioned sacrifice) Harry & the others will see the light. 3)Will Snape give Draco to LV? That's a tough one! If there hadn't been other witnesses to DD's death that might be easier to figure out. I think he probably will give him over to LV. (It'd be nice if LV was so overjoyed at DD's demise that Draco slipped his mind, but I really doubt it!) Maybe MouldyVoldy will set Draco on Harry's tail again...have Draco tree Harry for the kill or something. Draco & Harry have been antagonists throughout the story so why not let them have a final showdown? E.T. - still waiting for the facts to come in! From enlil65 at gmail.com Tue Apr 11 19:57:27 2006 From: enlil65 at gmail.com (Peggy Wilkins) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 14:57:27 -0500 Subject: Living Beings as Horcruxes (was: Re: Harry Potter: A Horcrux) Message-ID: <1789c2360604111257w7c0be295t9511257b4b4b9708@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150856 On 4/11/06, Kathryn Jones wrote: > KJ: > JKR also pointed out that using a living being as a horcrux was not a > wise thing to do. Creatures with free will are not to be counted on to > be there when needed. [snip] I began wondering about living beings as Horcruxes as soon as I started wondering what happened to Voldemort's split soul when he became Vapormort. When he came up to kill Harry, his soul was already split; then he was ripped from his body. What became of the torn portion, anything at all? Did it evaporate? Did it flee along with the "main" Vapormort? Did it plop onto the ground, abandoned? Did it wander around on its own? It's provocative to speculate that if it lay abandoned, someone may have found it and "done something" with it. That last thought leads to some interesting possibilities, including the possibility that it could have been used to make a Horcrux that no one else, including Voldemort, knows about. That is interesting because it changes the balance of power: since Voldemort doesn't know about it, it can be used against him. If I may be allowed to continue along this unlikely tangent of speculation... Although we don't know who was at Godric's Hollow in the aftermath of the big event, I would have to say that we know only three wizards (not counting Voldemort himself) who are reasonably likely to know how to make a Horcrux: Slughorn (maybe), Snape (more likely), and Dumbledore (most likely). Slughorn knows of the Horcrux spell but I can't see him wandering around Godric's Hollow; he has no reason to be there. Snape has personal reasons to possibly show up there due to his personal involvement with the Potter's situation and with Voldemort, but would he have sufficient discernment to recognize a stray piece of soul and then figure out why it was there and what to do with it? Maybe, maybe not. Dumbledore is the most interesting possibility. Slughorn's report of Dumbledore's abhorrence of Horcruxes suggests that Dumbledore may have had personal experience in dealing with them, and his encounters with Grindelwald provide a likely context for having experienced them firsthand. He is the most likely wizard other than Voldemort himself to know how to make a Horcrux; and he certainly has demonstrated sufficient discernment (cf. the cave in HBP where he makes out the faint, lingering signs of magic) that it seems likely he could detect an abandoned bit of soul "hanging around" and recognize it for what it was. It seems to me that if Dumbledore did happen across a bit of Vodemort's soul at Godric's Hollow, he would have had two choices of what to do with it: destroy it; or preserve it in something (that is, put it into a container). Perhaps not knowing exactly what its presence there meant, he would have considered it unwise to outright destroy it and decided to save it until he could understand more about what had happened, and what it meant. So I think he would have decided to preserve it. But what to put it in? If he puts it into an object, he then has the same problem that Voldemort has with his Horcruxes: the object could be lost or stolen or damaged, so he would then be obligated to devise an elaborate protection scheme for it. If he hides it, and needs to retrieve it in a hurry at some future date, then he has the problem of needing to undertake a journey to seek it out. These are serious practical problems. But here is a way to cleverly address them all: put the bit of soul inside a strategically chosen living being--a human being. Now there is no need to hide an object, the Horcrux-person simply goes about his life, wandering freely in the world, unsuspected. The Horcrux-person can protect himself, keep himself out of danger. The Horcrux-person is unlikely to become lost or stolen like a common object. If Dumbledore wants it back for some reason, he need only summon the Horcrux-person to his presence, provided he chooses the person wisely. The question now is, who is the Horcrux-person? I think there is a short list of suspects: Dumbledore himself; Harry; and Snape. Of the three, I think Snape is the best choice. If Snape agrees to take on this role, it gives a concrete reason that Dumbledore absolutely trusts him, and explains why he can tell no one the reason for his trust. As a double agent Snape can't openly fight in battles; that keeps him relatively safe. Indeed, we find him avoiding battles that both Harry and Dumbledore take part in (cf Ministry of Magic; and we see him pass through both sides unharmed in the HBP tower battle). Most important of all, Voldemort doesn't suspect Snape, so Snape can be in his presence without Voldemort either fleeing or attacking him; neither Harry nor Dumbledore can make this claim. This makes it possible to use Snape stragegically as a pawn against Voldemort. Snape as a Legilimens won't let this slip to Voldemort. He can be present at a final battle between Harry and Voldemort without Voldemort attacking him, while he helps Harry. He can repay his debt to Harry's father by giving his life to save Harry and defeat Voldemort. Interesting possibilities indeed. -- Peggy Wilkins enlil65 at gmail.com From celizwh at intergate.com Tue Apr 11 20:17:58 2006 From: celizwh at intergate.com (houyhnhnm102) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 20:17:58 -0000 Subject: Snape's Final Straw In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150857 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "gelite67" wrote: > 1) How do you think JKR will reveal Snape's true > character in Book 7? houyhnhnm: Okay, I'm not ready to put *money* on it, but I have begun to consider the possibility that DD is not really dead. When this is revealed along with the means by which the ruse was carried out, Snape will be shown conclusively to be on the side of good. We may then learn more of the back story, why Snape defected to the Dark side, why he "returned to our side", and why Dumbledore trusted him so completely. I do think Dumbledore will die before the end of book 7, but it will be a death more befitting "the greatest wizard of modern times". > 2) If Snape is really DD's man, what will it take to > convince Harry and the rest of the Order? houyhnhnm: If Dumbledore's death was faked, some members of the Order may already be in on it. Harry must be deceived of course because of the Voldemort connection, but there may be a few select others who are part of the plot. As for Harry, I don't think any objective evidence (other than seeing DD alive, which he must not be allowed to do) would change his mind about Snape. I think it will take an epiphany which will hinge on his having his mother's eyes. Harry will see Snape, literally, with Lily's eyes (as he was able to see the glosses in the potions textbook). At the same time, Snape will see Lily's eyes in Harry, where before he was only able to see James. > 3) Will Snape take Draco to LV, given that he made the unbreakable vow to protect Draco? houyhnhnm: "Will you, Severus, watch over my son, Draco, as he attempts to fulfill the Dark Lord's wishes?" "And will you, to best of your ability, protect him from harm?" Because of the presence of the conjunction at the beginning of the second question, I see it as being modified, like the first, by "as he attempts to fulfill the Dark Lord's wishes". I think Snape is off the hook with repect to the vow, however I don't imagine him taking Draco to Voldemort, more likely to his mother. Then Snape will have to face Voldemort with an explanation for how *he* got mixed up in the business. I'm sure it will be up to his usual standards. From ShylahM at gmail.com Tue Apr 11 20:21:11 2006 From: ShylahM at gmail.com (Shylah) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 08:21:11 +1200 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Snape's Final Straw In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <403e946f0604111321u334e9dfdnd54462e3f76bdc28@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150858 Angie Wrote: OK, calling all Snape-Haters and Snape-Lovers. A series of related questions: 1) How do you think JKR will reveal Snape's true character in Book 7? 2) If Snape is really DD's man, what will it take to convince Harry and the rest of the Order? 3) Will Snape take Draco to LV, given that he made the unbreakable vow to protect Draco? Shylah now Well, first off, I don't really fall into either group. I've found myself neutal to Snape, odd that it may seem. But anyway, here goes my answers. 1) How do you think JKR will reveal Snape's true character in Book 7? That's a tough one. There has been some debate about being redeemed. I'm holding out hope that whoever it is, will MEAN it. Not just switching as a knee jerk reaction to desert the sinking ship as they see it. But back to Snape. I wonder if LV discovers how much Harry hates Snape and wants justice that he might use it to his advantage. Snape bait anyone? At this stage, I think LV would only do that if it would lure Harry Potter, but not to risk losing Snape to the MOM. Snape's true character. I'm wavering on that one. I have a feeling that there was a reason he didn't copy Lucius (I was imperio'ed) Malfoy. That would have been the easier way out. But I don't see him suddenly turning nice. 2) If Snape is really DD's man, what will it take to convince Harry and the rest of the Order? Firstly, I have a really hard time not thinking that Dumbledore had enough brains to know that a few scraps of information provided by Snape on his return to the DE circle would be enough for that long considering his position within Hogwarts. It would have been plenty enough, until LV moved out into the open. Then I think the scene changed. Convincing the Order and Harry. It might have to be done in stages, useful bits of information in a form that they are not going to see as leading to a trap. Then progressing into a revealing. JKR did mention Harry and Snape would possibly meet up again. 3) Will Snape take Draco to LV, given that he made the unbreakable vow to protect Draco? I think he would have to. But I think that Draco's level of results might have bought him some more time to produce results. Probably Snape would be able to suggest to LV that he could take over Draco's training. Anyway, I don't think the vow holds now. Perhaps Draco didn't share LV's threats with his mother, so she won't fear once Dumbledore has gone. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 11 21:19:23 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 21:19:23 -0000 Subject: Ginny's best friend (Was: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics)) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150859 > >>Amiable Dorsai: > So... Hermione chose, as the only person she trusted with the > identity of her Yule Ball date, a casual friend, not someone she, > you know, felt any special connection to? > And the casual friend just sat on the juiciest bit of gossip in > all of Gryffindor Tower? > Without signing anything? > >>Magpie: > Oh, I think they're more than casual friends--I've been noting > Hermione and Ginny's relationship throughout the discussion. > Hermione is one of the important people in Ginny's life and we > know it. I always think of them as sisters-in-law. Betsy Hp: I think that's a good way of looking at it. Hermione is sort of an older sister to Ginny. After all, barring any unfortunate deaths, they will most likely end the series as sisters-in-law. And yes, when either is in the mood or has a need for some female companionship, they turn to each other. > >>Jen D.: > This round and round about "friendship" got me to thinking. It > seems that Hermy and Ginny have a great friendship but they > understand the boundaries. And has anyone mentioned that Hermione > gave Ginny a winning strategy (took years to execute but worth > waiting for...) in order to get Harry's notice? Each girl has her > own circle and sometimes, many times, they intersect as well and > it seems to have grown over the years. That's why it was such a > cruel and surprising thing when Ginny snarled at Hermione not to > pretend she understood anything about quidditch. Betsy Hp: Eh, I'm not sure I'd call it a "great friendship". Not with Ginny so clearly on outsider status. Hermione knows *all* of Ginny's secrets, but Hermione doesn't share equally with her. We know this because Ginny is so often kicked out of Trio business, and she never has the expectation that Hermione will fill her in. It's just not an equal relationship. Ginny is too much the little sister, even after she started dating Harry. (Possibly because Hermione feels she "arranged" for Ginny to land Harry?) > >>Jen D.: > > If we say the girls are or aren't friends for one set of facts, > occuring at one time or the other, we lose sight of the whole > organic process. > Jen D. (wishing she could have been this mature about friendship > in her teen years!) Betsy Hp: See, that's the thing that's bothering me, what got this whole post started, at least from my end. Because, no, Hermione is not an example, to my mind, of a mature and well-rounded girl that little girls should strive to emulate. And her friendship with Ginny is not an example of a "mature" view on friendship to my mind. There is something sisterly about their relationship, but it's sisterhood in the teenage years, when you say ugly things to each other, and the power differential can be at its peak. (One thing leading to the other, I'd imagine.) Ginny is there when Hermione needs her, but she can be quite safely booted when Hermione is playing with her same-age friends. Honestly, I think I'd label Ginny and Hermione's friendship as quite immature. Especially if we're supposed to take them as best friends. But, I think this probably comes down to different strokes for different folks, and something upon which I realize JKR and I do not see eye to eye. Which means I'm probably seeing her characters in a different light than she means for me to. (Like the twins, and Molly, and the whole Weasley clan, really.) Betsy Hp From foxmoth at qnet.com Tue Apr 11 22:22:44 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 22:22:44 -0000 Subject: Ginny's best friend (Was: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics)) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150860 > Betsy Hp: > Eh, I'm not sure I'd call it a "great friendship". Not with Ginny > so clearly on outsider status. Hermione knows *all* of Ginny's > secrets, but Hermione doesn't share equally with her. We know this > because Ginny is so often kicked out of Trio business, and she never > has the expectation that Hermione will fill her in. > > It's just not an equal relationship. Ginny is too much the little > sister, even after she started dating Harry. (Possibly because > Hermione feels she "arranged" for Ginny to land Harry?) > Pippin: These aren't the ordinary kind of teenage secrets...they're things that Dumbledore and other adults don't expect to be discussed with anyone but Ron and Hermione. Anybody who works with other people's secrets has things they can't share with their friends, no matter how close they are. There's an awful lot of Hermione's time that she doesn't spend with the two boys. They've never been in her dorm and Harry and Ron don't hang out in the library unless they've got a research project. So we can't really say that Ginny never hangs with Hermione. Betsy HP Ginny is there when Hermione needs her, but she can be quite safely booted when Hermione is playing with her same-age friends. Pippin: That's the thing. Hermione isn't playing with Ron and Harry -- -- Sirius, the Tri-wizard Tournament, the Voldemort war and the horcrux hunt are not games. Pippin From rkdas at charter.net Tue Apr 11 22:53:14 2006 From: rkdas at charter.net (susanbones2003) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 22:53:14 -0000 Subject: Ginny's best friend (Was: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics)) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150861 SNIP: > Betsy Hp: > See, that's the thing that's bothering me, what got this whole post > started, at least from my end. Because, no, Hermione is not an > example, to my mind, of a mature and well-rounded girl that little > girls should strive to emulate. And her friendship with Ginny is > not an example of a "mature" view on friendship to my mind. > > There is something sisterly about their relationship, but it's > sisterhood in the teenage years, when you say ugly things to each > other, and the power differential can be at its peak. (One thing > leading to the other, I'd imagine.) Ginny is there when Hermione > needs her, but she can be quite safely booted when Hermione is > playing with her same-age friends. > > Honestly, I think I'd label Ginny and Hermione's friendship as quite > immature. Especially if we're supposed to take them as best friends. SNIP Jen here, What I see as mature is that each is what they are to the other. When Hermione is at Ron's, she can give Ginny lots of one-on-one and it's great. Bit Ginny is her own person and she is never at a loss for someone to hang out with. Sometimes it's H-R-H, but she's quite happy to go off with other people. As Pippin pointed out, there's probably a lot of time in the dorm room that we never see, where the girls can chat about important things like Viktor Krum and Michael Cort. But as I mentioned earlier, they seem to have boundaries that work for their friendship. Hermione doesn't butt in on Ginny's friends her age, her year. And sometimes Ginny hangs with HRH. That seems pretty even-handed. And best yet, they seem happy as they are written. We can argue that JKR wrote Ginny as a handy plot device, but I don't see it that way. I guess your "diffrent strokes" remark must suffice... Jen D. > But, I think this probably comes down to different strokes for > different folks, and something upon which I realize JKR and I do not > see eye to eye. Which means I'm probably seeing her characters in a > different light than she means for me to. (Like the twins, and > Molly, and the whole Weasley clan, really.) > > Betsy Hp > From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 11 23:01:29 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 23:01:29 -0000 Subject: Ginny's best friend (Was: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics)) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150862 > >>Pippin: > These aren't the ordinary kind of teenage secrets...they're things > that Dumbledore and other adults don't expect to be discussed > with anyone but Ron and Hermione. > Betsy Hp: By the time we get to HBP, sure. But that's not all Ron and Harry and Hermione talk about. They're friends too. And Ginny is not a part of the group because she's off doing her own thing. Except in the summer when there's a more limited choice. > >>Pippin: > There's an awful lot of Hermione's time that she doesn't spend > with the two boys. They've never been in her dorm and Harry and > Ron don't hang out in the library unless they've got a research > project. So we can't really say that Ginny never hangs with > Hermione. Betsy Hp: And we don't. Or at least, I haven't. (Though I seriously doubt Ginny hangs with Hermione at the library. Hermione doesn't go there to chat, after all.) But there's a reason the Trio is called the Trio. There's a reason that during Ron and Harry's big fight Harry was with Hermione most of the time. There's a reason after Hermione's big fight with Ron, she was around Hagrid a lot. And there's a reason Ginny was around for none of it. Ginny is not Hermione's bestest friend. She just isn't. Hermione prefers to be with her boys. > >>Betsy HP > > Ginny is there when Hermione needs her, but she can be quite > > safely booted when Hermione is playing with her same-age friends. > >>Pippin: > That's the thing. Hermione isn't playing with Ron and Harry -- > -- Sirius, the Tri-wizard Tournament, the Voldemort war > and the horcrux hunt are not games. Betsy Hp: And they aren't all consuming. (Though the horcrux hunt may turn out to be.) Harry never has to go looking for Hermione or drag her away from Ginny. Whenever anything goes down, serious or not so, Hermione is right there. Because she is Harry's friend. She sits next to him at meals, arranges his study calender, and reads in front of the fireplace with him. She doesn't sleep in the same dorm room as Harry and Ron (she doesn't sleep in the same dorm room with Ginny either), and she doesn't bathe with them. But other than that, they're pretty much together full time. Whether shopping at Diagon Alley, checking out sweets in Hogsmeade, or drinking butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks, Hermione is one of the two people flanking Harry. Ginny is not there. Betsy Hp From kkersey at swbell.net Tue Apr 11 23:08:41 2006 From: kkersey at swbell.net (kkersey_austin) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 23:08:41 -0000 Subject: Living Beings as Horcruxes (was: Re: Harry Potter: A Horcrux) In-Reply-To: <1789c2360604111257w7c0be295t9511257b4b4b9708@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150863 Peggy, I'm, I'm... shocked! Flabbergasted! Just a tiny bit of Peggy's post: > I began wondering about living beings as Horcruxes as soon as I > started wondering what happened to Voldemort's split soul when he > became Vapormort. When he came up to kill Harry, his soul was > already split; then he was ripped from his body. What became of the > torn portion, anything at all? Did it evaporate? Did it flee along > with the "main" Vapormort? Did it plop onto the ground, abandoned? > Did it wander around on its own? > > It's provocative to speculate that if it lay abandoned, someone may > have found it and "done something" with it. Elisabet: Hey, can I borrow that speculation for a moment? Yes? Thanks... I find the idea that Dumbledore might have installed a Voldybit into another human being a little, er, shocking, to tell the truth. And I doubt that DD was at Godric's Hollow himself anyway. But what if *Snape* was the one that found and retrieved the stray bit of Voldemort's soul? Having already turned to the good side, what would he have done? Destroyed it, I think, perhaps turning it over to Dumbledore, perhaps taking care of it himself. Or, perhaps, per Peggy's theory, instead of destroying it, volunteering to house it for a while. (I can't see DD agreeing to this, actually, Snape would have to do that to himself.) LV would not have counted that missing part as a horcrux, so that could explain why DD did not mention it to Harry. Still. What I like best about this theory, :-) , is that I can bring in one of my own pet ideas, that DD does not himself know why he trusts Snape: he has removed and stored that memory safely out of his head (and out of Snape's as well, I presume). Leaving it available for Harry to find and experience via penseive in the seventh book, of course. So the possible course of events: - Snape turns against LV but remains undercover as a spy - LV decides to attack the Potters; Snape either comes along with him, or having found out is right behind - LV rips his soul murdering the Potters and is then vaporised, leaving the torn bit(s) floating around. LV's soul does not stick around the vicinity, so he does not witness what happens next - Snape retrieves and/or destroys the voldybits - DD is informed (if he was not already involved) and as a safeguard the memories - Snape's and DD's - are removed to long-term storage. - Now whenever DD is asked why he trusts Snape, he really *can't* say why, just that he knows he trusts him. So what do y'all think? Possible? One consideration is why DD would ever think a memory was safer in a bottle than in his own head... perhaps he had removed it just prior to summoning Harry for the cave adventure, fearing the possibility of putting himself in LV's power if things went wrong. Elisabet, going out on a limb From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 11 23:26:51 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 23:26:51 -0000 Subject: Ginny's best friend (Was: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics)) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150864 > >>Jen D.: > What I see as mature is that each is what they are to the other. > > But as I mentioned earlier, they seem to have boundaries that > work for their friendship. Hermione doesn't butt in on Ginny's > friends her age, her year. And sometimes Ginny hangs with HRH. > That seems pretty even-handed. And best yet, they seem happy as > they are written. We can argue that JKR wrote Ginny as a handy > plot device, but I don't see it that way. I guess your "diffrent > strokes" remark must suffice... Betsy Hp: I totally agree with your assesment of Hermione's and Ginny's relationship. That's exactly how I see it playing out. Sometimes they hang, sometimes they don't. And they both seem quite happy with the arrangement. And that's good. But, what I take issue with (and I don't think this is an issue you raised, actually), is that they're a wonderful example of two girls who are best friends. They're two girls who are *friends*, yes. And it's a good relationship as it is. But it pushes things to try and claim that Hermione sees Ginny as her best friend (or vice versa). It comes down to paragons, I think. This whole thread got started (IIRC) with the idea that JKR had raised Hermione to become this paragon of girlhood in her fat rant. And for me, she just isn't. There's a lot that's good about Hermione, but she ain't perfect. Not for me, anyway. And one of her weaknessess, I thought, was her sort of contempt for groups of giggling girls. (Probably because she suspects them of not being properly serious about things. Hermione gets on Ron, and sometimes Harry, for the same thing.) But it was a contempt JKR seemed (and it is dangerous to guess about these things, I know) to share. Because there are no positive depictions of female *best friends* in the book. Hermione and Ginny's friendship does not rise to that level. They are friends, not best friends. And they do not constitue a paragon of female friendship. Not to me. (On the flip side, I think Harry and Ron are a great example of best friends, and while not perfect, come much closer being a paragon.) In the end it's got nothing to do with either Hermione's or Ginny's well-roundedness as characters. It has to do with how their relationship is written. And it's not written as two best girlfriends, IMO. Betsy Hp, who's afraid she's being either terribly confusing or terribly picky or both From kchuplis at alltel.net Tue Apr 11 23:45:36 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 18:45:36 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Ginny's best friend (Was: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics)) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150865 On Apr 11, 2006, at 6:26 PM, horridporrid03 wrote: > > But, what I take issue with (and I don't think this is an issue you > raised, actually), is that they're a wonderful example of two girls > who are best friends. They're two girls who are *friends*, yes. > And it's a good relationship as it is. But it pushes things to try > and claim that Hermione sees Ginny as her best friend (or vice > versa). kchuplis: Well, I really must have missed something because all I saw was that she would rather be a Hermione than a Pansy. I saw nothing indicating Hermione was a "paragon". She is the female character that leaps to mind when thinking of HP first. AFAICT she *could* have used Ginny, but Ginny is not the first girl character that would leap to most minds. She could have said Susan Bones I guess, except, we don't know that much about Susan. I think you are definitely reading "paragon" into the rant when I don't think it is there. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 01:20:08 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 01:20:08 -0000 Subject: Orphans - Harry and Tom In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150866 > Alla: > > > > Lovely post, Ceridwen. I am not sure I agree with your ultimate > > conclusions though, if I understand them correctly. Are you saying > > that with Tom's story JKR basically changes the "orphan story set > > up" completely? > > Ceridwen: > She changed the window dressing of the orphan story with Harry, even > before she changed it with Tom. Harry doesn't act like a house elf, > which is what all those poor but honest orphans (and partial orphans, > since I do own a copy of The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew) > sound like. Thankful for a moldy crust of bread, dew-eyed and > subservient. Harry made the orphan realistic, with feelings and > pride. Tom completely upended it, yes, in contrast with Harry. who > gave the traditional orphan more believability. Alla: Not that I am really disagreeing with what you are saying. I guess all that I am saying is that I don't think JKR changed that much in the "orphan set up" so to speak, I guess to me she developed it or maybe took it to another level, I don't know. I mean, sure, with every book Harry acts more and more defiant towards Dursleys, but at the same time to me PS/SS WAS the classic "Cinderella" set up, where Harry indeed works as a house elf, abused, neglected, then discovers new world and leaves the old one behind, you know - all the classic orphan stuff. At the same time while I am saying that i don't see the radical changes, those changes MUST be somewhere, don't they? I mean, I also read plenty of stories about orphans and while I definitely sympathized with many of those characters, Harry is the orphan with whom I sympathize the most. I think that maybe the difference is that JKR truly lets Harry grew up, you know, books gets darker and darker and as Harry grows up, indeed he changes from traditional orphan to becoming CAPSLOCK Harry, etc? I don't know, I would love to figure out this phenomenon, but not sure I am successful. > Alla: > > You see, if Tom was the only orphan in the story , I would probably > > agree with you, but as you said she contrasts Tom and Harry and > > between those two, her sympathies lie with Harry. SO, I am afraid > > that my answer will sound trivial and I indeed thought about it, > > because I wanted to do your post justice, but I could not change my > > answer. > > Ceridwen: > Even with Tom not being the only orphan in the story, we all knew he > was orphaned, and I think very few of us expected the completely evil > from day one child we were shown. Our expectations of the orphan set > us up to be surprised. Alla: Actually, I honestly was NOT surprised when I read about Tom's personality in his early years. In a general terms ( not in the details of course) this was what I expected Tom to be during his childhood. You see, as someone who is convinced that Potterverse characters have a very BIG part of who they are, the essential part of them so to speak, I could not expect Tom, who "never loved anybody" be a normal child and it turns out that he indeed was not. Not that I was not surprised at all, it is just I did not expect the traditional sympathetic orphan to "play the part" of young Mr. Riddle. So, I am still inclined to think that JKR just shows Tom's nature shining through so to speak. Where I was surprised was the portrayal of orphanage. I sort of expected to find out that truly evil people raised Tom and that is also played a part in his upbringing. Hmmm, does it mean that I did have traditional expectations of how orphan is supposed to be portrayed after all? You ask tough questions, Ceridwen. :) JMO, Alla From renata_souza_e_souza at yahoo.com.br Tue Apr 11 19:51:38 2006 From: renata_souza_e_souza at yahoo.com.br (Renata Souza) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 14:51:38 -0500 Subject: Why Dumbledore Had to Die Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150867 Rachel wrote: > With Dumbledore and Sirius gone, the two living people Harry has > looked up to the most, Harry will need to face Voldemort without > their guidance. This is my opinion on why Dumbledore and Sirius are > dead for good -- their coming back will not allow Harry to live up to > his fullest potential. Renata: I agree with you totally, but I really wonder how Harry will get more powerful without Dumbledore, Sirius or Hogwarts. I guess after book six everybody got a little (maybe a lot, in my case) frustrated with the power (or lack of) of Harry, after the inability to perform a single spell/charm in Snape when he was about to run away. Renata From dontask2much at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 02:07:42 2006 From: dontask2much at yahoo.com (rebecca) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 22:07:42 -0400 Subject: A Horcrux Twist: Who Got What From Whom? (WAS Re: [HPforGrownups] Living Beings as Horcruxes) References: Message-ID: <00ef01c65dd5$e24ef380$6601a8c0@MITRE.ORG> No: HPFGUIDX 150868 > Elisabet: > > But what if *Snape* was the one that found and retrieved the stray bit > of Voldemort's soul? Having already turned to the good side, what > would he have done? Destroyed it, I think, perhaps turning it over to > Dumbledore, perhaps taking care of it himself. Or, perhaps, per > Peggy's theory, instead of destroying it, volunteering to house it for > a while. (I can't see DD agreeing to this, actually, Snape would have > to do that to himself.) LV would not have counted that missing part as > a horcrux, so that could explain why DD did not mention it to Harry. > Still. > . > > So the possible course of events: > > - Snape turns against LV but remains undercover as a spy > - LV decides to attack the Potters; Snape either comes along with him, > or having found out is right behind > - LV rips his soul murdering the Potters and is then vaporised, > leaving the torn bit(s) floating around. LV's soul does not stick > around the vicinity, so he does not witness what happens next > - Snape retrieves and/or destroys the voldybits > - DD is informed (if he was not already involved) and as a safeguard > the memories - Snape's and DD's - are removed to long-term storage. > - Now whenever DD is asked why he trusts Snape, he really *can't* say > why, just that he knows he trusts him. > > So what do y'all think? Possible? > Rebecca: It's been speculated that DD has removed his memory of the "why trust Snape" and kept it locked up for safekeeping, therefore he answers Harry the only way he can. Other reasons he'd keep it locked up run the gamut, including such possibilities as Snape and Dumbledore being related. (Ooo, snuck that one in on you all, speculation of course.) However, I think the "why trust Snape thing" has more to do with Snape feeling his actions provoked Harry as being the orphan left behind. Personally, I think JKR gave major hints in CoS about Harry's acquisition of Lord Voldemort's soul inadvertently as opposed to the possession Ginny almost experienced. I don't think I can ignore these things and not come to the conclusion that like it or not, Harry's probably got a bit of Dark Lord soul or something in him. But I could be wrong and there's hope so read on... So here's the twist: what if a part of Harry made it into Lord Voldemort that fateful night in GH before all of this happened? I mean, sure, we know some portion according to DD of Voldemort Harry acquired, but really, no one has ever asked if or what Lord Voldemort acquired something from Harry? All we hear is what happened to Harry and what he got; other than Voldemort being stripped of his powers, wouldn't it stand to reason he might have gotten something from Harry in return? LV's words: "Aaah . . . pain beyond pain, my friends; nothing could have prepared me for it. I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost. . . but still, I was alive. What I was, even I do not know... " Dumbledore says in OoP that Voldemort couldn't possess Harry without enduring "mortal agony" to himself. Sound familiar with the above passage? One could speculate that Harry doesn't feel any pain when unwittingly inside Voldemort's head early on in GoF because *he's already there.* I also keep coming back to the blood Harry unwillingingly gave Voldemort that night in the graveyard: "My father's bone, naturally, meant that we would have to come here, where he was buried. But the blood of a foe ... Wormtail would have had me use any wizard, would you not, Wormtail? Any wizard who had hated me ... as so many of them still do. But I knew the one I must use, if I was to rise again, more powerful than I had been when I had fallen. I wanted Harry Potters blood. I wanted the blood of the one who had stripped me of power thirteen years ago . . . for the lingering protection his mother once gave him would then reside in my veins too." So very interesting, this passage. Other than "why would Voldemort the Omnipotent want/need protection?', we can also speculate that with Harry's abilities to be inside Voldemort's head unscathed when the mere Dark Lord's possession of Harry in OoP leaves Voldemort in agony..... well, something is amiss, isn't it? And remember, Harry could see inside the Dark Lord's head before the graveyard and the taking of his blood for Voldemort's rebirthing. Where's the blood come in? Blood itself is long believed to be a strong, religiously or magically powerful thing, even symbolic of the soul throughout the ages. Way back when, soldiers believed (as LV does) that to take the blood of an enemy into yourself meant that you acquired the power of the foe you defeated - however, they also cautioned each other that you could also get the foe's weaknesses, too. Harry's fear as defined in PoA explicitly is, as Lupin states, fear of fear itself. So if we go with all of the aformentioned for argument's sake, Lord Voldemort is going to not only fear "fear", he's also going to fear death. Woo. Sounds like He_Who_Must_Not_Be_Named could be He_Who_Doesn't_Want_To_Leave_The_House. There's your gleam of triumph flashing though DD's eyes, IMO. If there's part of Harry in Voldemort, one might come to the conclusion that Voldemort underestimated taking Harry's blood in GoF, thereby strengthening what Voldemort got from Harry in GH and DD suspected such. It could ultimately be a deciding factor in Lord Voldythingy's downfall. rebecca, who thinks this is all speculation but fun nonetheless From kchuplis at alltel.net Wed Apr 12 02:10:12 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 21:10:12 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] RE: Why Dumbledore Had to Die In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33A0954B-7BCF-4053-BAB0-050CECEB36F8@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150869 On Apr 11, 2006, at 2:51 PM, Renata Souza wrote: > Rachel wrote: > > > With Dumbledore and Sirius gone, the two living people Harry has > > looked up to the most, Harry will need to face Voldemort without > > their guidance. This is my opinion on why Dumbledore and Sirius are > > dead for good -- their coming back will not allow Harry to live > up to > > his fullest potential. > > > Renata: > > I agree with you totally, but I really wonder how Harry will get more > powerful without Dumbledore, Sirius or Hogwarts. > I guess after book six everybody got a little (maybe a lot, in my > case) > frustrated with the power (or lack of) of Harry, after the > inability to > perform a single spell/charm in Snape when he was about to run away. > kchuplis: I seriously was not frustrated by that. He was so out of control and emotional that it was a lesson (which I think he will learn from) that gave him the biggest trouble. And Snape pretty much yelled that at him as he was fleeing. One of the biggest supporting arguments IMO for DDM!Snape. I think Harry has plenty of power, he just needs focus and I sense a "calm" at the end of the book which suggests he will find that. From gelite67 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 03:08:35 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 03:08:35 -0000 Subject: Snape's Final Straw In-Reply-To: <443B4C0F.30502@telus.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150870 ---> > > gelite67 wrote: > > > > >OK, calling all Snape-Haters and Snape-Lovers. A series of related > > >questions: > > > >1) How do you think JKR will reveal Snape's true character in Book 7? > > KJ writes: > I don't see Snape's character truly being revealed until the last > possible moment. I don't believe that killing is what JKR had in mind > for Harry to do. That is definitely Snape's role. I can see Harry coming > face to face with both of them, and Snape, at the last moment, giving up > his life to take out Voldemorte. It seems to me that this is the only > role left for Snape if he is to live up to the "redemptive" quality > discussed by JKR. > > >Angie again: Interesting, very interesting. Just wondering how the the Prophesy fits into your theory, since it seems to imply that Harry must be the one to kill Voldemort. From gelite67 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 03:20:07 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 03:20:07 -0000 Subject: Snape's Final Straw In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150871 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sugaranddixie1" wrote: > > >Angie wrote: > > OK, calling all Snape-Haters and Snape-Lovers. A series of related > > questions: > > > > > > > > 2) If Snape is really DD's man, what will it take to convince Harry > and > > the rest of the Order? > > > E.T. here- > > 2)As for what it will take to convince Harry et al.- > > I think that DD's reason for believing in Snape was more than just his > gut feeling. I think it was something more concrete. I even have a > feeling that DD was shown not to be infallible to set us up for what's > coming. In other words, we started seeing some of the mistakes DD's > made & that leads us to believe he's made a huge mistake where Snape's > concerned. He resisted giving Snape the DADA position & I think this > was to lead us to think that DD wasn't 100 percent sure of Snape's > loyalties. Maybe, however, it was more a matter of DD trying to help > Snape by keeping him away from temptation. Not questioning his > allegiance, but recognizing his weaknesses. So what I think will happen > is that the reason DD trusted Snape will be revealed & it will be such > a valid reason that (along with the above-mentioned sacrifice) Harry & > the others will see the light. > > Angie again: I believe there is a concrete reason, too, and it involves something that happened on "that fateful night." But I digress. After reading HBP, I am convinced that DD didn't give Snape the DADA position because it was cursed. I think DD believed LV would return someday and he wanted Snape to have an ironclad excuse for being at HW. If Snape had the DADA position earlier, he would have only lasted a year and then out he goes. (Which, actually, is another reason I believe DD knew he was dying -- he knew Snape didn't need to be around the next year when DD and Harry were no longer there*, so he finally let Snape teach DADA.) But DD probably told Snape it was to keep him from temptation, at least originally. *DD had to know that Harry would go Horcrux Hunting and would not return to HW. From vantelvanna at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 02:55:05 2006 From: vantelvanna at yahoo.com (vantelvanna) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 02:55:05 -0000 Subject: Did Harry have a Horcrux in OOP? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150872 OK I could have missed this but please if not let me know what you think. I am rereading OOP, but on audio book, and in the middle of supper a line hit me like a TON of bricks.. So here is my thought . In HP, Harry and Dumbledore get the locket that is a fake Horcrux right? and it have a note with the initals R. A(?).B. on it. Well in OOP Harry is talking to Sirius about the family tree tapestry and they talk about he brother Regulus Black (R. ?. B.) and later in the chapter when they (the kids Mrs. Weasley and Sirius) are cleaning there is a "also a heavy locket that none of them could open" so do you think that this could be the "REAL" locket? The initials could match. We don`t find out Regulus' middle name so it could be? We know he was a DE and he tried to get out . What do you think? Could Harry have had one of the Horcruxes in his hand in OOP? Vanna From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Wed Apr 12 03:34:41 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 03:34:41 -0000 Subject: Orphans - Harry and Tom In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150873 Alla: > > Not that I am really disagreeing with what you are saying. I guess > all that I am saying is that I don't think JKR changed that much in > the "orphan set up" so to speak, I guess to me she developed it or > maybe took it to another level, I don't know. Ceridwen: Yes, definitely another level. To me, Harry is more believable than the other orphans I've run across in reading. Just remembered another orphan book, Michael O'Halloran. Heart of gold, again, always willing to do right, but here is where I think JKR differs from the usual orphan story - other orphans are satisfied with their status quo. Harry isn't. Michael O'H doesn't mind being poor. And it is presented as maybe being preferable to being rich and jaded. Keeping the classes seperate, and the hero supports it. But Harry doesn't support being the grateful recipient of the Dursleys' crust of bread. He dreams big dreams, he fights the lies they tell him about his parents, he resents the way he's treated. Very believable for me. Alla: > I mean, sure, with > every book Harry acts more and more defiant towards Dursleys, but at > the same time to me PS/SS WAS the classic "Cinderella" set up, where > Harry indeed works as a house elf, abused, neglected, then discovers > new world and leaves the old one behind, you know - all the classic > orphan stuff. Ceridwen: Oh, absolutely. PS/SS was classic Cinderella. But while Harry worked like a house elf, he didn't have the subservient attitude. He would never punish himself for going against the Dursleys the way Dobby did when he went against the Malfoys. And it was harder for Dobby to make the break, in his head, I think. It took him all book, but when he got his sock, he was as defiant as Harry. I think Harry was a good influence on him! *g* Alla: > At the same time while I am saying that i don't see > the radical changes, those changes MUST be somewhere, don't they? I > mean, I also read plenty of stories about orphans and while I > definitely sympathized with many of those characters, Harry is the > orphan with whom I sympathize the most. Ceridwen: I think it's Harry's spunk. Not a word I really like, but I think it fits. Especially in the earlier books. Harry doesn't just fight against the adversity that the world, or LV, thrust on him, he actively fights against the specifics the Dursleys toss his way. He doesn't see any reason to be beholding to them. He is not a doormat. Sometimes, when reading the orphan story, I just cringe at the way they meekly go along with the more powerful people. Always so sweet, what kids are always sweet? (Okay, my husband's nieces, but who else?) What kids take a foot to the teeth and ask for another? These are, of course, the more mealy stories foisted on kids a hundred years ago. Their spunk is only in fighting circumstances and finding a home at last. Harry, I think, wants to do better. I think he wants to make his home, not just find it. Alla: > I think that maybe the difference is that JKR truly lets Harry grew > up, you know, books gets darker and darker and as Harry grows up, > indeed he changes from traditional orphan to becoming CAPSLOCK > Harry, etc? Ceridwen: This is yet another thing I love about the series. Harry does grow up. He has teenaged moods, enhanced by visits from LV. He has troubles in school, which are not all because of his inabilities in certain subjects, but sometimes because, like other kids, he fluffs off and doesn't study as hard as he could. Harry, and really, all the major characters, seem real to me. Oh, one thing I was thinking of tonight, I think Harry is foreshadowed to be a wizard along the Dumbledore lines. Mainly because his mistakes, when he makes them, are large. The MoM, for instance. But, that's another thread, I think. Yet, it ties into the orphan being without parental guidance, too, in that he has more freedom and therefore makes mistakes that his friends who rely on parents, don't or can't. Alla: > *(snip)*I could not expect Tom, who "never loved > anybody" be a normal child and it turns out that he indeed was not. *(snip)* > Where I was surprised was the portrayal of orphanage. I sort of > expected to find out that truly evil people raised Tom and that is > also played a part in his upbringing. Ceridwen: I thought he might have had such great disappointments that he became bitter early in life. Being an orphan certainly qualifies! Maybe being bullied by older kids and having no one to turn to, or the matrons being cold and not responding to his needs. The amoral child shown to us in the Pensieve was a surprise. I did expect more bitterness, and less, well, glee in his powers. And with the choices theme, I expected that his turn to the Dark Side... er, Dark Arts, was more of a choice made by an embittered soul. The orphanage, I think, was what I expected. I didn't expect a maternity unit, but that's just window dressing to get Merope's final chapter told. I saw a staff that cares, but is overwhelmed. Maybe the orphans saw it differently. The staff was nothing like the Dursleys! And, I didn't expect them to be. But, I have some information about orphanages in the US at about that time, so there is that difference. In some ways, Tom does seem to follow Harry's model. He wants more, and he fights to get it. He isn't satisfied with his situation. Where they differ is their approach, with Tom being so evil that turning that way completely as an adult made sense. I think he differs from the traditional orphan in that he's the bully. In most orphan stories I've read, the orphan, of course the protagonist, would never be mean. Ceridwen, having fun with speculation again. From brahadambal at indiatimes.com Wed Apr 12 04:24:27 2006 From: brahadambal at indiatimes.com (latha279) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 04:24:27 -0000 Subject: Black Family Tree and Bloodline Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150874 Hi, Don't know if anyone else noticed this. Harry sure didn't and neither did I till now. The Black Family Tree shows that someone(Dorea - sister of Sirius' Grandfather) in the Black Family married Charlus Potter (and they had one son). Also, Sone married a Longbottom in the same generation as the above. Also, a Crabbe in the same generation. A Bulstrode in the previous generation. What I am trying to say is that - Harry and Draco are related. And possibly, Snape and Harry too. Snape's mother may have belonged to a pure-blood family. Ron and Harry too are distantly related. So it is possible for Harry to inherit the house. Major doubt here - how come Draco's name comes on the tapestry whereas the Potters' son's name is not put there? Are the Potters and the Longbottoms AND the CRABBEs(??) also considered blood-traitors? Just wondering, Brady. From sherriola at earthlink.net Wed Apr 12 05:10:49 2006 From: sherriola at earthlink.net (Sherry Gomes) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 22:10:49 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Snape's Final Straw In-Reply-To: <443B4C0F.30502@telus.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150875 KJ writes: I don't see Snape's character truly being revealed until the last possible moment. I don't believe that killing is what JKR had in mind for Harry to do. That is definitely Snape's role. I can see Harry coming face to face with both of them, and Snape, at the last moment, giving up his life to take out Voldemorte. It seems to me that this is the only role left for Snape if he is to live up to the "redemptive" quality discussed by JKR. Sherry now: I see two possible problems with this theory. First of all, the dratted prophecy. It clearly states Harry is the one with the power to vanquish the dark lord. Not Snape, not Dumbledore, but Harry. Ok, it does not name Harry, but Voldemort made the prophecy mean Harry. I don't necessarily believe Dumbledore was correct in assuming that it means kill or be killed. JKR has said she wrote the prophecy very carefully, and I expect she meant vanquish and not kill. Vanquish could mean any number of things that don't involve physically killing Voldemort. The biggest objection is the hero role. If Snape kills Voldemort, after seven books preparing us and Harry to deal with him in the end, it would be kind of a cheap trick and would totally undermine Harry's role as hero. This has nothing to do with my feelings about Snape. I would say the same thing if Sirius--my favorite adult character--ended up doing the deed. It's Harry's journey, Harry's story. Harry is the one who appeared in full life to JKR, and I don't think for a minute that she's going to give his glory in the end, to the one who also gave him the most pain throughout the series. Sherry From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 05:12:18 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 05:12:18 -0000 Subject: Snape's Final Straw In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150876 E.T. wrote: > Not sure, but if he does turn out to be DD's man, he'll have to perform some major heroics! With the rather cryptic comment JKR made in response to the word "redemptive" being used regarding Snape, (she didn't deny the quality might apply to him), I wouldn't be totally suprised if he sacrificed his life to save someone. Carol responds: I think the UV made it clear that he was willing to sacrifice himself if necessary to save Draco, but if he dies to save anyone in Book 7, IMO it will be Harry. The problem is, he's much more useful alive, not only as a source of information about LV but as *the* Dark magic expert who also has skills as a Healer. I'm at least pretty sure that those cryptic comments do imply Snape's redemption,not his being in love with someone. Yes, I know the arguments for the opposite view, but any reference to Snape loving someone would be, I believe, tied in with the redemption theme in any case. > E.T.: 2)As for what it will take to convince Harry et al.- > > I think that DD's reason for believing in Snape was more than just his gut feeling. I think it was something more concrete. I even have a feeling that DD was shown not to be infallible to set us up for what's coming. In other words, we started seeing some of the mistakes DD's made & that leads us to believe he's made a huge mistake where Snape's concerned. Carol: Yes and no. I do think she was setting up certain readers, kids and the anti-Snape faction, mostly, but there are enough clues in the books, especially 4 through 6, to make it entirely plausible that Dumbledore was *not* mistaken. Too bad he was so close-mouthed with Harry; it will take considerable ingenuity on JKR's part to convey the knowledge about Snape that DD withheld now that DD is dead. E.T. He resisted giving Snape the DADA position & I think this was to lead us to think that DD wasn't 100 percent sure of Snape's loyalties. Maybe, however, it was more a matter of DD trying to help Snape by keeping him away from temptation. Not questioning his allegiance, but recognizing his weaknesses. Carol: Again, yes and no. I don't think he *resisted* giving Snape the position (though that's what we're supposed to think) as waited until he needed Snape and no one but Snape in that position. Even if anyone else were available and he couldn't find a replacement for Snape as Potions Master (and future HOH), Snape--Dark Arts master and Healer who wrote detailed answers a foot longer than anyone else's on his DADA OWL--is the most qualified DADA teacher he could find, and he needs a highly qualified teacher in this dangerous time to make up for the inadequacies of his predecessors. (The last thing DD needs now is another MoM employee teaching them nothing!) But the DADA teacher has other responsibilities. Just as Lockhart was *supposed* to rescue Ginny and Snape as Potions Master was required to prepare or supply Potions as needed (Veritaserum, Wolfsbane Potion, etc.), Snape as DADA teacher is assigned to deal with cursed necklaces andthe like.(No one but Snapecouldhave healed Sectumsempra, of course, whether it was his job or not.) I think that DD had decided to give Snape the DADA position even before it became official through his hiring of Slughorn to take Snape's old position. Snape's "timely action" in saving DD from the ring Horcrux was his first act as DADA teacher, IMO, sealing the bond of trust between them as Snape took what they both knew to be a cursed position. IMO, DD had kept Snape at his side as long as possible, both as teacher (and Harry watcher) and as his chief assistant in preparing for the war against Voldemort,but conditions (including, possibly, Draco's mission) made it essential that DD give the DADA job to Snape atlast, knowing that whatever happened, it would be their last year together. He could no longer protect Snape from the consequences of the curse. He needed him, and no one but him, in that position, whatever the risk to Snape or himself. And Snape took the position knowing that full well. E.T.: So what I think will happen is that the reason DD trusted Snape will be revealed & it will be such a valid reason that (along with the above-mentioned sacrifice) Harry & the others will see the light. Carol: Yes, absolutely. The question is, what's the reason? > E.T.: > 3)Will Snape give Draco to LV? > > That's a tough one! If there hadn't been other witnesses to DD's death that might be easier to figure out. I think he probably will give him over to LV. (It'd be nice if LV was so overjoyed at DD's demise that Draco slipped his mind, but I really doubt it!) Carol: As I've said twenty-two times (well, maybe more like four),I think Draco Disapparated straight to LV (where else could he go?) and Snape followed him as soon as the duel/lesson with Harry allowed. I think Snape (whether his UV still held or not) protected Draco by pointing out that DD would not be dead if Draco hadn't succeeded against all expectations in getting the DEs into Hogwarts. And since LV is now (mistakenly, IMO)assured of Snape's loyalty), he may well have humored his new favorite by not Crucioing Draco. I've already suggested the possibilities for Draco and Snape's future relationship in another thread and don't want to repeat them, but one thing I'm sure of: Draco isn't going to be wandering freely around the WW with a price on his head, and I doubt very much if he'll return to Hogwarts even if he's let off on all charges because of his age (is he or isn't he seventeen in the tower scene?) He'd be persona non grata, making Teen!Snape look popular by comparison. E.T.: Maybe MouldyVoldy will set Draco on Harry's tail again...have Draco tree Harry for the kill or something. Draco & Harry have been antagonists throughout the story so why not let them have a final showdown? Carol: Oddly, I see Draco as Ron's primary antagonist more than Harry's. After all, Harry has the real villain to contend with, as well as antagonist!Snape,who probably (IMO)is not a villain at all. At any rate, I think Harry's only "final showdown" will be with LV. > > E.T. - still waiting for the facts to come in! > Carol, waiting with you! (And whoever put the jinx on my keyboard, could you take it off, please? I'm tired of putting in the spaces after I type the paragraph!) From tonks_op at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 05:25:01 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 05:25:01 -0000 Subject: The Dual Nature of DD Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150877 We have discussed many things here about DD, including the idea the he is a Saint, a Phoenix and just a human being like the rest of us. There has been some discussion here recently about DD being immortal and others saying that he can't be immortal and giving all good reasons for that point of view. Today I had a talk with a priest that I know who has not read the HP books so I was telling her what I see in them and about the discussions that have been going on here. She told me that to be immortal and to be eternal are two different things and that 97% of people think that they are the same. I had never thought about this distinction before either. Now that I have I would like to take another crack at a theory of DD. First LV wants to be immortal. He wants to stay in a human body in the material world. We must assume that there is life after death in the WW, because both Luna and Harry heard people talking on the other side of the veil and Luna knows that they are there. I think that we can infer from this that Tom Riddle is afraid to die in perhaps much the same way that the ghost are afraid. I think that this means that Tom is not after eternal life, he is after immortal life. Immortal life being one that is in the body. DD on the other hand does not fear death. He says that it is the "next great adventure". This implies that he too knows that there is life of some sort after the body dies. He does not seek immortality. DD is fully human like the rest of us. But I think that DD might also be eternal. The part of him that is eternal is the part that Harry saw flying away as a Phoenix. I have suggested before the perhaps the reason that DD has so many names is that he is a Phoenix and each time he comes back he gets another name. This idea would be re-incarnation which is not a Christian concept. I was toying with the idea that JKR might be giving us a variety of spiritual ideas other than Christianity. But if we stay with a Christian interpretation of DD, his different names could be the different ways that he is perceived by different groups of people. Sort of like St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas was a real person who was a Bishop in Asia Minor. But over the centuries different stories have sprung up and he has come to be known by many names the world over such as Kris Kringle, Santa Claus, Father Christmas, and so on. Now back to the personhood of DD. Even thought it appears that the WW has the concept of the (shall we call it) soul of the person living on in another realm of existence, I think that DD is a special case. I could be wrong here, because there is also a difference between being Christ and being Jesus. Jesus had a dual nature that was both eternal and mortal. And His eternal nature was of a different kind than ours in that He existed from before the beginning and we were formed after that. Now JKR has said that DD is not Jesus. John Granger says that this does not mean that DD can't be a Christ figure. I think it is quite clear that DD is indeed a Christ figure. Now here is the problem. Only Jesus had 2 natures in one being, so I am not sure if I can go there with these ideas for DD. But if by chance she has DD being around from before the beginning of the world as in very old magic, then she will have in essence made him another Jesus. But for the time being, let us ponder that DD is the end result of the type of Alchemy that was done in (I think) the Renaissance. That type of Alchemy was not turning lead into gold in a literal sense, it was a spiritual quest to attune oneself to God. In this way DD is the end result of this by becoming what we would call a Saint and some would call becoming one with Christ or even becoming Christ. (Waving over to Geoff whom I know does not like me to use this type of terminology, which is a valid concept in Christian mysticism.) What I am saying here is simply that DD is Christ and that he is both human and shares in the divinity of Jesus and hereby is now eternal. That is why we see the Phoenix rise out of the flames at his funeral. I also suspect, but can not proof yet, that DD is more than a Saint. I think that he will come back in book 7 to fight with Harry. Now I know that may say that Harry is the hero and he must go on alone and this is a coming of age story, etc., etc. On the other hand, have we really seen JKR stick to the classic story line or have we seen her stray this way and that or with a bit of a twist? I think that just maybe Harry does not have what it takes to defeat LV by himself. I think that JKR is going to show that none of us can go it alone, that we all need some help and a little well placed luck as Snape would say. For this reason I think that DD will come back at least for a short time in book 7. If he does then I will have to say that JKR has done more that show him as just another Saint. Tonks_op From katbofaye at aol.com Wed Apr 12 02:31:51 2006 From: katbofaye at aol.com (katssirius) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 02:31:51 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's gleam shared blood Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150878 If Harry is safe where his blood resides, is he now safe where Voldy resides since they share blood at this point. Of course they are not relatives but in that cauldron in GOF blood of my blood was certainly going on. Harry appears protected whenever Voldy is near just as he has been safe at Privet Drive without us ever seeing the mechanism of that safety. From enlil65 at gmail.com Wed Apr 12 06:44:47 2006 From: enlil65 at gmail.com (Peggy Wilkins) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 01:44:47 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Living Beings as Horcruxes (was: Re: Harry Potter: A Horcrux) In-Reply-To: References: <1789c2360604111257w7c0be295t9511257b4b4b9708@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1789c2360604112344p55fa00fi94f5dbd8b1a23343@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150879 On 4/11/06, Elisabet wrote: Elisabet: > Just a tiny bit of Peggy's post: > > I began wondering about living beings as Horcruxes as soon as I > > started wondering what happened to Voldemort's split soul when he > > became Vapormort. When he came up to kill Harry, his soul was > > already split; then he was ripped from his body. What became of the > > torn portion, anything at all? [snip] > > It's provocative to speculate that if it lay abandoned, someone may > > have found it and "done something" with it. [Peggy then proposes Dumbledore may have stowed it inside Snape with Snape's agreement.] > Elisabet: > I find the idea that Dumbledore might have installed a Voldybit into > another human being a little, er, shocking, to tell the truth. And I > doubt that DD was at Godric's Hollow himself anyway. Peggy: Many people find it difficult to imagine that Dumbledore would ever do any Dark Magic. At the beginning of SS/PS, McGonagall declares Dumbledore "too noble" to use it, and many like to run with that as a defining characteristic of Dumbledore. I am not so sure; I can well imagine him using it under circumstances where it is not strictly "evil" and where it may be of practical or strategic use. In support of this, I offer Professor Binns' account of the legend of the Chamber of Secrets as he describes how all the great headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts have searched for the Chamber but failed to find or open it. When Parvati Patil objects that Dark Magic would be required to open the Chamber, Professor Binns replies: "Just because a wizard *doesn't* use Dark Magic doesn't mean he *can't* ... I repeat, if the likes of Dumbledore--" (CoS, US paperback p.151) Unfortunately he trails off, and I take it that he meant to continue with something to the effect of "couldn't locate or open the Chamber". Combined with the word "can't" in his statement above, the implication is that Dumbledore used every means at his disposal, very likely including Dark Magic if and when appropriate. It is because of this passage that I am willing to consider Dumbledore creating a Horcrux for strategic use. That it is a Horcrux made with someone else's soul piece (Voldemort's, that is) makes it more believable: Dumbledore doesn't need to commit evil/murder to make this Horcrux, he would merely be using Voldemort's already split off soul piece to his own advantage. As for Dumbledore not being at Godric's Hollow, unfortunately we don't know whether he was there or not. My personal feeling is that I can't imagine that he didn't want to investigate the site firsthand; I think it is eminently reasonable that he would have gone there for that purpose, and it seems also possible that this activity could take up a good deal of time on that day that is otherwise unaccounted for (the missing day). One of the things I most want in Book 7 is to find out who was at Godric's Hollow when, and exactly what happened there... Elisabet: > But what if *Snape* was the one that found and retrieved the stray bit > of Voldemort's soul? [snip] Peggy: Also a very interesting possibility. The only reason I consider that speculation less likely than Dumbledore having done such a thing is that I have no context for knowing that Snape could have had any experience with soul pieces/Horcruxes. On second thought, he could have had some experience in his relationship with Voldemort; so perhaps this is more likely than I had considered. Elisabet: > What I like best about this theory, :-) , is that I can bring in one > of my own pet ideas, that DD does not himself know why he trusts > Snape: he has removed and stored that memory safely out of his head > (and out of Snape's as well, I presume). Leaving it available for > Harry to find and experience via penseive in the seventh book, of course. Peggy: Interesting idea. Along similar lines, another way to handle this situation would be to perform the Fidelius Charm. The secret would be worded something like, "A piece of Voldemort's soul is concealed inside Severus Snape". Imagine that Harry (as a one-year-old!) has been made the secret keeper. Having been so young at the time, he wouldn't have understood the secret and probably wouldn't remember anything about it. (Is this possible with Fidelius?) Now neither Dumbledore nor Snape can reveal the location of the soul piece; and Harry may be able to remember the secret at some point. Since this secret must be concealed from Voldemort, it offers another reason that Harry should study Occlumency with Snape. (What if Voldemort ran across the secret in Harry's memory, even if Harry himself was unaware it was there?) I thought it was very interesting that in OOTP at Harry's first Occlumency lesson, when Harry is asking Snape why he has to learn Occlumency, it says: Snape eyed Harry, tracing his mouth with one long, thin finger as he did so. (p. 531, US hardcover) Then Harry asks, "But why does Professor Dumbledore want to stop it?" (referring to the connection between his thoughts and Voldemort's thoughts). Again, the narrative refers to Snape "still tracing his mouth with his finger". Doesn't it seem as if this physical motion Snape is making with his finger is directly symbolic of his lips being "sealed"? Perhaps he cannot directly speak about it because it is a secret protected by Fidelius. -- Peggy Wilkins enlil65 at gmail.com From kjones at telus.net Wed Apr 12 06:57:15 2006 From: kjones at telus.net (Kathryn Jones) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 23:57:15 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Snape's Final Straw In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <443CA4CB.5070701@telus.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150880 gelite67 wrote: > > KJ writes: > > I don't see Snape's character truly being revealed until the > last > > possible moment. I don't believe that killing is what JKR had in > mind > > for Harry to do. That is definitely Snape's role. I can see Harry > coming > > face to face with both of them, and Snape, at the last moment, > giving up > > his life to take out Voldemorte. It seems to me that this is the > only > > role left for Snape if he is to live up to the "redemptive" quality > > discussed by JKR. > > > > >Angie again: > Interesting, very interesting. Just wondering how the the Prophesy > fits into your theory, since it seems to imply that Harry must be the > one to kill Voldemort. KJ writes: If, as I suspect, Harry is carrying what might be the final piece of Voldy's soul, that alone gives him the power to vanquish him. The prophecy speaks of "power" as a synonym for ability. Because so much of the book is about sacrifice, and because so many of Harry's loved ones are "on the other side", it seems likely to me that Harry will make the same decision to sacrifice himself to put a final end to Voldemorte. I think JKR will have Harry's mother and father, and Sirius, and probably Remus as well waiting to welcome him (just to make the readers feel better).To my way of thinking, this would play out much better than if Harry actually killed Voldemorte's body, leaving Snape the task of killing Harry. I can't see that scenario adding anything to the book, or of making the point of "choice". Harry has always been willing to place himself in harm's way to help or protect his friends, and I don't see this as much different. His ability to give up his life to a greater good gives him the power to vanquish Voldy. It would certainly be the "power Voldemorte knows not". Just my guess at the ending, don't kill me. I like Harry, I really do! KJ From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Wed Apr 12 12:59:57 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 08:59:57 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore's gleam shared blood In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060412125957.12062.qmail@web37015.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150881 katssirius wrote: If Harry is safe where his blood resides, is he now safe where Voldy resides since they share blood at this point. Catherine: At least until his 17th birthday when that ends.... --------------------------------- Have a question? Yahoo! Canada Answers. Go to Yahoo! Canada Answers [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From rkdas at charter.net Wed Apr 12 13:38:58 2006 From: rkdas at charter.net (susanbones2003) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 13:38:58 -0000 Subject: Ginny's best friend (girlfriends in HP) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150882 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" wrote: SNIPPED meself... > Betsy Hp: > I totally agree with your assesment of Hermione's and Ginny's > relationship. That's exactly how I see it playing out. Sometimes > they hang, sometimes they don't. And they both seem quite happy > with the arrangement. And that's good. > > But, what I take issue with (and I don't think this is an issue you > raised, actually), is that they're a wonderful example of two girls > who are best friends. They're two girls who are *friends*, yes. > And it's a good relationship as it is. But it pushes things to try > and claim that Hermione sees Ginny as her best friend (or vice > versa). > Jen butting in: Thank goodness we are on the same page! I don't think there is a great example of best girl friends on the front line and on the 2ndary line (or maybe tertiary, depends on how you slice it) Lavender and Parvati are best friends that stick together but alas, JKR doesn't or hasn't the time to develop them. But I fear we are getting down to figuring out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin in our arguments. I don't think JKR would hold Hermione up as a paragon of anything but book-larnin'. She identifies with H, and I think she has always demonstrated very evenly, Hermione's good qualities as well as her short-comings. And yes, Harry and Ron are the great friendship of this series, aren't they? You aren't picky, you are precise! > > > Betsy Hp, who's afraid she's being either terribly confusing or > terribly picky or both > From willsonkmom at msn.com Wed Apr 12 13:45:08 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 13:45:08 -0000 Subject: Black Family Tree and Bloodline In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150883 Brady wrote; Major Snippage > > Hi, > > Don't know if anyone else noticed this. Harry sure didn't and neither > did I till now. > Brady. Potioncat: We have a tapestry that Harry saw at 12 GP, and that was described to the reader in scant detail. We have the Black Family Tree that JKR donated to a charity and that appears at the HP Lexicon. At best, it would only be a portion of the tapestry. My take, for what it's worth, is that the tree was a fun item JKR did to raise money. The familiar names confirm what Sirius told us: Pureblood families are all related. We don't know how Potter/Longbottom/Crouch/etc. are related to the characters with the same surnames from the books. It's not certain if all the "burned off" names were done by Sirius's mother, or is she merely continues the tradition when it comes under her reign. The dates on the Black Family Tree don't make sense...not with each other or with canon as we understand it. Where there is a union with the Black name, the generations are continued. Where the union does not have a Black surname (wife is a Black, husband is not) the generation stops at 1s, 1d, etc. The exception is for the Black sisters where we see Draco's name. I think JKR did that to show us Draco. Or to show us the current characters in the books. It's fun to look at. There may be gems hidden within it. We'll find out when HBP Part Two comes out. Just my opinion. From donnawonna at worldnet.att.net Wed Apr 12 13:59:04 2006 From: donnawonna at worldnet.att.net (Donna) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 09:59:04 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) Subject: Soul Bits Message-ID: <443D07A8.000003.03784@D33LDD51> No: HPFGUIDX 150884 Donna here: I'll admit that I'm not too bright - Daddy never called me son, you know. What I'm wondering about is: How can a soul be destroyed by another human? I know that LV split his soul into 7 pieces, encapsulating 6 in other objects (horcruxes) and retaining 1 in himself. I can see how destroying a horcrux can release the part of a soul contained in it so that that part of the soul can go where ever souls go, but can a soul or part of a soul be destroyed? Is there canon for the soul being destroyed along with the horcrux? [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From KLMF at aol.com Wed Apr 12 14:14:32 2006 From: KLMF at aol.com (klmf1) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 14:14:32 -0000 Subject: Voldemort's wand---that Phoenix feather..... Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150885 It seems a curious thing to me that a wand with *Dumbledore's"* phoenix's feather just happened to be a match for Tom Riddle. What do you suppose could have been the reason? Some kind of tie in with the prophecy? He did, after all, acquire the wand long before he became "Voldemort", long before the prophecy was spoken. How does Ollivander as the wandmaker come into play? Why did he use those feathers? Was DD involved somehow? DD wasn't even headmaster at the time. And now Ollivander is gone, disappeared. I keep hoping something will come up in each new book to illuminate this situation, but so far, nothing, at least nothing I can make anything of. I don't know if this was addressed in any JK interviews..... Karen F From foxmoth at qnet.com Wed Apr 12 14:31:45 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 14:31:45 -0000 Subject: Ginny's best friend (Was: Pansy Parkinson (Was: House characteristics)) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150886 > Betsy Hp: > And they aren't all consuming. (Though the horcrux hunt may turn > out to be.) Harry never has to go looking for Hermione or drag her > away from Ginny. Whenever anything goes down, serious or not so, > Hermione is right there. Because she is Harry's friend. She sits > next to him at meals, arranges his study calender, and reads in > front of the fireplace with him. > Pippin: "There was much less laughter and a lot more hanging around in the library when Hermione was your best friend" -- GoF ch 19 I certainly hope Hermione has a best friend who *likes* hanging in the library with her. I hesitate to say that anyone who follows this list doesn't know what it's like to be bookish, but, er, some people do like going to the library with their friends. Anyway, if Hermione wants to have a late night conversation about the meaning of life, or Golpalott's Third Law, or discuss the human condition with somebody who has more emotional depth than a teaspoon, I don't think Ron and Harry are her first choice. I seem to remember a fair few times when Hermione got tired of the boys and went off somewhere. She comes back, but she does have an obligation after all -- they saved her from a troll. It may not be a full-fledged life debt, but she seems to feel they need her. And Ginny doesn't need that kind of mother-hen stuff, because unlike Ron, her mother seems to be involved with her needs, at least after (and perhaps in expiation for) Ginny's disastrous first year. That would explain, even more than normal sibling rivalry, why Ron doesn't care to have Ginny around, except in the summer when there's no choice. At least until he becomes a prefect and finally achieves worthiness in Molly's eyes. Pippin From kkersey at swbell.net Wed Apr 12 14:52:01 2006 From: kkersey at swbell.net (kkersey_austin) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 14:52:01 -0000 Subject: Black Family Tree and Bloodline In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150887 Ruthlessly snipping Potioncat, who for the record I think is most likely correct: > We have the Black Family Tree that JKR donated to a charity.... > Where there is a union with the Black name, the generations are > continued. Where the union does not have a Black surname (wife is a > Black, husband is not) the generation stops at 1s, 1d, etc. The > exception is for the Black sisters where we see Draco's name. I > think JKR did that to show us Draco. Or to show us the current > characters in the books. Elisabet: Or - and this is a long shot, I admit - it could be that the Tapestry showed Draco because he is had become the heir of the House of Black. This assumes that his being male trumps Bellatrix's age etc. Dumbledore only speculates that Bellatrix would have been next in line, admitting he doesn't know for sure what the rules are. More on that in this thread, and a snip from my original post there: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/148659 > Dumbledore feared that there may be a condition that the heir must > be a Black - but what if another condition is that the heir must be > male? If so, the house passes fairly straightforwardly from Arcturus > to Cygnus, and upon Cygnus's death, to his only male descendant - > Draco Malfoy. And that just might be the reason that Draco's name > appears. Potioncat: > It's fun to look at. There may be gems hidden within it. We'll find out > when HBP Part Two comes out. Just my opinion. Elisabet: Yes, I too agree that we can't regard the Black Family Tree as canon, especially with regard to many of the dates. Yet I do think there *may* be a reason Draco's name appears that isn't strictly meta. Draco's name does cannonically appear on the Tapestry in OotP, while Sirius is still alive. From kernsac at earthlink.net Wed Apr 12 13:25:56 2006 From: kernsac at earthlink.net (Peggy Kern) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 06:25:56 -0700 Subject: Why Dumbledore had to die Message-ID: <002801c65e34$a22e4710$6401a8c0@user2b3ff76354> No: HPFGUIDX 150888 Renata: I agree with you totally, but I really wonder how Harry will get more powerful without Dumbledore, Sirius or Hogwarts. Peggy speaking now: I wonder if perhaps it's not so much about Harry getting more powerful, but rather realizing the power he has. Maybe, as his guides and mentors and friends are gradually being torn away from him, he's learning that he's stronger than he thinks, and able to take action and make choices for himself. Peggy From yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com Wed Apr 12 14:41:10 2006 From: yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com (yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 09:41:10 -0500 Subject: A Horcrux Twist: Who Got What From Whom? (WAS Re: [HPforGrownups] Living Beings as Horcruxes) In-Reply-To: <00ef01c65dd5$e24ef380$6601a8c0@MITRE.ORG> References: <00ef01c65dd5$e24ef380$6601a8c0@MITRE.ORG> Message-ID: <0B15512F-7508-44B8-ABF8-A157008AD33E@stevenmcintosh.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150889 On Apr 11, 2006, at 9:07 PM, rebecca wrote: > It's been speculated that DD has removed his memory of the "why > trust Snape" and kept it locked up for safekeeping, therefore he > answers Harry the only way he can. Other reasons he'd keep it > locked up run the gamut, including such possibilities as Snape > and Dumbledore being related. (Ooo, snuck that one in on you all, > speculation of course.) Please excuse if I'm not following one of the rules... I'm new to the group, but something in this paragraph triggered a thought (and hopefully I won't be repeating). So, we're talking about a secret keeper... The secret being whatever Snape had done to make Dumbledore trust him, and by keeping that secret in a secret keeper, neither Snape nor DD would ever be able to reveal and put Snape into harm if Voldemort had captured or by other means interrogated one of them. Who would have been the secret keeper? of the people that DD trusts... McGonagall: although certainly trustworthy, doesn't seem a part of all the madness... Hagrid: although DD trusts him with his life, I don't think he trusts him with secrets he wants to KEEP Sirius: not considered trustworthy at the time when this would have probably happened (even if DD did not believe the DE/murderer charges, he was going to Azkaban, and could very well have gone insane) Lupin: DD trusts him enough, I would have to look back on whether he would value Snape enough to keep a secret for him - they do seem to get along despite the animosity that SHOULD be there DD brother: Possible, he IS his brother, and doesn't really live in the wizard world - so would probably be able to keep a secret better Weasleys (either): I don't think DD would put them in such danger with a family Various OotP members: ? Steve in Chicago From talamariam at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 14:42:28 2006 From: talamariam at yahoo.com (talamariam) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 14:42:28 -0000 Subject: Judas Gospel role for Good Snape? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150890 I read the news about Judas Gospel - the gnostic view that Judas betrayed Jesus under instruction from Jesus himself -- and see this as support for JKR's role for Good Snape. I finished reading HBP with a conviction of Bad Snape -- but later I believe that it will be better plot for Book 7 if Snape is actually good. The supports for both theories are slightly more to Good Snape in my opinion, barring the thinking that killing somebody (DD!)can be an excusable deed. Then came the Judas Gospel news. Tal From yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com Wed Apr 12 15:02:50 2006 From: yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com (yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 10:02:50 -0500 Subject: Soul Bits In-Reply-To: <443D07A8.000003.03784@D33LDD51> References: <443D07A8.000003.03784@D33LDD51> Message-ID: <8A4B3270-B682-45E3-8E59-A50048ACA29A@stevenmcintosh.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150891 On Apr 12, 2006, at 8:59 AM, Donna wrote: > Donna here: > > What I'm wondering about is: How can a soul be destroyed > by another human? I know that LV split his soul into 7 pieces, > encapsulating 6 in other objects (horcruxes) and retaining 1 in > himself. I can see how destroying a horcrux can release the part > of a soul contained in it so that that part of the soul can go > whereever souls go, but can a soul or part of a soul be destroyed? > Is there canon for the soul being destroyed along with the horcrux? On the subject of souls... there is another place where souls are mentioned in the HP universe... Dementors, who can both feed on you long enough to make you 'soul-less'... but also that by doing the dementor's kiss, can suck out a person's soul. From here, I'm guessing that you can say that a soul is NOT everlasting, and that it can be consumed, and also destroyed. Steve in Chicago From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 16:20:21 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 16:20:21 -0000 Subject: Soul Bits In-Reply-To: <443D07A8.000003.03784@D33LDD51> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150892 Donna wrote: What I'm wondering about is: How can a soul be destroyed by another human? I know that LV split his soul into 7 pieces, encapsulating 6 in other objects (horcruxes) and retaining 1 in himself. I can see how destroying a horcrux can release the part of a soul contained in it so that that part of the soul can go where ever souls go, but can a soul or part of a soul be destroyed? Is there canon for the soul being destroyed along with the horcrux? Carol responds: I'm going to take a stab at this question, fully expecting to be corrected. We have canon that destroying the Horcruxes is the key to destroying Voldemort, so whatever happens to the soul bits, they no longer perform their function of keeping that bit of Voldie's soul earthbound. (I think the distinction made in Tonks' recent post between earthly immortality and the eternal life of the soul--existence beyond the Veil--is relevant here.) We also have canon that destroying the diary Horcrux destroyed Memory!Tom (and/or released Ginny's soul back to her). The question, IMO,is whether the soul bit was released or freed. I agree with you that a soul, while it can be damaged by the act of murder (and perhaps tainted through other acts, such as the Cruciatus Curse, though that's debateable), cannot be destroyed by a human being. It can be sucked into oblivion by a dementor, a horrible fate which implies that even the souls of murderers normally have some sort of eternal life (again, whatever is beyond the Veil). If death were nothingness, being soul-sucked would be only a particular horrible form of death. But, again, a mere human being, even a powerful wizard like Dumbledore, probably can't destroy a soul fragment. It's not so much immortal as eternal (to use the distinction made by Tonks' priest friend and which I made about two years ago in a forgotten post) meaning that when the body dies, the soul continues its existence, forever, in some other dimension. (I'm a bit confused regarding the souls of ghosts thanks to NHN's remarks to Harry near the end or OoP, but Iwon't go into that.) Voldie is making the mistake of trying to maintain a permanent *earthly* existence by keeping parts of his eternal soul on earth, mostly in precious and virtually indestructible objects. He is afraid of death, of what's behind the Veil. I *think* what happens when a Horcrux is destroyed is that they escape beyond the Veil, so LVis now two/sevenths dead and doesn't know it. (Reminds me of "Princess Bride"--he's not yet "mostly dead." Sorry.) It seems clear that the soul bits don't possess the destroyer (Harry was not possessed by the diary bit) and it seems unlikely that they return to the original Voldie soul from which they were split off. So, again, I think they return to their eternal home. JKR is a Christian, and I think that view of the soul as sacred and indestructible--even when split by the act of murder and torn from the body by the first part of the Horcrux-creating spell (the second part would encase it in a container)--is implicit in the vague conception of an afterlife presented in the HP books.(Luna is sure that she'll see her mother again. DD sees death as the next great adventure.) Death is not the end of everything, but Voldemort thinks it is. It would be the end of his life and his (magical) powers and his power over others--the end, he thinks, of everything. But just possibly it's something else--a release from evil. At any rate, Voldie himself has removed those soul bits from himself. IMO, they cannot return to him. Nor can they, on their own, possess anyone else. That is a magical power belonging to Voldie himself, not to the bits of eternity he has mistakenly encased to bind himself to earthly existence. Nor is destroying a Horcrux,the container in which a soul bit has been placed, murder. It doesn't kill a soul, or part of a soul. The soul is fragmentable but indestructible. Destroying the ring or locket or cup merely releases the imprisoned soul bit to its eternal existence. As I see it, two bits of Voldie's of Voldie's soul have joined each other and await the rest beyond the Veil. On a side note, both Harry's wand and Voldie's contain Phoenix-feather cores representing rebirth. But Voldie's wand is made of yew, also a symbol of death and rebirth (note that this has, in essence, already happened to him) while Harry's is made of holly, also associated with death and rebirth but with Christian connotations. I think the difference is that between the earthly immortality that Voldemort craves (which requires a body somehow kept from old age, disease, and other forms of corruption) and the spiritual immortality (eternal life) that Dumbledore is now (permanently) enjoying. Perhaps Harry will return from death (beyond the Veil) to earthly life (death and rebirth) before finally dying in, say, the year 2107. Voldie, in contrast, will suffer some fate worse than death (possession by Harry, who shares some of his powers?) before the remaining portion of his soul leaves his body to join the others beyond the Veil. Carol, noting that DD or Snape making a Horcrux from Voldie's soul bit, as suggested by another poster, would be counterproductive even if it were possible as the whole point is to release the soul bits so that Voldie will become mortal From agdisney at msn.com Wed Apr 12 16:21:40 2006 From: agdisney at msn.com (Andrea Grevera) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 12:21:40 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore's gleam shared blood References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150893 katssirius If Harry is safe where his blood resides, is he now safe where Voldy resides since they share blood at this point. Of course they are not relatives but in that cauldron in GOF blood of my blood was certainly going on. Harry appears protected whenever Voldy is near just as he has been safe at Privet Drive without us ever seeing the mechanism of that safety. Andie: Isn't the blood protection only good up until Harry turns 17? Once he is of age in the WW I don't think blood will protect him any longer. I personally think that Harry will need any & all help that the others will supply. He will need to learn fast because he must do so much in so little time. One thing that I feel is that the only one who will be able to destroy the Horcruxes without injury to himself is Harry. He has LV powers and these powers will protect him while he destroys the remaining horcruxes. LV had to make sure that he would be able to retrieve the horcruxes if he needed them so he had to be able to get past whatever spells that are on them. Since LV can do this, I believe Harry can too. Before posting to any list, you MUST read the group's Admin File! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin_Files/HBF_Text__MUST_READ Please use accurate subject headings and snip unnecessary material from posts to which you're replying! Yahoo! Groups Links [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From jsfigiel at aol.com Wed Apr 12 16:15:26 2006 From: jsfigiel at aol.com (jsfigiel at aol.com) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 12:15:26 EDT Subject: Snape's Final Straw Message-ID: <387.39d3cf.316e819e@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150894 In a message dated 4/11/2006 9:59:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, houyhnhnm writes: houyhnhnm: Okay, I'm not ready to put *money* on it, but I have begun to consider the possibility that DD is not really dead. Jamie: I'm throwing this out for discussion as someone said this to me...has anybody considered/discussed whether DD was REALLY DD and not someone else using Polyjuice potion to be him? It's not a theory I subscribe to but it is an interesting idea and would allow JKR to bring him "back to life." Jamie From tonks_op at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 16:31:27 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 16:31:27 -0000 Subject: Why Dumbledore had to die In-Reply-To: <002801c65e34$a22e4710$6401a8c0@user2b3ff76354> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150895 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Peggy Kern" wrote: > > Renata: > I agree with you totally, but I really wonder how Harry will get more > powerful without Dumbledore, Sirius or Hogwarts. > > Peggy: > I wonder if perhaps it's not so much about Harry getting more powerful, but rather realizing the power he has. Maybe, as his guides and mentors and friends are gradually being torn away from him, he's learning that he's stronger than he thinks, and able to take action and make choices for himself. Tonks: Maybe Harry will get more power the same way that Jesus' disciples got it. When Jesus died and came back for a short time he left again (the Ascension) and the "comforter" came. He said "I must go away or the Comforter will not come". This mysterious thing that was to come often reminds me of Fawkes. That is the Holy Spirit. SO when we see DD's soul going up to the heavens as a Phoenix, we may see it come back as a Phoenix to help Harry. Or as an invisible ("I don't need an invisibility cloak to be invisible") power that will be given to Harry. I think that this would fit well with the plan that I think JKR has for showing that by ourselves we can not vanquish the Dark Lord. Course there is the whole Love thing too that will play into this. Just not sure how. She has set us up from the beginning "how do you know Harry will survive the books" to make us think that Harry will die. This must mean that he won't die. Tonks_op From entlzab5 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 16:27:11 2006 From: entlzab5 at yahoo.com (Arley Dotinei) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 09:27:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Why the Dark Lord wanted Dumbledore killed (was Why Dumbledore Had to Die In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060412162711.39884.qmail@web36514.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150896 I hope I'm not discussing something old, but it occurred to me that perhaps the Dark Lord had some hidden agenda in asking for Dumbledore's demise besides the obvious. I mean, if I had plans to rule the Wizarding world, of course I'd want someone like Dumbledore out of the way, but could there be something more? So, does anyone think he might have had something specific in his Dark mind when he asked Draco to kill Dumbledore? Or was it just a way to punish Draco for Lucius' fiasco, get rid of the old coot (Albus) and leave the path open to finally vanquish that annoying boy (Harry)? Or am I just seeing things where they aren't? Puzzled, Arley From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 18:25:15 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 18:25:15 -0000 Subject: Voldemort's wand---that Phoenix feather..... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150897 Karen F wrote: > It seems a curious thing to me that a wand with *Dumbledore's"* phoenix's feather just happened to be a match for Tom Riddle. What do you suppose could have been the reason? Some kind of tie in with the prophecy? He did, after all, acquire the wand long before he became "Voldemort", long before the prophecy was spoken. How does Ollivander as the wandmaker come into play? Why did he use those feathers? Was DD involved somehow? DD wasn't even headmaster at the time. And now Ollivander is gone, disappeared. I keep hoping something will come up in each new book to illuminate this situation, but so far, nothing, at least nothing I can make anything of. > > I don't know if this was addressed in any JK interviews..... Carol responds: Coincidentally, I just brought up the wands in another thread. (I also just lost a response to your post, which I hope I can reconstruct, thanks to my own computer freezing up. I can't even blame Yahoomort!) Anyway, here's what I think happened. Before DD knew anything about Tom Riddle, possibly even before Tom was born, Ollivander ran out of Phoenix feathers for wand cores and asked his old friend (and contemporary?) Dumbledore if he could donate a couple. Dumbledore in turn asked Fawkes to "give" some tail feathers and Fawkes obliged by giving two. (Why only two, I have no idea. Maybe he didn't want his tail end to look bald.) Ollivander, perhaps realizing that these feathers had unusual power, wanted to encase them in suitable wandwood, chose two kinds of wood with similar death/rebirth associations, yew and holly. (The difference for JKR, but probably not for Ollivander, is that holly has Christian connotations.) Also, the yew wand at least seems to be unusually long, perhaps suggesting unusual power. "The wand chooses the wizard," and both DD and Ollivander would be interested in seeing which wizardlings the wands eventually chose. Not being omniscient, neither could anticipate that the first wand would "choose" the boy who would become the most powerful Dark wizard the WW has ever known or that the second would choose the boy destined to vanquish him (or die in the attempt). However, I think that DD asked Ollivander to inform him when the Phoenix-feather wands "chose" a young wizard, perhaps expecting "great things" from those children. He would certainly have taken note when the first wand chose Tom Riddle, whom DD was already watching. And when the second wand chose Harry, his suspicions of a link between them via the scar would have been confirmed. Perhaps he also realized at that point that Harry had powers he was not born with, sensed by the wand--powers that DD knew could only have come from Voldemort. (I don't think, BTW, that Harry is a Horcrux or that the wand could have detected a soul bit, but powers are another matter.) Again, the wand chooses the wizard. Both the core and the wood apparently make a difference, not just in terms of length or flexibility or level of power but in terms of the affinity of a particular witch or wizard for a particular branch of magic. Some wands, as we know from James' and Lily's first wands, are particulaly suited to Transfiguration or Charms. Others, I suspect, are particularly suited to DADA or the Dark Arts, with the choice up to the particular wizard. Harry's and Tom's probably fell into this category. (Perhaps Severus's did as well.) At any rate, Tom's wand sensed both his unusual powers and, IMO, his thirst for immortality. Harry's sensed his affinity to Voldemort, owner of its brother wand--or rather, it sensed a desire for immortality that was not Harry's own entering his mind via the scar (LV was at that moment trying to steal the Sorceror's Stone) and the potential to do "great things" noted by Ollivander--powers beyond those he inherited from his parents that were the legacy of Godric's Hollow. Ollivander didn't know about the Prophecy, but he knew about the Boy Who Lived and he understood the powers of the wands he had created. Like DD, he would have paid close attention to the owners of those two wands, understanding that neither was an ordinary wizard and that their powers and their fates were interconnected. Ollivanderis not only a highly gifted wizard but, IMO, a Legilimens (note his eyes and his suspicion that Hagrid had not thrown away his broken wand). I'm not sure why Ollivander has disappeared, but it's probably connected with the brother wands. Perhaps LV wants a new wand, but since his wand is so perfectly suited to him, I don't think that's the case. More likely, he wants to torture Ollivander to get information about Harry's wand and how to overcome the Priori Incantatem effect. I suspect that Ollivander is, or rather was, one of Dumbledore's "useful spies" and perhaps a member of the Order, as well. Probably he has gone into hiding; perhaps he'll serve as the link DDM!Snape needs to communicate with the rest of the Order. I wish I hadn't lost my previous post, which expressed all this more clearly. (Yes, I know. That's what we always say!) At any rate, I don't recall any information about wands in the interviews, but there's a section on wands on the Extra Stuff page of JKR's website, I think under Miscellaneous. (I don't dare double-check for fear of another computer freeze.) Carol, wondering what Snape's wand core is made of and guessing dragon heartstring like Hermione's (for intelligence and cunning coupled with courage) From lauciricad at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 17:58:17 2006 From: lauciricad at yahoo.com (Don L.) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 17:58:17 -0000 Subject: Snape's Final Straw In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150898 Note: My first post. I, like most, believe the Snape/Dumbledore/Potter triangle the most interesting and important aspect of the book. First: The prophecy implicates Harry and Voldemort, requiring one to live as a result of the death of the other. I believe it requires that Voldemort kill Harry, but not necessarily that Harry directly kill Voldemort. I anticipate history will repeat itself. In the final conflict a combination of Voldemort's arrogance and hate will set in motion a series on magical unanticipated consequences that offset by Harry's luck, ingenuity and friendship, will lead to his own demise. Harry, while present for the death of Voldemort, will not actually kill him. Second: Voldemort has fallen victim to his own misunderstanding of the concepts of love and self-sacrifice first at Godric's Hollow, later at the Little Hangleton Graveyard and finally at the Astronomy Tower. Neither Voldemort, nor most readers have accurately anticipated the exact manner in which Voldemort's plans and devices have failed at those key junctures, but can anticipate that in the end they will again. Good will prevail, friendships and love will survive, but like most evil, Voldemort will ultimately fail because of his own actions, as with most evil persons in history and fiction. Third: Dumbledore's demise is certain and for a reason, setting in motion the method by which Harry finds the additional strength and wisdom to defeat Voldemort. I believe Dumbledore's sacrifice was at the moment preceding his death understood by Snape, as the only way for him to accomplish his ultimate goal, the redemption for his part in Lily Potter's death. Snape will pay the ultimate price as an accessory to her death, but in the end, Harry will see and mourn him as the true hero and most pivotal character of the Potter Series. Don L. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 19:03:13 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 19:03:13 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's brother (Was: A Horcrux Twist: Who Got What From Whom?) In-Reply-To: <0B15512F-7508-44B8-ABF8-A157008AD33E@stevenmcintosh.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150899 Steve in Chicago wrote: > DD brother: Possible, he IS his brother, and doesn't really live in > the wizard world - so would probably be able to keep a secret better > Carol responds: I'm snipping the parts about a Secret Keeper for Snape. Even though I'm addicted to Snape discussions, I don't think this idea is plausible. (A bottled memory, *maybe*.) But I'm curious. Why do you think that Aberforth (DD's brother) isn't part of the WW? It's hard to perform "inappropriate charms on goats" if you're living as a Muggle, and besides, it's been pretty firmly established that he's the barkeeper at the Hog's Head (and has been supplying DD with information since at least the time of DD's interview with LV for the DADA position). Aberforth was a member of the original Order (though Moody only met him once); he apparently evicted young Snape from the Hog's Head after the eavesdropper incident (though the versions of that incident are contradictory and I'm not sure what really happened); and in HBP he had some sort of dealings with Sneakthief!Mundungus (who was supposedly banned from the Hog's Head twenty years before yet spied there for DD disguised as a veiled witch in OoP). So Aberforth (who I'm sure can read despite DD's joking remark) was almost certainly an important member of DD's spy network, working apparently with Mundungus and perhaps with Snape as well as DD, and will, I think, be an important source of information to Harry about both DD and Snape in Book 7. No need for a Secret Keeper or a Fidelius Charm, just a prickly and unkempt persona hiding sharp ears and, given his brother's intellect, perhaps a keen mind as well. Wizards talk in bars under the influence of butterbeer or fire whiskey, oblivious to the presence of the barkeeper. Aberforth has probably overheard a lot of secrets in his long life from his varied clientele, and many of those secrets have probably been passed in some way to his brother--possibly via a hog or hog's head Patronus. ;-) Carol, not sure whether to shudder or to laugh at that last image From sweety12783 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 17:59:40 2006 From: sweety12783 at yahoo.com (sweety12783) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 17:59:40 -0000 Subject: A Possible Horcrux? (Long) Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150900 Rowena Ravenclaw is known for her great intelligence and creativity. I think I know an heirloom of hers. I have been trying to review all the facts about Ravenclaw to try to find something about her and found a something that lead to one item of great interest. As we all know JKR is known for her creative way of selecting names to give us insight into a character. Rowena means "red-haired," in Gaelic language. Now I think that everyone knows where I am going with this. The Weasleys. Now there is one item that the Weasleys possess that is very unique, and clever. Mrs. Weasley told Harry (in HBP) that she is only one that possesses such an item. This item is the clock. JKR also says that each house represents an element. Gryffindor is fire, Hufflepuff is Earth, Slytherin is water, and Ravenclaw is air. Now if you know about the movie franchise of the books, JKR is very vocal in production. She tells them how things should look, how the wizarding world works, etc. If you look at the photos of the clock, in the corners of the face of the clock there is an image of a red- haired girl blowing (representation of air). Here is a link to see a photo of the clock: http://www.veritaserum.com/galleries/displayimage.php?album==2&pos=d Know this clock is definitely very clever like Ravenclaw, everyone would like to know where their loved ones are and if they are in danger. Well tell me what you think, sweety12783 From bboyminn at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 19:27:58 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 19:27:58 -0000 Subject: Why Dumbledore had to die In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150901 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tonks" wrote: > > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Peggy Kern" > wrote: > > > > >Renata: > > >... I really wonder how Harry will get more powerful without > > > Dumbledore, Sirius or Hogwarts. > > > > Peggy: > > I wonder if perhaps it's not so much about Harry getting more > > powerful, but rather realizing the power he has. ... he's > > learning that he's ... able to take action and make choices > > for himself. > > Tonks: > Maybe Harry will get more power the same way that Jesus' > disciples got it. When Jesus died and came back for a short > time he left again (the Ascension) and the "comforter" came. > He said "I must go away or the Comforter will not come". This > mysterious thing that was to come often reminds me of Fawkes. > That is the Holy Spirit. ... ... the plan that I think JKR has > for showing that by ourselves we can not vanquish the Dark Lord. > Course there is the whole Love thing too that will play into > this. ... > > Tonks_op > bboyminn: To a limited extent, I do agree that Harry has to realize the power he has rather than somehow increase his power. Yet to some extent, those are the same thing. Untappable power is like no power at all. Of course, I believe that Harry has a substantial reserve of untapped power, and that he will learn to better access it. I also think, though it should be no suprise to anyone, that part of Harry being able to access his own internal power is based in his willingness to tap the resources around him. Bill is an expert curse breaker, a skill that Harry needs. Moody is an expert Dark Wizard fighter, also a skill that Harry needs. Remus is a free and substantial, and trusted resource that Harry can tap, if he only decides to trust Remus enough to draw on him as a resource. Further Harry need information which includes information that people can gather for him as well as intellectual recourses like libraries. These are all available to Harry, the question is, will he be wise enough to tap them, and to tap them efficiently? Next, let us remember that Dumbledore is not really gone, in a sense, he is only diminished. That is, Dumbledore's portrait remains in the Headmaster's office. While that protrait is limited, it is still the reflected essense of Dumbledore, and certainly some wisdom can be gained from it. Further, Harry has access to Hogwarts with it's professors and it's library. All of which are sympathetic and supportive of Harry. But again, the question is, will he draw on them, or will he remain secluded trying to do it all himself? I personally have a seeking suspicion that Harry's greatest resource are the friends who are loyal to him. Their combined strength is far more powerful and formitable than Harry by himself. If 'love conquers all' then certainly the love and loyalty of those friends have the potential to carry the same significances as the love and loyalty of his mother. I have frequently fantasized a final scene in which Harry's friends willingly step forward and place themselves between Harry and Voldemort. Each gladly willing to die so that their friend Harry can live and fight on much like Lily gladly and willingly dies to save her son. That is power; that is power that Voldemort never can and never will understand. Yes, Voldemort can send his Death Eaters to their death, but they do not die as a glad and willing choice. They do not die out of true loyalty and true love. Their choice is to die at the hands of the enemy with a fighting chance, or to be cut down by Voldemort. Much like Peter sacrificing his hand, they do so, but they are not willing or eager, they simply see no other choice, so they comply. Harry on the otherhand would prefer to send his friends away to keep them safe while taking on the full burden himself. That makes Harry and his friends very and significantly different than Voldemort and his DE's. For Harry, I think that is part of his untapped power. As a final rambling note, I recall JKR saying something to the effect that - "...Harry, also, in the course of previous six books has amassed more knowledge than he realizes...." [Melissa-Emerson interview; pg 3; LeakyCauldron.org] That seems important. One of the great things about the final book in a series is that it pulls together events and people from the previous books, and their true significance becomes clear. JKR's statement above implies that there are things from each book that have importance beyond their individual stories. It's going to be amazing to see JKR pull all the characters and events into perspective. I think it will be equally amazing to see all the seemingly insignificant events from the pervious books jell in Harry's mind and become a coherent plan for dealing with Voldemort. The clues must certainly be there, if we only knew how to interpret them. Of course, in the last book, I am looking forward to how Harry will defeat Voldemort, but the most exciting thing for me is seeing how everything falls into place. How diverse and seeming insignificant characters are sudden revealed in their true purpose. Not sure it adds up to much, but there it is. Steve/bboyminn From bboyminn at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 19:44:54 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 19:44:54 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's gleam shared blood In-Reply-To: <20060412125957.12062.qmail@web37015.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150902 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, catherine higgins wrote: > > > > katssirius wrote: > If Harry is safe where his blood resides, is he now safe where > Voldy resides since they share blood at this point. > > Catherine added: > > At least until his 17th birthday when that ends.... > bboyminn: But is that true Catherine? We know Dumbledore's protection at the Dursley's ends when Harry turns 17. But Dumbledore based that protection on the 'blood' protection Harry already had. That initial protection came from Lily's sacrifice, and that is the protection Voldemort was trying to overcome by using Harry's blood to regain a body for himself. Yes, Voldemort can touch Harry now, but after these events, Dumbledore says that this protection from Lily is still in Harry. Implying that one small aspect of Lily's protection has been overcome, but that the protection itself still remains. So, where does that leave us? I don't think there ever can or ever will be an end to Lily's protection. She is, in a sense, Harry's guardian angle, always watching over him. I think Dumbledore's gleam and the great significance of using Harry's blood is related to Lily's protection, and I don't think it works against Harry. Voldemort thinks he has overcome the protection, but more likely he has actually re-enforced it. But exactly how it has been re-enforced and how it will manifest itself is unclear. As I said in another post, it is going to be wonderful to see all these aspects of the story finally come together. Just a few thoughts, which probably would have been better but my coffee is wearing off and my brain is getting groggy. Steve/bboyminn From enlil65 at gmail.com Wed Apr 12 21:20:43 2006 From: enlil65 at gmail.com (Peggy Wilkins) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 16:20:43 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Soul Bits In-Reply-To: References: <443D07A8.000003.03784@D33LDD51> Message-ID: <1789c2360604121420s103d2766q3efc2f9361aee716@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150903 On 4/12/06, justcarol67 wrote: > Carol, noting that DD or Snape making a Horcrux from Voldie's soul > bit, as suggested by another poster, would be counterproductive even > if it were possible as the whole point is to release the soul bits so > that Voldie will become mortal As the person who suggested that, I should add that it is part of a larger theory that I have, and I haven't yet entirely revealed it here. This larger theory concerns the energy that is held between Harry and Voldemort (embodied in Harry's lightning bolt scar), and what will happen to it at the moment Voldemort becomes mortal again. The reason to have a person-Horcrux is so that the destruction of the final Horcrux (that person) can be carefully placed and timed: I think something will happen with the scar-connection between Harry and Voldemort when Voldemort is no longer held from death by his Horcruxes. The curse that backfired on Voldemort will then be able to complete its job. I can elaborate later when I have more time to write. I hope it would be of interest! -- Peggy Wilkins enlil65 at gmail.com From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Wed Apr 12 21:38:48 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 21:38:48 -0000 Subject: Soul Bits In-Reply-To: <8A4B3270-B682-45E3-8E59-A50048ACA29A@stevenmcintosh.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150904 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, yahoo at ... wrote: > > On Apr 12, 2006, at 8:59 AM, Donna wrote: > > > Donna here: > > > > What I'm wondering about is: How can a soul be destroyed > > by another human? I know that LV split his soul into 7 pieces, > > encapsulating 6 in other objects (horcruxes) and retaining 1 in > > himself. I can see how destroying a horcrux can release the part > > of a soul contained in it so that that part of the soul can go > > whereever souls go, but can a soul or part of a soul be destroyed? > > Is there canon for the soul being destroyed along with the horcrux? Steve in Chicago: > On the subject of souls... there is another place where souls are > mentioned in the HP universe... Dementors, who can both feed on you > long enough to make you 'soul-less'... but also that by doing the > dementor's kiss, can suck out a person's soul. From here, I'm > guessing that you can say that a soul is NOT everlasting, and that it > can be consumed, and also destroyed. Geoff: This fits in perfectly with the real world. Jesus is quoted, both in Matthew and Mark as saying "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?" This is precisely the road down which Voldemort is going..... He is certainly aiming for the first but, perhaps unknwingly, setting himself up for the second outcome. From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Wed Apr 12 22:35:46 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 18:35:46 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore's gleam shared blood In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060412223546.22768.qmail@web37004.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150905 bboyminn: But is that true Catherine? We know Dumbledore's protection at the Dursley's ends when Harry turns 17. But Dumbledore based that protection on the 'blood' protection Harry already had(...) from Lily's sacrifice. Catherine again: You know, I've never thought about it that way. It would be an interesting twist if Harry is actually safets in Voldemort's presence. I think Voldemort's undoing will be his own arrogance. I would bet in a way that it would be easier for, say, Bella to kill Harry as opposed to Voldemort. Yet he would never allow anyone but himself to kill Harry. Another theory I have is that the final confrontation between Harry and Voldemort will have 100's of dementors as well. Harry will be able (eventually, after several heart-stopping failures) to produce a patronus. Voldemort, having absolutely no happy memories to draw from will be unable to produce a sufficiently strong patronus and he will have his soul sucked out. It's the only thing in canon that is repeatedly thought of as "worse than death", fitting for a man so bent on being immortal, to finish his life, an empty soul-less shell? My other most fitting idea on how to vanquish Voldemort would be if there was a way that could rob him of his powers and have him become a Mere Mortal Muggle MMM!Voldemort. How much would that suck for him!!! Brings a smail to my face just thinking of it :-) Catherine (who really doesn't think being a muggle is a fate worse than death, but perhaps Voldemort would. And who is also proud of thinking of MMM!Voldemort. I like alliteration!) --------------------------------- Share your photos with the people who matter at Yahoo! Canada Photos [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From lauciricad at yahoo.com Wed Apr 12 22:50:28 2006 From: lauciricad at yahoo.com (Don L.) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 22:50:28 -0000 Subject: Harry and Snape's redemption Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150906 My first post. After reading and enjoying this forum since joining several weeks ago, I believe, along with many readers, that the Snape/Dumbledore/Potter triangle as it relates to redemption, sacrifice and heroism to be the most fascinating and anticipated aspect of the Harry Potter series as it draws to conclusion. I have read hundreds of books of fiction, my favorites haveing been the LOTR series, the Chronicles of Narnia, now joined by the Harry Potter series. While undeniably different in plot and character, their thematic approach to love, friendship, redemption and sacrifice flow through each story defining strength and hope, and encouraging the reader that in the end good indeed will always triumph over evil. I originally intended to reply to several of the entries today regarding the discussions of Dumbledore and Snape, but instead will add this as my written thoughts and predictions on the series. Redemption, in my mind is the primary motive for Snape and Harry. Dumbledore is the only person that knows this, understanding the true relationship and motives of Snape and Harry. He alone, understands that Snape and Harry share guilt and the need for redemption because of the sacrifice and death of Harry's mother Lily Potter. Harry, because her sacrifice saved his life and Snape because his actions and betrayal lead to her death. Dumbledore correctly understands the parallel needs, but foresees that Snape and Harry will most certainly detest and hate the other and never willingly work together to destroy Voldemort, both seeing redemption as a personal goal. Snape, having heard the Prophecy, and seeing the scar on Harry's forehead must certainly acknowledge the destiny Harry must play in the demise of Voldemort, yet fails to comprehend and act according, and must certainly be constantly reminded of this fact by Dumbledore. Harry acknowledges his destiny after the battle and the ministry yet Dumbledore has barely a chance to prepare Harry or convince the two to work together before he died at the hand of Snape. How Snape and Harry come together in the final conflict with Voldemort and how each redeems himself is the key in concluding the story. Harry, while present for the death of Voldemort, will not actually kill him as prophesized. The prophecy implicates Harry and Voldemort, requiring one to eliminate the other. Voldemort must personally kill Harry, either to fulfill the prophecy or in order to become whole and immortal. Harry must bring about the demise Voldemort, but perhaps not directly. I think history will repeat itself. In the final conflict a combination of Voldemort's arrogance and anxious hate will set in motion a series on unanticipated magical consequences that offset by Harry's luck, ingenuity and friendship, lead to his own demise. Good will prevail, friendships and love will survive, but like most evil, Voldemort will ultimately fail because of his own actions and failings, as with most evil persons in history and fiction. Voldemort has fallen victim to his own misunderstanding and loathing of the concepts of love and self-sacrifice. First at Godric's Hollow, later at the Little Hangleton Graveyard and finally at the Astronomy Tower, not having felt love or self-sacrifice he cannot prevent them from altering and diminishing his power. Neither Voldemort, nor most readers have accurately anticipated the exact manner in which Voldemort's plans and devices have failed at those key junctures, but can anticipate that in the end they will again. Dumbledore's demise is certain but not without purpose. Like Gandolf and Aslan before him, Dumbledore's sacrifice sets in motion the method by which Harry finds the determination, strength and wisdom within himself and his friends to defeat Voldemort. However, unlike Gandolf and Aslan, Dumbledore will not return, allowing and requiring Harry, Snape and others to defeat Voldemort. Dumbledore's sacrifice was, at the moment preceding his death, understood by Snape only. By causing the death of Dumbledore, Snape accepted his role and destiny, which he acknowledges will lead him close to Voldemort and the possibility to achieve his goal of killing Voldemort thus receiving redemption for his part in Lily Potter's death. Snape's character was defined by his uncontrollable love for Lily, which later thwarted by James Potter was corrupted and manipulated by Voldemort, leading to betrayal and Lily's death. Lily's death and Snape's resultant self-loathing ultimately motivated his need for redemption yet he was unable to withhold his hatred and cruelty from Harry because of it. In return, Snape's cruelty and actions as perceived by Harry will most certainly come into play in the final conflict. I believe Harry actions will thwart Snape and prevent him from destroying Voldemort. Harry has been a decidedly good judge of character and motive throughout, but in the case of Snape, will ultimately be proven wrong. Harry, also unable to control his hate for Snape, will misconstrue and thwart Snape's plan to defeat Voldemort. However, a furious and again thwarted Snape will overcome his self-centered need for revenge and redemption and will finally comprehend Harry's destiny, save Harry again and as prophesized Harry will defeat Voldemort, but give his life in the process. Realizing Snape's true motives, Harry may even attempt to save Snape but will probably fail. Harry, now with the lives of Snape, Dumbledore and Lily on his conscience, will need some redemption himself, which I believe will only occur by forgiving Snape before he dies. Harry will forgive and acknowledge Snape as a hero. Snape like Gollum, Edmond and in many ways Harry are tragic, misunderstood, heros and their motivation for redemption determine the outcome of their respective stories. Snape will pay the ultimate price for redemption but Harry will live to mourn him as a true hero. I do not trivialize J.K. Rowlings work by anticipating or predicting the outcome of her book or by comparing her work with those of JRR Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Indeed they all occupy my imagination and bookshelf with equal standing and affection. Don From celizwh at intergate.com Thu Apr 13 02:46:22 2006 From: celizwh at intergate.com (houyhnhnm102) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 02:46:22 -0000 Subject: Snape's Final Straw In-Reply-To: <387.39d3cf.316e819e@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150908 Jamie: > I'm throwing this out for discussion as > someone said this to me...has anybody > considered/discussed whether DD was REALLY > DD and not someone else using Polyjuice potion > to be him? It's not a theory I subscribe to > but it is an interesting idea and would allow > JKR to bring him "back to life." houyhnhnm: I have considered it. I think there are some arguments or at least suggestive pieces of evidence that can be put forth in favor of that theory. There are also some problems with it, so I am keeping an open mind. What first led me to consider the possibility that it might not be Dumbledore on the tower was Dumbledore's pleading. Like for so many others, for me the idea that DD would plead for his life doesn't even merit consideration. My conclusion, again like that of many others, was that DD had to have been pleading for something else, for Snape to have the courage and will to sacrifice him for the greater good or for Snape to keep his promise to look out for Harry. When you have eliminated the impossible (DD pleading for his life), whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. But it eventually occurred to me that there was an another possible explanation for the pleading. It wasn't Dumbledore. Someone else who had been inveigled into posing as Dumbledore, but hadn't been informed of the extent of the sacrifice that would be required (I can't see DD going along with that) or someone who had given his informed consent but got cold feet at the imminent prospect of being cursed off the tower. A second discrepant behavior was DD's hallucinatory raving in the cave. I haven't seen an explanation or been able to think of one myself that is really satisfying. The drinker could experience someone else's memories contained in the potion, I suppose. It is also possible that the potion is a sort of essence of dementor, and that Dumbledore, who *would* take all upon himself, is tortured by guilt for the evil deeds that have been done, because he wasn't able to keep them from happening. But to whom is he speaking? And "make it stop"? Make what stop? It sounds like someone being tortured. Then there is the way Dumbledore takes to the icy sea "with the sudden agility of a much younger man". It could be one more example of the way Dumbledore calls upon his last reserves of strength because he knows his time is running out. Or it could really be a younger man. The impersonation couldn't have been accomplished with polyjuice potion, though. I'm not sure what time Harry and DD left Hogwarts. It was "gathering twilight"-9:30-10:00 somewhereabouts? Harry encountered Trelawney outside of the RoR 15 minutes before curfew--whenever that is. They returned around midnight. So, they were gone too long for the effects of polyjuice potion to be maintained. "Dumbledore" is not shown to drink anything other than the green potion in the stone basin. If someone was posing as Dumbledore it would have to have been by means of some other kind of magic. Transfiguration, perhaps. We have never seen a person transfigured to appear as another person, but a person has been transfigured into an animal on one occasion, and an inanimate object (chair) on another. And that occasion leads directly to Slughorn. ("Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set, And blew 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.'" I can't get it out of my mind) Slughorn taught Tom Riddle, too. He would also "know his style". (Slughorn, in his own persona, echoes this later. "I taught him! I thought I knew him!") He is not *much* younger than Dumbledore, but he is a Slytherin, a Piscean whale type, IMO. He might be more at home in water than on land. We don't know that Slughorn was ever tortured by LV but he could have been. He seems to be very much afraid of the Dark Order. And if the comfort-loving, epicurean Horace Slughorn really had been through the events of that night, drinking the poison, fighting off inferi, being fake AKed off the highest tower at Hogwart's, exchanging places with DD on the ground before anyone comes out, slipping back inside undetected with a battle raging, transfiguring himself back into himself, etc., he would definately be "the most shaken, pale and sweating". I'm not really trying to sell this. It's just speculation for fun. I feel a little stronger about the possibility that Dumbledore may be alive, though. I didn't when I finished HBP, or for several months thereafter. I grieved for Dumbledore. I got way past denial. I got all the way to acceptance. (It's a little easier when it's not a real person, even if you *are* bewitched by a story.) Then I left the Potterverse alone for awhile, and when I came back to it, I started wondering if DD's death was not a little too convincing. A Wronski feint perhaps? We are supposed to be left with no hope. We are supposed to feel the finality of the loss the way Harry feels it. We have to come to terms with the reality of Dumbledore's death the way Harry does. If Dumbledore *is* still alive at the beginning of book 7, I think we will see his real death by the end of the book, but it will be a death that Harry, the WW, and we the readers can accept as suitable for the greatest wizard of his time. From sherriola at earthlink.net Thu Apr 13 02:52:34 2006 From: sherriola at earthlink.net (Sherry Gomes) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 19:52:34 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Harry and Snape's redemption In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150909 Don wrote: Harry, now with the lives of Snape, Dumbledore and Lily on his conscience, will need some redemption himself, which I believe will only occur by forgiving Snape before he dies. Harry will forgive and acknowledge Snape as a hero. Snape like Gollum, Edmond and in many ways Harry are tragic, misunderstood, heros and their motivation for redemption determine the outcome of their respective stories. Snape will pay the ultimate price for redemption but Harry will live to mourn him as a true hero. Sherry now: Welcome to the group, Don. Great first post. I say that, even as I am going to disagree with you on all counts. smile. I have a very hard time with the idea that Harry has the deaths of Lily, Snape and Dumbledore on his conscience. He was a baby when his mother, *and* his father were murdered. As far as I can see, Harry isn't going around burdened with unreasonable and foolish guilt over what happened to his parents at 15 months old. And as for the death of Dumbledore, how on earth can he be guilty of that? He was shocked and horrified, frozen in place and unable to take action. But he's not guilty, and I got no sense that he is feeling that way either. He knows exactly where the guilt belongs, on the shoulders of Snape. Harry is not the one in need of redemption in this story. It might be Snape, though I truly hope not, but I'm thinking it will be Draco, because the kids are the heroes of this story, and the adults are merely the supporting cast. As for Snape being a poor misunderstood hero, in the manner of Gollum: S P O I L E R S P A C E LOTR spoilers ahead Gollum is no misunderstood tragic hero. When we learn his background, the first thing we learn is that he murdered his best friend in order to get the ring, the very first time he saw the ring. It didn't have time to work its slow evil on him in the manner it does with Frodo who is innocent at the beginning of his association with it. Gollum was not a nice kid. He committed murder at his first glimpse of the ring. The movies make Gollum more sympathetic than he is in the books, I think. Yes, Gandalf and Frodo both feel pity for him, but pity doesn't excuse his actions or make him a tragically misunderstood hero of any kind. I do not believe Harry will kill Voldemort in some way, whip out his wand and shout the killing curse or something. But I do definitely believe that it will be Harry, and Harry alone in the end, who does defeat him in some way. That is not to say Harry won't be helped along the way by his friends, as he always has been. But in the end, I believe he will do whatever it is on his own, with no Snape there to do it for him and take away Harry's role as hero. If that turns out to be the case, if Snape is the one who kills Voldemort and becomes the hero of the wizarding world, I would deeply regret and even resent the years I've spent reading, discussing and caring about Harry Potter, and the book names should all be changed to Severus Snape and the ... I happen to like Harry and want to see him succeed in his quest, not be overshadowed by some other miserably unkind and hateful person. All just my own opinion, naturally. and welcome again! Sherry From puduhepa98 at aol.com Thu Apr 13 03:34:32 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 23:34:32 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Ginny's best friend (girlfriends in HP) Message-ID: <35b.249c662.316f20c8@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150911 > Betsy Hp: > I totally agree with your assesment of Hermione's and Ginny's > relationship. That's exactly how I see it playing out. Sometimes > they hang, sometimes they don't. And they both seem quite happy > with the arrangement. And that's good. > > But, what I take issue with (and I don't think this is an issue you > raised, actually), is that they're a wonderful example of two girls > who are best friends. They're two girls who are *friends*, yes. > And it's a good relationship as it is. But it pushes things to try > and claim that Hermione sees Ginny as her best friend (or vice > versa). > >Jen butting in: >Thank goodness we are on the same page! I don't think there is a >great example of best girl friends on the front line and on the >2ndary line (or maybe tertiary, depends on how you slice it) >Lavender and Parvati are best friends that stick together but alas, >JKR doesn't or hasn't the time to develop them. Nikkalmati: Some girls, (i.e. Hermione), are just like that - they don't relate well to most other girls and as teens they hang out with boys. These are more likely to be intelligent, serious and not flirty kinds of girls. Hermione would never have a "best girlfriend" like Lavender and Parvati because she doesn't have enough in common with other girls. Nikkalmati (who never had a close female friend until she was over 25) . [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From stevejjen at earthlink.net Thu Apr 13 03:34:43 2006 From: stevejjen at earthlink.net (Jen Reese) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 03:34:43 -0000 Subject: Snape's Final Straw In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150912 houyhnhmn: > The impersonation couldn't have been accomplished with polyjuice > potion, though. So, they were gone too long for the > effects of polyjuice potion to be maintained. "Dumbledore" is not > shown to drink anything other than the green potion in the stone > basin. If someone was posing as Dumbledore it would have to have > been by means of some other kind of magic. Transfiguration, > perhaps. We have never seen a person transfigured to > appear as another person, but a person has been transfigured into > an animal on one occasion, and an inanimate object (chair) on > another. Jen: I've wondered whether Switching spells might come up since the kids studied them in Transfiguration and we've never really seen a use for them that I can remember, not like the animagus or the metamorphagus. And then hearing that DD could do things with a wand the OWL examiner had never seen before and to know he was the Transifiguration prof for many years and never really *see* him transfigure? That part seems left hanging to me. Presumably he uses transfiguration to become invisible, so at least we hear about it. There used to be big theories about James and Lupin switching at GH, but JKR shot them down and that didn't bother me. Still, that could be a possible mechanism for DD/Sluggy and something we haven't seen happen. Or DD and Aberforth. ;) houyhnmn: > I'm not really trying to sell this. It's just speculation for > fun. I feel a little stronger about the possibility that > Dumbledore may be alive, though. I didn't when I finished HBP, or > for several months thereafter. I grieved for Dumbledore. I got > way past denial. I got all the way to acceptance. (It's a little > easier when it's not a real person, even if you *are* bewitched by > a story.) Then I left the Potterverse alone for awhile, and when I > came back to it, I started wondering if DD's death was not a > little too convincing. A Wronski feint perhaps? Jen: That's exactly what's happened for me, the process you describe. I haven't been able to type much recently due to wrist problems (which hopefully will resolve soon so I can get back to my obsession ), and being away has made me wonder about the ending of HBP, which JKR said herself wasn't really an ending but a middle of the story. Thinking of it in that light makes the idea of DD being alive more plausible to me, even though a few months ago that was almost unthinkable. houyhnhmn: > We are supposed to be left with no hope. We are supposed to feel > the finality of the loss the way Harry feels it. We have to come > to terms with the reality of Dumbledore's death the way Harry does. Jen: If this is what she intended, it worked! houyhnhmn: > If Dumbledore *is* still alive at the beginning of book 7, I think > we will see his real death by the end of the book, but it will be > a death that Harry, the WW, and we the readers can accept as > suitable for the greatest wizard of his time. Jen: The only thing that keeps me from believing this wholeheartedly is DD's death fits the trajectory of the other adult characters because we see his weakness in the end. Not all the adult characters have died, but most of the major adult characters reveal a great weakness at a pivotal moment. I expect Snape to do so as well before the finale. And I don't mean DD was weak for trusting Snape, but that the potion in the cave revealed something about him, a mistake he made which perhaps had something to do with his family or Grindelwald. In that sense, his death on the tower was final and *did* befit a great wizard who wasn't afraid to die and didn't need to go out in a blaze of glory. Jen, who can't do this post justice but is tired of missing out on the fun. :( From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 13 03:44:56 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 03:44:56 -0000 Subject: Harry and Snape's redemption In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150913 > Sherry now: > I have a very hard time with the idea that Harry has the deaths of Lily, > Snape and Dumbledore on his conscience. He was a baby when his mother, > *and* his father were murdered. As far as I can see, Harry isn't going > around burdened with unreasonable and foolish guilt over what happened to > his parents at 15 months old. Alla: I also want to welcome Don to the list. Yes, Sherry I also don't see any signs of Harry feeling guilt over Lily's death in the books and moreover I hope JKR definitely does not write it that Harry has such guilt even subconsciously, because even though I am not the big fan of the speculations based on JKR wanting or not wanting to send certain messages to the audience, I cannot imagine JKR telling kids who lost their parents that it is somehow their fault. Sherry: > As for Snape being a poor misunderstood hero, in the manner of Gollum: > Gollum is no misunderstood tragic hero. When we learn his background, the > first thing we learn is that he murdered his best friend in order to get the > ring, the very first time he saw the ring. It didn't have time to work its > slow evil on him in the manner it does with Frodo who is innocent at the > beginning of his association with it. Gollum was not a nice kid. He > committed murder at his first glimpse of the ring. The movies make Gollum > more sympathetic than he is in the books, I think. Yes, Gandalf and Frodo > both feel pity for him, but pity doesn't excuse his actions or make him a > tragically misunderstood hero of any kind. Alla: You know, I agree of course that Gollum is not a misunderstood tragic hero, but I can totally see Snape and Gollum comparisons, or more correctly, I would LOVE Snape's story arc to have parallels to Gollum's for the obvious reasons. We all know after all what Gollum did to the person who showed him kindness and pity. I mean, his treachery brings victory for Frodo, but that does not change Gollum's character, thus if Snape contributes to Voldemort's defeat, but remains miserable, hateful bastard, who thinks first and foremost about himself, I will definitely see Gollum and Snape comparisons. JMO, Alla, who prior to HBP had hopes that Snape's story would have some similarities to Boromir's. From gelite67 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 13 04:40:34 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 04:40:34 -0000 Subject: Timeline Questions re Snape's and Trewlaney's Appointments Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150914 In OOP, Harry turns 15; Trewlawney said she'd been teaching for 16 years; and Snape said he'd been teaching for 14 years. So, Trewlawney started teaching the year before Harry was born? And Snape the year after? I'd always thought that Snape started teaching right about the time of LV downfall, when Harry was one. Is that right? So, we have a two-year gap b/w ST's appointment and Snape's? We know that Snape overheard the first prophecy during ST's interview and we know that Snape "defected" to DD's side before LV's downfall, but how long before? I can't believe DD caught Snape eavesdropping two years before and just let him go -- I guess I don't understand what Snape was doing during the time b/w the eavesdropping and his own appointment. I mean, I know he was busy being a DE, and at some point, a spy for DD, but I'm not clear on what happened when. I also wonder if Snape would have been appointed to HW had DD not caught him eavesdropping and had LV not taken a turn for the worse in GH. (I assume even DEs need paying jobs.) Also, why was Snape eavesdropping in the first place? Probably on LV 's orders, but why? ST didn't have a rep for being a successful seer, after all. Angie (who's never been good with "the math" and hoping this makes sense) From belviso at attglobal.net Thu Apr 13 04:07:31 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 00:07:31 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Ginny's best friend (girlfriends in HP) References: <35b.249c662.316f20c8@aol.com> Message-ID: <007b01c65eaf$c9e67810$6898400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 150915 > Nikkalmati: > Some girls, (i.e. Hermione), are just like that - they don't relate well > to > most other girls and as teens they hang out with boys. These are more > likely > to be intelligent, serious and not flirty kinds of girls. Hermione would > never have a "best girlfriend" like Lavender and Parvati because she > doesn't > have enough in common with other girls. > Nikkalmati (who never had a close female friend until she was over 25) > . Magpie: Actually, I don't know if that disproves the point being made. Being an intelligent, serious and not flirty girl does not mean you wouldn't have a best girlfriend. I'm not sure what to make of putting the two things together, because it seems to suggest that boys are serious and intelligent where girls are not. I was never the kind of girl Parvati and Lavender seem to be, and I always had female friends. I generally had guy friends too, because from my non-flirty pov, why wouldn't I be friends with both? Ironically, a lot of the glimpses we see of Hermione and Ginny's friendship center on romance. In fact if it comes down to having things in common with potential friends, Hermione's got nothing in common with either Ron or Harry, save for the common Voldemort goal. The three of them don't connect for personality reasons. The author pops out and announces the commencement of the friendship with a line about the bonding-effects of Troll fights. If this were reality I don't know that Harry and Ron would be friends with Hermione. We see in PS/SS that Hermione has trouble making friends. -m From Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com Thu Apr 13 04:16:17 2006 From: Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com (coldsliversofglass) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 04:16:17 -0000 Subject: Why Dumbledore had to die In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150916 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" wrote: >Renata: >... I really wonder how Harry will get more powerful without >Dumbledore, Sirius or Hogwarts. > >Peggy: > >I wonder if perhaps it's not so much about Harry getting more > >powerful, but rather realizing the power he has. ... he's > >learning that he's ... able to take action and make choices > >for himself. >>>>bboyminn: >>>>To a limited extent, I do agree that Harry has to realize the >>>>power he has rather than somehow increase his power. Yet to some >>>>extent, those are the same thing. Untappable power is like no >>>>power at all. Ofcourse, I believe that Harry has a substantial >>>>reserve of untapped power, and that he will learn to better >>>>access it. >>>>I also think, though it should be no suprise to anyone, that >>>>part of Harry being able to access his own internal power is >>>>based in his willingness to tap the resources around him... >>>>"...Harry, also, in the course of previous six books has amassed >>>>more knowledge than he realizes...." [Melissa-Emerson interview; >>>>pg 3;LeakyCauldron.org]That seems important. One of the great >>>>things about the final book in a series is that it pulls together >>>>events and people from the previous books, and their true >>>>significance becomes clear. ...the most exciting thing for me is >>>>seeing how everything falls into place. How diverse and seeming >>>>insignificant characters are sudden revealed in their true >>>>purpose. coldsliversofglass: I have to say that I don't think it's a matter of "how Harry will get more powerful without Dumbledore, Sirius or Hogwarts." In fact, I agree that the potential and the power is already there if Harry just realizes it. Dumbledore had to die, or else Harry would still be a background character. Now, don't get me wrong, Harry does a lot in the fight against Voldemort, but it also seems as if he was a figurehead. What he did in the books was flashy and usually reaffirmed belief in his powers and ability to defeat Voldemort; however, it didn't really make him seem like an individual player or a significant power. Most of the stuff Harry did was orchestrated by Dumbledore. Dumbledore had to go so that Harry could finally take charge of his own life, of his future, and could step forward and be a leader in his own right. As for Sirius, I'm hoping he will reappear (unlikely, perhaps, but my hope is there since he was one of my favorite characters). As far as Hogwarts, I always thought it was more the people than the building that played such a pivotal role in Harry's development...the teachers and the other students were the heart of Hogwarts. Harry has to tap into his power, but I think it's important to point out that a large part of Harry's abilities lies in his finding himself in desperate situations...in being unprotected and having only himself to rely on. He has the training, but he needs to the confrontations in order to remind him of what he knows, in order to prove to him that there is power there, waiting to answer him-that there are allies he needs to take advantage of. The little things, I think, the people and the objects we've never noticed are going to come back to haunt us. I really can't wait to find out just how things unfold, and how the tension between the characters and the sides is resolved. It's also important to note that, as large a role as Harry's friends play, in the end it always comes down to Harry himself. Harry facing off against Quirrel alone-even if help came later-,Harry battling the serpent-even if Fawkes and the hat arrived-, Harry escaping from Voldemort and the Death Eaters and taking Cedric back to Hogwarts, Harry helping Dumbledore with the fake horcrux and watching him be killed. [I don't remember exactly what happened in Prisoner of Azkaban...I'll have to go back and reread it again]. Even if his friends appear before and after the confrontations, there's always a moment in which Harry has to rely on himself, and I think that's something he's going to acknowledge--that he can rely on himself. coldsliversofglass From aceworker at yahoo.com Thu Apr 13 04:20:32 2006 From: aceworker at yahoo.com (career advisor) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 21:20:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Ginny's best friend (girlfriends in HP) In-Reply-To: <1144881349.2628.44482.m24@yahoogroups.com> Message-ID: <20060413042032.8982.qmail@web30203.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150917 susanbones2003 wrote: <> --------------------------------------------------- Another set of best friends JKR has developed by showing where they make big choices to support each other is Cho and Marietta. Here are some examples. 1) Before GF Cho is shown to have many friends and she travels in a pack with many girlfriends. After Cedric dies and Cho is distraught in OOP Cho most of her friends, except Marietta apparently. Marietta is apparently the only friend who will stay with Cho and help her through her grief. 2) Marietta joins an organization that she doesn't want to join just because a friend asked. 3) Cho chooses her friend over Harry. She could have easily kept her relationship with Harry if JKR had her denounce Marietta. But she is more concerned over the curse Hermione placed on Marietta. D.A Jones From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Thu Apr 13 10:24:12 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 10:24:12 -0000 Subject: Snape's Final Straw In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150918 houyhnhmn: > > If someone was posing as Dumbledore it would have to have > > been by means of some other kind of magic. Transfiguration, > > perhaps. We have never seen a person transfigured to > > appear as another person, but a person has been transfigured into > > an animal on one occasion, and an inanimate object (chair) on > > another. Jen: > I've wondered whether Switching spells might come up since the > kids studied them in Transfiguration and we've never really seen a > use for them that I can remember... > And then hearing that DD could do things with a wand > the OWL examiner had never seen before and to know he was the > Transifiguration prof for many years and never really *see* him > transfigure? > > Still, that could > be a possible mechanism for DD/Sluggy and something we haven't seen > happen. Or DD and Aberforth. ;) > > houyhnmn: > > It's just speculation for > > fun. I feel a little stronger about the possibility that > > Dumbledore may be alive, though. *(snip)* > > Then I left the Potterverse alone for awhile, and when I > > came back to it, I started wondering if DD's death was not a > > little too convincing. A Wronski feint perhaps? Jen: > That's exactly what's happened for me, the process you > describe. I haven't been able to type much recently due to wrist > problems (which hopefully will resolve soon so I can get back to my > obsession ), and being away has made me wonder about the ending > of HBP, which JKR said herself wasn't really an ending but a middle > of the story. Thinking of it in that light makes the idea of DD > being alive more plausible to me, even though a few months ago that > was almost unthinkable. Ceridwen: Jen, first, I hope your wrist gets better! It's hard to watch the debate and not be able to say everything you want to say. Jen and houyhnmn both, I've had some odd ideas about the Tower scene, too. Mine is more about Polyjuice, since it was made a centerpiece in Slughorn's class, then used on Crabbe and Goyle throughout the book. I had thought that maybe Dumbledore wasn't Dumbledore. But I cannot see when, or where in the text, he changed. The few moments while Harry ran off to get his Invisibility Cloak, maybe, but as you say, Polyjuice must be reapplied every hour (Crouch!Moody & CoS) and we don't see Dumbledore drinking anything but the glowing green potion. I was off-balance about several characters throughout the book. Dumbledore was more curt with Harry, so I suspected him of not being him several times. He still had his own knowledge, so I pushed it away, but it recurred. I even questioned if it was him at the Dursleys'. But he was quite capable of mentioning Grimmauld Place in front of them, and if Muggles count in the Fidelius charm, then no one but Dumbledore would have been able to 'speak the name' of the place. Bets are off if Muggles don't affect the spell. I completely believed the Dumbledore I saw talking to Draco on the Tower. The thing that made me wonder was the same thing that made Harry's blood run cold: pleading. Dumbledore wouldn't plead. He didn't even plead when LV was possessing Harry at the MoM, and that had to be traumatic for him (not to mention for Harry, but we don't know what Dumbledore was thinking). Being in good health at the time, maybe he was able to squelch the urge to plead where he was clearly ill or worse on the Tower. But, at this point, I am questioning everything. I questioned Tonks in most of her appearances. I really thought, when she showed up 'looking for Dumbledore', that she was Narcissa, or perhaps Draco. The emaciated condition described echoes the descriptions of Draco as the year progresses. Narcissa's panic in Spinner's End might have her showing the same signs as time passes, too. Narcissa is Tonks's aunt. Is she a Metamorphmagus, too? Is Draco? I don't think so ordinarily, but I wondered several times during the book. I even questioned if Snape was himself on the Tower. He usually seems in control of himself more than he did then. Yes, I know, extrordinary circumstances, DEs in Hogwarts, Dumbledore collapsing, Fenrir Greyback being there, perhaps seeing Bill's ruined body before coming up and connecting Greyback to the sight, and so on. But I had trouble buying the almost panicked Snape: I wondered if he was Narcissa in reverse drag. The flight afterwards made me re-think that, when would he and Narcissa have changed places? They couldn't be guaranteed that Harry wasn't right on Snape's heels. And that was (I think, anyway) definitely Snape parrying Harry's spells and yelling instruction. The thing that sticks in my craw over this part is, Dumbledore saying to wake Snape, then Flitwick rushing in and being stunned. If the *real* Snape was asleep and there was a ringer in his stead, one that Hermione was mistakenly watching all night, that *might* explain it. Or, not. The book came off as unreal on one level, even before the Tower. Who was who? Who could be trusted? It was probably the way it started out in ch. 3, carried over to the Slughorn chair and reinforced by that and, later, the Polyjuice, coupled with the secret twists we've seen all through the series. At this point, I doubt anyone but Harry, and even Harry is suspect because when is he only Harry, and when is he Harry with LV along for the ride? And, yes, the interview statement where JKR says that HBP is really the first half of the Book 6/7 whole makes me wonder exactly what we're seeing that didn't happen as it appeared. By the middle of each book so far, we are being led farther and farther into the dark, not being enlightened. I am so glad that someone else is having second thoughts, or even third and fourth thoughts about a lot of what we think we know! I don't feel so alone! Ceridwen. From willsonkmom at msn.com Thu Apr 13 13:02:52 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 13:02:52 -0000 Subject: Timeline Questions re Snape's and Trewlaney's Appointments In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150919 Angie asks: > In OOP, Harry turns 15; Trewlawney said she'd been teaching for 16 > years; and Snape said he'd been teaching for 14 years. > > So, Trewlawney started teaching the year before Harry was born? And > Snape the year after? Potioncat: That is my understanding, although I don't think it's certain how long before Harry's birth Trelawney started teaching. It crosses my mind that the math doesn't work out...but it never does. >Angie: > So, we have a two-year gap b/w ST's appointment and Snape's? I can't believe DD caught Snape eavesdropping two years > before and just let him go -- I guess I don't understand what Snape > was doing during the time b/w the eavesdropping and his own > appointment. Potioncat: Well, what if Snape was at the Hogshead to defect...on his own? Depending on whether you believe the Black Family Tree or prefer to reason it out from the text, Regulus may already have died. Snape may have been looking for a way out too. DD tells Harry that the eavesdropper was in LV's employ, so he probably already knew that at the time. So, Snape is there to defect, overhears part of the prophecy and works out a plan/is given a plan to tell LV part of the prophecy. I find it hard to understand how DD would just let Snape go if he knew Snape was a DE; but I find it harder to believe DD didn't know. It hurts my mind less to think that Snape was in LV's employ but had turned to DD at that point. I'm not sure if Snape was already there to apply for a teaching job. That's what Trelawney thinks, and she may be right. So he applies and is turned down. That's not too surprising. He's still pretty young. No big deal the job will open up the next year. It may always have been Snape's desire to teach DADA. LV may have been using that. Who knows whether it was LV's idea to put Snape in Hogwarts or if Snape suggested he could serve at Hogwarts? Snape gives LV the credit for it, like a good little minion. Angie: > I also wonder if Snape would have been appointed to HW had DD not > caught him eavesdropping and had LV not taken a turn for the worse in > GH. (I assume even DEs need paying jobs.) Potioncat: Snape turned before LV's fall. So he had been working for DD a few weeks to years. The fact that he turned spy at great risk, makes me think it was months to year(s). We don't know, but it seems to have been some time. I assume all the DEs had day jobs. Snape could have been making potions at an apothecary, or at St. Mungo's or he could have been a Spellbinder, making spells stick to magical objects.(I made that up.) Angie: > Also, why was Snape eavesdropping in the first place? Probably on > LV 's orders, but why? ST didn't have a rep for being a successful > seer, after all. Potioncat: I think it was just luck. I think Snape was there to either apply for DADA or to defect or both and he was there at the right time. I would think he knows how to make Felix Felicis (even if I can't spell it.) > > Angie (who's never been good with "the math" and hoping this makes > sense) Potioncat who isn't good at this math either, but thinks we're in good company with a certain author. This line of reasoning would work out for a nonDDM!Snape, if you assume he was there on LV's orders to get the teaching job and begin spying for LV. From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Thu Apr 13 14:02:13 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 14:02:13 -0000 Subject: Why Dumbledore had to die In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150920 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" wrote: > To a limited extent, I do agree that Harry has to realize the power he has rather than somehow increase his power. Yet to some extent, those are the same thing. Untappable power is like no power at all. Of course, I believe that Harry has a substantial reserve of untapped power, and that he will learn to better access it. I also think, though it should be no suprise to anyone, that part of > Harry being able to access his own internal power is based in his > willingness to tap the resources around him. Bill is an expert curse breaker, a skill that Harry needs. Moody is an expert Dark Wizard fighter, also a skill that Harry needs. Remus is a free and > substantial, and trusted resource that Harry can tap, if he only > decides to trust Remus enough to draw on him as a resource. Further > Harry need information which includes information that people can > gather for him as well as intellectual recourses like libraries. These are all available to Harry, the question is, will he be wise enough to tap them, and to tap them efficiently? > Next, let us remember that Dumbledore is not really gone, in a sense,he is only diminished. That is, Dumbledore's portrait remains in the Headmaster's office. While that protrait is limited, it is still the reflected essense of Dumbledore, and certainly some wisdom can be gained from it. > > Further, Harry has access to Hogwarts with it's professors and it's > library. All of which are sympathetic and supportive of Harry. But > again, the question is, will he draw on them, or will he remain > secluded trying to do it all himself? > > I personally have a seeking suspicion that Harry's greatest resource are the friends who are loyal to him. Their combined strength is far more powerful and formitable than Harry by himself. If 'love conquers all' then certainly the love and loyalty of those friends have the potential to carry the same significances as the love and loyalty of his mother. > > I have frequently fantasized a final scene in which Harry's friends > willingly step forward and place themselves between Harry and > Voldemort. Each gladly willing to die so that their friend Harry can live and fight on much like Lily gladly and willingly dies to save her son. That is power; that is power that Voldemort never can and never will understand. > > Yes, Voldemort can send his Death Eaters to their death, but they do not die as a glad and willing choice. They do not die out of true > loyalty and true love. Their choice is to die at the hands of the > enemy with a fighting chance, or to be cut down by Voldemort. Much > like Peter sacrificing his hand, they do so, but they are not willing or eager, they simply see no other choice, so they comply. > > Harry on the otherhand would prefer to send his friends away to keep them safe while taking on the full burden himself. That makes Harry and his friends very and significantly different than Voldemort and his DE's. For Harry, I think that is part of his untapped power. > > As a final rambling note, I recall JKR saying something to the effect that "...Harry, also, in the course of previous six books has amassed more knowledge than he realizes...." [Melissa-Emerson interview; pg 3; LeakyCauldron.org] That seems important. One of the great things about the final book in a series is that it pulls together events and people from the previous books, and their true significance becomes clear. JKR's statement above implies that there are things from each book that have importance beyond their individual stories. It's going to be amazing to see JKR pull all the characters and events into perspective. > > I think it will be equally amazing to see all the seemingly > insignificant events from the pervious books jell in Harry's mind and become a coherent plan for dealing with Voldemort. The clues must > certainly be there, if we only knew how to interpret them. > > Of course, in the last book, I am looking forward to how Harry will > defeat Voldemort, but the most exciting thing for me is seeing how > everything falls into place. How diverse and seeming insignificant > characters are sudden revealed in their true purpose. > > Not sure it adds up to much, but there it is. Steven1965aaa says: Great post. I wouldn't even attempt to clip anything from that before replying. There's only thing I would add, since you mention (I believe quite correctly) the importance of Harry's friends' willingness to die to protect him. Voldemort's greatest fear is death. He will do anything to survive. Harry, on the other hand, if it came to it, would be quite ready to lay down his own life if that would result in vanquishing Voldemort. This difference between the two of them reminds me of the mirror of erised, Harry's goal is to vanquish LV, LV's goal is to be eternal and all powerful. This difference between them is a tremendous "advantage" to Harry in a battle between them. Because he can love, Harry would be ready to die to save his friends/the WW. Even though I hate to say it, because I don't want the books to end this way, the power the Dark Lord knows not may be Harry's willingness to sacrifice himself in order to vanquish LV. Steven1965aaa From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 13 14:38:58 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 14:38:58 -0000 Subject: Timeline Questions re Snape's and Trewlaney's Appointments In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150922 Angie wrote: > In OOP, Harry turns 15; Trewlawney said she'd been teaching for 16 > years; and Snape said he'd been teaching for 14 years. > So, Trewlawney started teaching the year before Harry was born? And > Snape the year after? > I'd always thought that Snape started teaching right about the time > of LV downfall, when Harry was one. Is that right? > > So, we have a two-year gap b/w ST's appointment and Snape's? We know that Snape overheard the first prophecy during ST's interview and we know that Snape "defected" to DD's side before LV's downfall, but how long before? I can't believe DD caught Snape eavesdropping two years before and just let him go -- I guess I don't understand what Snape was doing during the time b/w the eavesdropping and his own appointment. > I mean, I know he was busy being a DE, and at some point, a spy for DD, but I'm not clear on what happened when. > I also wonder if Snape would have been appointed to HW had DD not caught him eavesdropping and had LV not taken a turn for the worse in GH. (I assume even DEs need paying jobs.) > Also, why was Snape eavesdropping in the first place? Probably on LV 's orders, but why? ST didn't have a rep for being a successful seer, after all. > Angie (who's never been good with "the math" and hoping this makes sense) > Carol responds: Well, we all know that JKRis bad at maths, so don't feel bad! I'm not going to attempt to analyze the whole situation, which I also find confusing, just make a couple of points. First, Trelawney says in OoP that she has been teaching at Hogwarts *nearly* sixteen years, whereas Snape says "fourteen years" without qualification. That indicates to me that hers was an emergency appointment in, say, November (it's a cold, rainy evening). I would guess that the Divination teacher had unexpectedly died or become incapacitated. But, yes, she started teaching before Harry was born,immediately after the Prophecy. But the DADA position would have been open, as always, before the beginning of the year, and Snape would have applied for in, say, late August. (Whether he applied in earlier years and was turned down because of his age or the DADA curse, I don't know; I'm talking about the year he was actually hired.) That year, the year of Godric's Hollow, the Potions position was conveniently open as well (I'm guessing that Slughorn had retired--he certainly was not dead), enabling DD to hire young Snape for that position rather than the cursed DADA one. (Snape at this time was already working for DD as a spy "at great personal risk." It was safer to have him at Hogwarts.) My point is, though, that unlike Trelawney, Snape was at Hogwarts from the beginning of the year that he began to teach. He did not start teaching after Godric's Hollow (October 31/November 1). He had already been at Hogwarts since at least the first day of term (September 1). For the record, I think that Trelawney's memory is distorted for at least three reasons--her unawareness of the Prophecy, the distance in time, and, erm, cooking sherry. She knows that young Snape eventually became a teacher and has been around nearly as long as she has, so, collapsing nearly two years into perhaps a week,she thinks he was there to pickup hints on job interviewing. Not knowing that he was ever a DE, she can't think of any other reason for his eavesdropping. But, clearly, he was not applying for the DADA position at this time whether or not he had done so earlier; it was not the beginning of the school year. Why Snape was in the Hog's Head (having a butterbeer?) I can't say, but he certainly could not have known that Trelawney was going to make a Prophecy. He probably didn't even know about the Divination vacancy. Maybe he just saw DD and followed on an impulse. As for a day job between the time Severus left Hogwarts and was hired as Potions Master four years later, I've always imagined that he set up a little potions shop with a basement lab, funded by his dear friend Lucius Malfoy, as a front for the experimental, dangerous, and/or illicit potions he was making for Voldemort. (Just a bit of fun speculation.) Doesn't answer all of your questions (or mine), but, yes, there was a gap of nearly two years between Trelawney's hiring and Snape's. And, no, Godric's Hollow had nothing to do with Snape's being hired. He was already teaching when it happened, having been hired two months before. Carol, who thinks that DD didn't know that Snape was a DE at the time of the Prophecy or he wouldn't have let him go From willsonkmom at msn.com Thu Apr 13 16:03:55 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 16:03:55 -0000 Subject: Judas Gospel role for Good Snape? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150923 "talamariam" wrote: > > I read the news about Judas Gospel - the gnostic view that Judas > betrayed Jesus under instruction from Jesus himself -- and see this as > support for JKR's role for Good Snape. Potioncat: The story-line for the Gospel of Judas, as it was explained on the special I saw, made me say, "Oh good grief! What a rediculous idea! Who could believe such hogwash!" Yes, well, erm...pay no attention to that wizard on the tower. The above is in no way a statement of my religious views, nor a statement on anyone else's views. Nor even representative to my opinion about Judas, or the text known as the Gospel of Judas. It does however say something about me. Heaven only knows what. From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Thu Apr 13 16:27:53 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 12:27:53 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Why Dumbledore had to die In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150924 Steven1965aaa: > Voldemort's greatest fear is death. He will do anything >to survive. Harry, on the other hand, if it came to it, would >be quite ready to lay down his own life if that would result in >vanquishing Voldemort. This difference between the two of them >reminds me of the mirror of erised, Harry's goal is to vanquish LV, >LV's goal is to be eternal and all powerful. This difference between >them is a tremendous "advantage" to Harry in a battle between them. >Because he can love, Harry would be ready to die to save his >friends/the WW. Even though I hate to say it, because I don't want >the books to end this way, the power the Dark Lord knows not may be >Harry's willingness to sacrifice himself in order to vanquish LV. Rachel: Wow, good connection to the Mirror. I have to say, though, I don't think JKR will kill off Harry in the 7th book. I think it will come close to Harry having to sacrifice himself, but he will somehow prove his willingness without actually being killed. I think that this is when Snape will possibly redeem himself, if redemption is to be found for him (I'm still on the fence about DDM!Snape vs. evil!Snape). I envision (if Snape is DDM!Snape) Snape saving Harry from an AK, LV harasses Harry about it (like always), and Harry becomes extremely ticked and overpowers LV. But I'm not JKR and she loves to throw us curveballs. Most likely it'll be something none of us expect. ~ Rachel From finwitch at yahoo.com Thu Apr 13 18:26:32 2006 From: finwitch at yahoo.com (finwitch) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 18:26:32 -0000 Subject: James Potter and the Dark Arts (was Re: The Huge overreactions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150925 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" wrote: > Potioncat: > I should have made this part a different post, but it ties in to this > event. Sirius has said that James hated the Dark Arts, and it sounds > as if he hated them at 11. Looking at the Black Family Tree as it > appears at the Lexicon: > http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/blackfamilytree.html > > There is a Charlus Potter who marries a Dorea Black and they have one > son. I don't think this couple is James's parents, but it could be an > aunt and uncle. I wonder if something about Dorea led to James's hate > for Dark Arts. Of course, we have no real idea how closely related > James is to Charlus and there may be no connection at all. I just saw > it as a possible explanation. Dorea is Sirius's great-aunt, but I > wasn't looking at it as someone James met through Sirius, but someone > he knew or had heard about at home. > Finwitch: Well -- You know, Sirius is the brightest star in the black sky. I'd say, that despite all that Teen-stuff, Sirius Orion Black was morally Brightest of those in the Black family, very likely supported by James who hated the Dark Arts. And as Dumbledore told Fudge in GOF: it matters not what you're born but what you grow to be. What did James grow to be? Someone who defied Voldemort four times (and died upon the fourth). He was a husband and father who died defending his family. That's what matters, isn't it? Sirius - what did he grow to be? Someone who died when trying to defend his godson, someone who truly stood up for what was right... And don't forget the emotional support Sirius gave Harry in the end of GoF, nor the moral lesson of duty going over desire of them being together. He was there when Harry needed him most. OOP made it clear to me that, in contrast to the Black background he came from, he truly was the brightest star morally. What of Snape, then? What did he grow to be? The boggart of a student in school where he held the position of a teacher. The man who killed the one who trusted him, gave him a job etc. We have yet to see if Snape's able to repair that before he dies, but killing Albus Dumbledore is a HUGE ONE against him. Finwitch From miradourz at yahoo.co.uk Thu Apr 13 18:26:01 2006 From: miradourz at yahoo.co.uk (miradourz) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 18:26:01 -0000 Subject: Timeline Questions re Snape's and Trewlaney's Appointments In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150926 Angie wrote: > In OOP, Harry turns 15; Trewlawney said she'd been teaching for 16 > years; and Snape said he'd been teaching for 14 years. > > So, Trewlawney started teaching the year before Harry was born? > And Snape the year after? > > I can't believe DD caught Snape eavesdropping two years > before and just let him go -- > > > Also, why was Snape eavesdropping in the first place? Probably on > LV's orders, but why? ST didn't have a rep for being a successful > seer, after all. Miradourz: I think that this is a mystery, not a timeline mistake by JKR. It's possible that neither Snape nor Dumbledore realised the significance of the prophecy, that is why DD let Snape go. If it was in the Autumn before Harry was born, no one, certainly not Snape, would have known which child it referred to. Also, who knows when Voldemort started calling himself 'The Dark Lord'? It may have been after he heard the prophecy, not before. There are supposed to be hundreds of prophecies in the Dept. of Mysteries - not all of them come true. This one did perhaps because Voldemort applied it to himself. Snape eavesdropping? Maybe he really was after interview tips, since he would have feared what Voldemort would do to him if he didn't get a job at Hogwarts!! From finwitch at yahoo.com Thu Apr 13 19:12:29 2006 From: finwitch at yahoo.com (finwitch) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 19:12:29 -0000 Subject: Timeline Questions re Snape's and Trewlaney's Appointments In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150927 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "gelite67" wrote: > > In OOP, Harry turns 15; Trewlawney said she'd been teaching for 16 > years; and Snape said he'd been teaching for 14 years. > > So, Trewlawney started teaching the year before Harry was born? And > Snape the year after? Finwitch: That would seem plausible. The prophecy that got her the position did refer to the one who will be born - Harry - so I'd say it WAS before Harry's birth. As for Snape coming to teach the year after -- yes, after that trial, I'd say, where Dumbledore vouched for him. I guess that Slughorn retired after Longbottoms were tortured, thus leaving a place open for Snape... Finwitch From hickengruendler at yahoo.de Thu Apr 13 19:54:04 2006 From: hickengruendler at yahoo.de (hickengruendler) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 19:54:04 -0000 Subject: Timeline Questions re Snape's and Trewlaney's Appointments In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150928 > > Finwitch: > > That would seem plausible. The prophecy that got her the position did > refer to the one who will be born - Harry - so I'd say it WAS before > Harry's birth. > > As for Snape coming to teach the year after -- yes, after that trial, > I'd say, where Dumbledore vouched for him. I guess that Slughorn > retired after Longbottoms were tortured, thus leaving a place open > for Snape... > > Finwitch > Hickengruendler: I don't agree. The Longbottoms were tortured after Voldemort's downfall. And Snape went to Hogwarts before to Voldemorts downfall. He told Bellatrix that Voldemort ordered him there to spy on Dumbledore. And Voldemort after GH couldn't have ordered him anywhere. Even if he was lying to the Black sisters reagarding his true loyalties (which I think he was) Bellatrix and/or Narcissa probably knew, when Snape started teaching, therefore this point was probably the truth. My best guess is, that Snape started teaching in September 1981, 2 months before the attack on Godric's Hollow. The Longbottom attack was sometimes later. From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Thu Apr 13 21:12:32 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 21:12:32 -0000 Subject: Harry and Snape's redemption In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150929 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Don L." wrote: Don: > My first post. After reading and enjoying this forum since joining > several weeks ago, I believe, along with many readers, that the > Snape/Dumbledore/Potter triangle as it relates to redemption, > sacrifice and heroism to be the most fascinating and anticipated > aspect of the Harry Potter series as it draws to conclusion. I have > read hundreds of books of fiction, my favorites haveing been the LOTR > series, the Chronicles of Narnia, now joined by the Harry Potter > series. While undeniably different in plot and character, their > thematic approach to love, friendship, redemption and sacrifice flow > through each story defining strength and hope, and encouraging the > reader that in the end good indeed will always triumph over evil. Geoff: Welcome to the group I would agree with you in your analysis that the themes of the books under discussion are similar but I feel that there are ways in which these three differ quite widely in their approach especially in the three characters of Aslan, Gandalf and Dumbledore. I have said in the past that I do not see any characters in the Harry Potter books as being Christ; some may possibly be Christ-/like/ but that is not the same. In the Narnia Chronicles, Aslan is quite definitely a Christ figure because the stories tell of Christ's life on earth in an allegorical fashion. The great lion is the son of the Emperor- over-Sea who has come to save the inhabitants of Narnia from evil ? personified by the White Witch. He gives his life for Edmund to save him and after being killed by the forces of evil who think they have won, he returns to life to defeat them. This sets out the basic foundation of Christian faith in a form for children. But, moving on to the Lord of the Rings, Gandalf differs again in that, although he is an immortal, he is not a Christ figure. We are told in "The Silmarillion" that Eru created the Ainur ? beings who we would consider probably as angels -in the beginning. The senior of these were the Valar but there was a lesser group of these called the Maiar; Gandalf was a Maia. He was sent to Middle-Earth along with others such as Saruman and Radagast to help the folk of Middle-Earth to oppose Sauron. Although he dies in combat with the Balrog and later returned to life, he does not fit the character of a Christ figure. Dumbeldore, again, differs from these two. He is not God in human form; he is not an angelic being; he is an elderly and wise human wizard who draws upon the experience of a long life to lead the opposition to those who want to see evil, currently in the shape of Voldemort, taking over the world. If his death at the end of "Half-Blood Prince" did not happen but Snape in some way made it appear to have been so, then that of course is not returning from the dead. My own personal feeling is that he was definitely killed; for me, the jury is still out as to Snape's motives, and will probably remain so until the final book appears. Hence, to reiterate my earlier comment, I feel that these three characters are very different in what and who they are and comparisons between them must take this on board and be carefully balanced. Regarding Voldemort's attitude to love and sacrifice, I have remarked in the past that he is very similar in this to Sauron in LOTR. Gandalf points out on one occasion that Sauron's quest for power and belief in the Ring blinds him to the fact that there are people in Middle-Earth who would even be prepared to consider its destruction to save their world. Perhaps this is why so much of Voldemort's planning has been directed towards killing Harry because he sees himas a potential usurper of his position and someone who is merely seeking revenge rather than the removal of the power base which he has constructed. From DaveH47 at mindspring.com Thu Apr 13 22:59:36 2006 From: DaveH47 at mindspring.com (Dave Hardenbrook) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 15:59:36 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] James Potter and the Dark Arts (was Re: The Huge overreactions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1776175278.20060413155936@mindspring.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150930 Thursday, April 13, 2006, 11:26:32 AM, finwitch wrote: f> ... Sirius Orion Black was morally Brightest of those in f> the Black family... Is that name "Orion" Canon? Is there are precedent for Black middle names being Constellations? Because if so, then I would like to submit a new nomination for the identity of RAB... . . . . . . . . . Andromeda! -- Dave From zarleycat at sbcglobal.net Fri Apr 14 03:46:51 2006 From: zarleycat at sbcglobal.net (kiricat4001) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 03:46:51 -0000 Subject: Why Dumbledore had to die In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150931 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" wrote: massive snippage > I have frequently fantasized a final scene in which Harry's friends > willingly step forward and place themselves between Harry and > Voldemort. Each gladly willing to die so that their friend Harry can > live and fight on much like Lily gladly and willingly dies to save her > son. That is power; that is power that Voldemort never can and never > will understand. Marianne: I don't recall if anyone else has posted anything similar to this. I find this thought vaguely disturbing and I don't really know why. Maybe it's the idea that, if other people are so willing to leap between danger and Harry, that it keeps removing the burden of defeating Voldemort from Harry. OTOH, I can readily see Harry's allies dashing forward to take the shot aimed at Harry with the idea that this will help Harry move on. Can anyone not believe that Ron would throw himself in front of an AK aimed at Harry, just so that Harry would survive and fight on against evil? The willingness to sacrifice oneself so that the Hero can continue on his journey, whether out of love for the Hero or a willingness to sacrifice oneself for the greater good, certainly seems to be something that Voldemort would not understand. And this could make for a powerful tool... Steve: > Yes, Voldemort can send his Death Eaters to their death, but they do > not die as a glad and willing choice. They do not die out of true > loyalty and true love. Their choice is to die at the hands of the > enemy with a fighting chance, or to be cut down by Voldemort. Much > like Peter sacrificing his hand, they do so, but they are not willing > or eager, they simply see no other choice, so they comply. Marianne: Unless their name is Bellatrix, in which case they would do anything to themselves or anyone around them to make Voldy happy. Steve: > Harry on the otherhand would prefer to send his friends away to keep > them safe while taking on the full burden himself. That makes Harry > and his friends very and significantly different than Voldemort and > his DE's. For Harry, I think that is part of his untapped power. > > As a final rambling note, I recall JKR saying something to the effect > that - > > "...Harry, also, in the course of previous six books has amassed more > knowledge than he realizes...." [Melissa-Emerson interview; pg 3; > LeakyCauldron.org] > > That seems important. One of the great things about the final book in > a series is that it pulls together events and people from the previous > books, and their true significance becomes clear. JKR's statement > above implies that there are things from each book that have > importance beyond their individual stories. It's going to be amazing > to see JKR pull all the characters and events into perspective. Marianne: Well, I hope so. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she will be able to pull it off without it looking too contrived or manipulative. I want to see the process of Harry putting it all together. I don't want to see him suddenly leap out from a dark, musty room in 12 GP with a coherent battle plan or a map to all the remaining Horcruxes in hand. I want to see a struggle where Harry applies all he has learned and all he within his heart and mind. I want to see him have a (believable) moment where it all comes together - part knowledge(book smarts), part instinct(innate talent), part hunch(trusting in himself) - in some sort of revelation that seems so right, that ties everything together so firmly, that we all want to jump on the same roller coaster and ride it out to the finish. Steve: > I think it will be equally amazing to see all the seemingly > insignificant events from the pervious books jell in Harry's mind and > become a coherent plan for dealing with Voldemort. The clues must > certainly be there, if we only knew how to interpret them. > > Of course, in the last book, I am looking forward to how Harry will > defeat Voldemort, but the most exciting thing for me is seeing how > everything falls into place. How diverse and seeming insignificant > characters are sudden revealed in their true purpose. Marianne: And my firm wish is that Harry will defeat Voldemort, but with a lingering sense of unfinished business. I believe that evil will never be defeated on this green earth, people being what they are. There is always a doorway for the next budding tyrant to walk through. So, yes, I want to see Voldemort defeated, but I also want to see an acknowledgement that he is not the be all and end all of evil, and that, though he may go down in flames, there is always someone else lurking in the wings to take up the mantle of violent hatred. The battle against evil is never-ending. After all, if all the bad stuff disappeared on earth, why would we need heaven? Marianne From quick_silver71 at yahoo.ca Fri Apr 14 05:50:43 2006 From: quick_silver71 at yahoo.ca (quick_silver71) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 05:50:43 -0000 Subject: Why Dumbledore had to die In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150932 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kiricat4001" wrote: > > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" wrote: > massive snippage > > I have frequently fantasized a final scene in which Harry's friends > > willingly step forward and place themselves between Harry and > > Voldemort. Each gladly willing to die so that their friend Harry > can > > live and fight on much like Lily gladly and willingly dies to save > her > > son. That is power; that is power that Voldemort never can and > never > > will understand. > > Marianne: > > I don't recall if anyone else has posted anything similar to this. > I find this thought vaguely disturbing and I don't really know why. > Maybe it's the idea that, if other people are so willing to leap > between danger and Harry, that it keeps removing the burden of > defeating Voldemort from Harry. OTOH, I can readily see Harry's > allies dashing forward to take the shot aimed at Harry with the idea > that this will help Harry move on. Can anyone not believe that Ron > would throw himself in front of an AK aimed at Harry, just so that > Harry would survive and fight on against evil? > > The willingness to sacrifice oneself so that the Hero can continue > on his journey, whether out of love for the Hero or a willingness to > sacrifice oneself for the greater good, certainly seems to be > something that Voldemort would not understand. And this could make > for a powerful tool... I find it disturbing because really I can't see their sacrifices as being anything but pointless. Oh if it allowed Harry to regain his balance or clear his head then the sacrifice would make sense to me but if all of Harry's friends stepped in front of him before the final battle to me, IMO, it would be glorified suicide, selfish, and utterly contrary to what Harry is trying to do. I'm being a little overly harsh here but to step in front of Harry before he confronts Voldemort is to deny Harry's entire mission, his goal in life before he even truly realized it, to place ones need to see Harry survive in front of ones need to see Harry accomplish what must be done. If Ron or Hermione or Colin or Draco or Snape or anyone dies because they place themselves between Harry and Voldemort and it isn't for "tactical" reasons (i.e. to save Harry like Lily did) but to prove that their willing to go out with Harry or stand with Harry or something like that then their sacrifice is basically pointless. Imagine being Harry and after having defeated Voldemort realizing that Ron and Hermione shouldn't have stood in front of him and that they died for nothing. That to me would be a tragedy. Quick_Silver From DaveH47 at mindspring.com Fri Apr 14 08:17:23 2006 From: DaveH47 at mindspring.com (Dave Hardenbrook) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 01:17:23 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] A Possible Horcrux? (Long) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1764907244.20060414011723@mindspring.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150933 sweety12783 wrote: s> Rowena Ravenclaw is known for her great intelligence and creativity. s> I think I know an heirloom of hers ... Rowena means "red-haired," in s> Gaelic language. Now I think that everyone knows where I am going s> with this. The Weasleys. Now there is one item that the Weasleys s> possess that is very unique, and clever. Mrs. Weasley told Harry (in s> HBP) that she is only one that possesses such an item. This item is s> the clock. Dave: I agree that I think a Weasley heirloom is the Ravenclaw Horcrux, but I think it's the tiara Molly has promised to Fleur. -- Dave From talisman22457 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 14 09:07:24 2006 From: talisman22457 at yahoo.com (Talisman) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 09:07:24 -0000 Subject: LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank Know "Something" In-Reply-To: <00ab01c65c54$be189c50$6401a8c0@MITRE.ORG> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150934 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "rebecca" wrote: >Would not talk about "what"? How would Frank know anything about >where LV went? Couple this with JKR's statement that the LeStranges >weren't in on the secret of the prophecy - and according to >herself, Bella et all were sent directly to the Longbottoms only a >few weeks after LV's disappearance but not to kill Neville. They >specifically were the ones the DE's wanted. (Another question: who >the hell *sent them* if LV was MIA? Don't blame me for asking, >blame Rowling for her site's answer to the question of the >choice.) >Snip< rebecca, who thinks this is reaching but can't >account for another reason why the Longbottoms would be singled out Talisman, takes a break from dusting for prints on the tower wall: The Sting Theory is a rather old and a theory to which I have always adhered. Indeed, it has only been validated by succeeding revelations. But, I don't agree that it was set up by any unknown spy, and I certainly don't agree that Lucius was too young to manage it at ~26- 27 years of age. Nope. It's all slippery Lucius. Like many DEs, Malfoy was not thrilled with life as one of Voldemort's minions. Psychopaths can be so tiresome. There was a lot of hem-kissing involved in DL maintenance, not to mention prostrations and walking around on your knees. You never knew when he might ask you to, say, chop off your right hand, for him. Any little screw ups and the best you could hope for was a Cruciatus session. Even sucking unicorn blood whist giving him a ride in your head wouldn?ft insure that he wouldn't leave you to die, without so much as a backward glance. (Yes, I know, we saw all these behaviors after GH, but they *are* indicative of life under the DL, no?) The DE retirement program was strictly feet first, and it was an unfortunate occupation for wizards with personal ambitions. Start looking too interested in your own advancement, and you were likely to get the Usurper Special. Unfortunate indeed, because where ambitions were concerned, Lucius Malfoy was Slyth all the way. So for Messer. Malfoy, Halloween 1980 turned out to be Christmas. Break out the elf-made wine, Narcissa. Whoo-hooo. Our Lu had already managed a level of respect within the ranks, and with the DL out of the picture, he could use established DE networks, and his considerable wealth, to make sure the WW was run, more every day, the Malfoy way. Might even be able to groom a puppet for MoM. (Lucius himself had no personal interest in a job filled with the daily tedium of administrative affairs, but how pleasant it would be to have a Minister who understood just who was *really* the boss.) Yes, the future was looking bright. Sure, there were rumors that the Dark Lord was still out there. Some sort of putrid mist in Albania. But he seemed incapable of so much as summoning anyone to his aid--and, oddly enough--no one was in the mood to go looking. No one but Malfoy's whack-o sister-in-law and her cadre of maniacs, that is. Oh, yes, she'd been around to the manor regularly, exhorting Lucius to do his bit to find her beloved Master. It was mighty inconvenient to have her suggesting there was more to be done. Better to cultivate an alibi of resignation to You-Know-Who's demise, just in case he ever *did* manage a return. Worse yet, that band of die-hards might actually succeed in bringing him back. Nope. Something must be done--and in true Malfoy style. Nothing obvious. Nothing that would point back to Malfoy himself. A nice little sting. Easy enough to feed Bella & Co. a nonsensical story about how this Longbottom Auror knows what happened to the Dark Lord. Get her all pumped up on Glory and Restoration. Then, when the date's fixed, have a little talk with a certain ambitious Junior Minister in the Department of Magical Catastrophes. Explain how you'd like to keep a low profile, ratting out your sister-in-law and all. And by the way, Cornelius, it's a shame but I think Crouch's son will be with them, too. Tsk, tsk. Imagine what this could do to old Barty's career, and him a shoe-in to be Minister, and all. But you, my dear Fudge, will certainly deserve a promotion for capturing this last vicious gang of DEs. Yes, I think your star is about to rise; we should chat more about this...perhaps over dinner? Maybe Lucius's tip was off by a few hours, accidentally on purpose. Nothing like getting a few vicarious torture jollies. Maybe Fudge agreed that everyone's hands should be nice a dirty before the bust. Maybe a little of both. Too bad for the Longbottoms, but they really weren't important, anyway. Just the bait. The spring snaps and Bella, Barty Jr--and the Dark Lord?fs remaining would-be rescuers--are safely neutralized (it is supposed) for life. I don't think Lucius worried about being named in a prosecutor's deal, at all. For one thing, Bella's crowd was too fanatical to cut deals--but better yet--Fudge would vouch for him as the informant. Plenty of insurance. As icing on the cake, some Muggle-Loving Dark Wizard hunters have been Crucio-ed to a fate worse than death, that bastard Crouch Sr.-- who authorized Ak-ing DEs--will never be Minister of Magic, and an upwardly mobile little politico is eating out of your hand. Not bad for a day's work. Why the Longbottoms specifically? Sure, they were hated Aurors; they were popular (the outrage factor was helpful); everyone had let their guard down, so they were easy prey; and who knows, maybe Lucius had some more personal score to settle with them, from the not-so-old days. But I agree with Pippin this far: it had nothing to do with what the Longbottoms really knew. As houyhnhnm points out, Lucius may have accompanied Voldemort to GH, and may have known that the Longbottom's were next. Lucius does seem to know something about the Potter's deaths when he sneers, in CoS, about Harry meeting the same *sticky end.* For whatever reason--and Bella wouldn't have needed much of one--if Lucius merely suggested Frank had information, he would not have had to *order* her to go anywhere. Just pointing the finger-- embellished by assurances that she might get information useful to bringing the DL back--would have been more than enough to *send her* after anyone. Talisman saying, It fits like a glove, as long as *you* don't fall for Lucius's story. ; ) From mgrantwich at yahoo.com Fri Apr 14 13:43:49 2006 From: mgrantwich at yahoo.com (Magda Grantwich) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 06:43:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank Know "Something" In-Reply-To: <336.2175196.316c7011@aol.com> Message-ID: <20060414134349.94115.qmail@web53111.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150935 > Rebecca wrote: re:the Longbottoms > but not to kill Neville. They specifically were the ones the > DE's wanted. > (Another question: who the hell *sent them* if LV was MIA? Don't > blame me for asking, blame Rowling for her site's answer to the > question of the choice.) > Some people have ruled out Lucius Malfoy but I do think it was him for the following reasons: 1. Assuming Bellatrix was the leader of the hit-squad, it would have had to be someone whose authority to give orders she recognized or whose opinion she respected. Otherwise she wouldn't have done it. Can you see Bellatrix taking orders from non-U wizards, pureblood or not? Not if she imbibed the "Blacks are practically royalty" ethos that Sirius ascribed to his family. Lucius was her brother-in-law, someone she was in contact with regularly and someone who she either respected enough to obey with a minimum of fuss or someone who knew how to manipulate her to get her to do what he wanted (probably a combination of both). 2. The motives of the hit-squad were likely not the motives of the individual who sent them. Bellatrix et all thought they were finding out info about their beloved Leader missing in action; the sender was more interested in causing a crisis that would stymie the MoM in its efforts to clean-up the DE's. I believe Red Hen's theory that the attack was an effort to discredit Barty Crouch Sr. who was about to unleash a *ahem* witch-hunt (couldn't resist the pun; so many layers of irony!) against Voldemort's supporters. Crouch Sr. was a megalomaniac dictator who wanted to exterminate Voldemortism root and branch. Revealing his son as a DE would cripple his moral authority and and ensure that he wouldn't become Minister of Magic. Thus someone more pliable would get the job, someone who might be persuaded that it was more important to get the WW back to normal rather than drag out the unpleasantness for the years it would take to prosecute everyone. No way would Barty Crouch Sr. have let so many people successfully claim they were imperiused. 3. Lucius Malfoy is the one DE we've seen who seems capable of harbouring personal ambitions under the cloak of his loyalty to Voldemort. Once the unthinkable happened and Voldemort was apparently destroyed, I think Lucius was quick enough to see the possibilities for his own interests in the aftermath. I'm betting that the die-hard older DE's went to Azkaban (and were proud to do so, for the cause) while Lucius worked hard to save as many of his own friends and contemporaries as possible from incarceration. The older loyalists probably sneered at the imperius defense but they sneered from the wrong side of the prison walls. Thus did Voldemort's organization turn into a smaller but still potent Malfoy organization within a short period of time. So, in summary, Lucius Malfoy is the logical instigator of the attack on the Longbottoms since IMO the purpose wasn't to find out where Voldemort was (that was only the pretext). The true purpose was to stop the MOM and Barty Crouch Sr. from hunting down every DE and sympathizer in the WW. And it worked perfectly. Magda (who thinks Lucius Malfoy was quite dismayed at the return of Voldemort in the graveyard in GOF) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 14 18:14:30 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 18:14:30 -0000 Subject: The Lucius Sting Theory/Bella's "cadre of maniacs" (Was: Where'd He Go . . .) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150936 Talisman wrote: > The Sting Theory is a rather old and a theory to which I have always adhered. Indeed, it has only been validated by succeeding evelations. > But, I don't agree that it was set up by any unknown spy, and I certainly don't agree that Lucius was too young to manage it at ~26-27 years of age. > Nope. It's all slippery Lucius. > The DE retirement program was strictly feet first, and it was an unfortunate occupation for wizards with personal ambitions. Start looking too interested in your own advancement, and you were likely to get the Usurper Special. Unfortunate indeed, because where ambitions were concerned, Lucius Malfoy was Slyth all the way. So for Messer. Malfoy, Halloween 1980 turned out to be Christmas. Break out the elf-made wine, Narcissa. Whoo-hooo. > Our Lu had already managed a level of respect within the ranks, and with the DL out of the picture, he could use established DE networks, and his considerable wealth, to make sure the WW was run, more every day, the Malfoy way. Might even be able to groom a puppet for MoM. > Yes, the future was looking bright. Sure, there were rumors that the Dark Lord was still out there. Some sort of putrid mist in Albania. But he seemed incapable of so much as summoning anyone to his aid--and, oddly enough--no one was in the mood to go looking. No one but Malfoy's whack-o sister-in-law and her cadre of maniacs, that is. > Oh, yes, she'd been around to the manor regularly, exhorting Lucius to do his bit to find her beloved Master. It was mighty inconvenient to have her suggesting there was more to be done. Better to cultivate an alibi of resignation to You-Know-Who's demise, just in case he ever *did* manage a return. > Worse yet, that band of die-hards might actually succeed in bringing him back. Nope. Something must be done--and in true Malfoy style. Nothing obvious. Nothing that would point back to Malfoy himself. A nice little sting. > Easy enough to feed Bella & Co. a nonsensical story about how this Longbottom Auror knows what happened to the Dark Lord. Get her all pumped up on Glory and Restoration. Then, when the date's fixed, have a little talk with a certain ambitious Junior Minister in the Department of Magical Catastrophes. > > Explain how you'd like to keep a low profile, ratting out your sister-in-law and all. And by the way, Cornelius, it's a shame but I think Crouch's son will be with them, too. Tsk, tsk. Imagine what this could do to old Barty's career, and him a shoe-in to be Minister, and all. > Too bad for the Longbottoms, but they really weren't important, anyway. Just the bait. The spring snaps and Bella, Barty Jr--and the Dark Lord?fs remaining would-be rescuers--are safely neutralized (it is supposed) for life. > I don't think Lucius worried about being named in a prosecutor's deal, at all. For one thing, Bella's crowd was too fanatical to cut deals--but better yet--Fudge would vouch for him as the informant. > Plenty of insurance. > As icing on the cake, some Muggle-Loving Dark Wizard hunters have been Crucio-ed to a fate worse than death, that bastard Crouch Sr.-- who authorized Ak-ing DEs--will never be Minister of Magic, and an upwardly mobile little politico is eating out of your hand. > As houyhnhnm points out, Lucius may have accompanied Voldemort to GH, and may have known that the Longbottom's were next. Lucius does seem to know something about the Potter's deaths when he sneers, in CoS, about Harry meeting the same *sticky end.* > For whatever reason--and Bella wouldn't have needed much of one--if Lucius merely suggested Frank had information, he would not have had to *order* her to go anywhere. Just pointing the finger--embellished by assurances that she might get information useful to bringing the DL back--would have been more than enough to *send her* after anyone. > Talisman saying, It fits like a glove, as long as *you* don't fall for Lucius's story. ; ) Carol responds: I hated to snip any of this delightful post, most of which I agree with, so I, erm, squished it together. I agree that it had to be Lucius who "sent" (not "ordered"--good distinction) Bella et al. to the Longbottoms. It's in character,as you've demonstrated beautifully: he had the motive (make that multiple motives), the opportunity (Bella was his sister-in-law and no doubt, a frequent guest at Malfoy Manor, perhaps with the Lestrange brothers in tow), and the means (Bella was an expert Cruciatrix and a sadist to boot). (I'm guessing, BTW, that Narcissa knew nothing about it or she might have tried to dissuade her sister from such a risky mission.) I also agree that the Longbottoms knew nothing about LV's disappearance and that it was all a set-up to land the fanatical faction in Azkaban and free slippery Lucius to get on with his plans to influence a certain upcoming MoM employee who happened to be his contemporary (and maybe others as well) to run things his way. The only point (and it's a minor one) that I disagree with is Lucius's possible presence at Godric's Hollow. There's no indication from the Dementor-induced memories that the Potters saw anyone except Voldemort. (We know that Wormtail was there, too, but he could hide in rat form and the Potters would not have seen him. Lucius, AFWK, has no such advantage.) Lucius's sneering reaction to the Potters' deaths in CoS is interesting--he sounds like a loyal DE who really mourns LV--and maybe he's convinced himself that he does--as long as LV is never coming back. And of course, the Potters were Order members and by definition the enemies of any DE (and a blood traitor and "Mudblood," respectively). His evident dislike of Harry, even though the boy had unwittingly done him a favor by vaporizing Voldemort, would fit in with that view. Or maybe he's just sneering at the brat who interfered with his plan to kill off Muggle-borns at Hogwarts via the monster in the Chamber without getting his hands dirty, get Dumbledore sacked, and get even with the Weasleysby involving their daughter in the murders. And now, in addition to thwarting this lovely plan, Harry has caused him to lose his "servant," Dobby (I'm hearing Jason Isaacs' voice here and can't remember the wording from the book!) so he has an additional grudge against Harry. Still, just hoping that Harry shares the same sticky end as his parents doesn't seem to me to be sufficient evidence that Lucius was at GH. (This incident does, however, show how Lucius's mind works and how he operates through others, pretty good evidence in itself that he's the instigator of the attack on the Longbottoms.) That aside, I want to mention that Bella's "cadre of maniacs" (can you tell that I like the phrase?), aside from the mad little fanatic, Barty Jr., consists of her husband Rodolphus and her brother-in-law, Rabastan. We get glimpses of them, without knowing which is which, in the GoF Pensieve scene, and again in the Battle of the DoM in OoP. Bellatrix and Rodolphus start out together. Rabastan is with Crabbe, who, if I've figured out the sequence of events correctly, ends up with a baby head. (Is he still in St. Mungo's or in Azkaban, I wonder?) We later see Bella with two men behind her as they burst through a closed door; evidently Rabastan, having lost his assigned partner to a Time Turner, has rejoined his leader, Bellatrix. It's an interesting little triangle that seems to involve the brothers' devotion to her and hers to Voldemort, with no love in the ordinary sense, or sexual attraction, either. (It's no coincidence, IMO, that despite young Bella's sultry beauty and her marriage to another pureblood, she's childless.) Yet her husband and his brother(!) apparently follow her around, obedient to her wishes and commands--a follow-the-leader syndrome, with Bella as near-royalty (note her haughty demeanor in the Pensieve scene) and perhaps the Dark Lord's favorite, as she claims. So when Bella suggests Crucioing Frank Longbottom to force him to tell what he knows about LV (picking up, I agree, on Lucius's strategically dropped hint), her boys (who would actually be men in their late twenties if they're close to her age) would eagerly have done her bidding. And young Barty Crouch, equally fanatical and wanting to help bring back his leader (not to mention practice his new Crucioing skills) would easily have been talked into joining them. Carol, still trying to figure out why Rabastan is so often overlooked when people talk about the Lestranges ("They're a married couple") and why JKR bothered to give Rodolphus a brother when so far he seems unnecessary to the plot From lauciricad at yahoo.com Fri Apr 14 17:36:08 2006 From: lauciricad at yahoo.com (Don L.) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 17:36:08 -0000 Subject: Harry and Snape's redemption In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150937 Geoff, "..I feel that these three characters are very different in what and who they are and comparisons between them must take this on board and be carefully balanced." - Agreed! - Here are my further thoughts. I generally understand and agree with the Christ ? Aslan & Gandolf arguments, however some arguments often weaken as each reader attributes and associates specific details. My argument generally focuses on the transition from mentor (A, G & D) to hero (Peter, Susan, etc, Frodo and Harry), and how each hero progresses from the demise of their mentor toward their ultimate goal, and how each follows transition follows a common theme. (You could add another mentor/hero relationship as well ? that of Obi Wan/Yoda and Luke for Star Wars.) Relative to there kind, the mentors are older than there peers and respective heros. Each while sage admit at some point to withholding valuable information, keeping their thoughts, plans and devices to them selves or others. G & D on numerous occasions are very selective almost to the point of perceived disaster with whom they give information. I believe in large part this is a writer's method of keeping the hero (Harry and Frodo) and the readers in the dark (suspense) but allowing for the plot to progress logically ? at least as it unfolds at the conclusion. Frodo and Harry are depicted early on as unable to understand or act correctly by G & D if given information. The mentors often disappear, cut short discussions and generally only answer questions when the hero is "ready" to accept the answer. This is a typical mentor/parent ? adept/child relationship. However they are quite ready to explain there plans to others, often to the frustration of the hero. This frustration and uncertainty through the eyes of the hero and reader again provides the suspense of the story. Aslan, Gandolf and Dumbledore (and Obi-Wan), truly understood their own individual importance and destiny relative to their respective heros, as means for determining the outcome. Each understood that their demise would strengthen their heros, certainly forcing them to rely on themselves and friends, and to accept their destinies. Interestingly, each mentor anticipates their sacrifice, but not the time or place, but as the story progresses the mentors develop the circumstance and prepare the hero, and at the moment of sacrifice without hesitation accept their demise, understanding their time has come to an end. Each hero upon the deaths of A, G & D understood at that point they were basically on their own after a short period of shock, denial, anger and acceptance. Peter, Frodo and Harry all quickly began to make important decisions almost immediately upon their respective mentor's deaths, albeit not correct at first. Yes, later Aslan and Gandolf were instrumental to the outcomes, but from that point each hero began to act as a decision maker. Each relied on family and friends, but from that point all other primary characters, i.e. Susan, Aragon, Han Solo & Liea and I expect the Order defer to the decisions of the hero. I believe the mentors, Gandolf, Aslan, Obi- wan and Dumbledore specifically understood, anticipated and intended this as part of their anticipated sacrifice ? having done enough to prepare the hero and for that matter others for the inevitable destiny of the Hero. This is where I believe the relationship between Aslan, Gandolf, Dumbledore, Obi-Wan (and if you can add in Christ) share a common bond. Don L. From lauciricad at yahoo.com Fri Apr 14 18:18:46 2006 From: lauciricad at yahoo.com (Don L.) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 18:18:46 -0000 Subject: Harry and Snape's redemption In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150938 Alla and Sherry, Alla agreeing with Sherry: summarizing your points (I hope)!" "Yes, Sherry I also don't see any signs of Harry feeling guilt over Lily's death in the books and moreover I hope JKR definitely does not write it that Harry has such guilt even subconsciously, because even though I am not the big fan of the speculations based on JKR wanting or not wanting to send certain messages to the audience, I cannot imagine JKR telling kids who lost their parents that it is somehow their fault." Don replies: I can understand your arguments relative to Harry having his mother's death on his conscience. Maybe conscience was misused. You would agree that Harry understands and acknowledges the price and power in Lily's decision. I suggest her decision will be a "burden". Harry will pay the love and sacrifice and love of his mother, Dumbledore by having at some point forgive the person he believes caused the death of them ? Snape. I believe this will be a primary theme that of accepting and returning love and sacrifice, as the story approaches and reaches the conclusion. As mentioned in my original post, I believe that Harry's true failing and misunderstanding of Snape will be important factor, and will be resolved by Harry's understanding his mothers love and sacrifice and equating it with what I anticipate will be Snape's sacrifice, and the "burden" or "acceptance" of Lily's love will assist Harry in his final recognition of Snape's sacrifice. Don From lauciricad at yahoo.com Fri Apr 14 19:11:03 2006 From: lauciricad at yahoo.com (Don L.) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 19:11:03 -0000 Subject: Harry and Snape's redemption In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150939 Shelly: "Gollum is no misunderstood tragic hero." Don: My further thoughts on this: I am not a Snape lover, but like Gollum, Spape's actions and motives are often misread and confused by both the heros and readers. I believe Snape and Gollum are often confused themselves, and as the primary heros of the story, Harry and Frodo, become more aware of the Snape's and Gollum's childhood, etc. become more compassionate and understanding ? as does the reader. Frodo on many occasions, acknowledging the twisted evil of Gollum, also empathizes with heim, sparing or causing others to spare Gollum's life. Harry has not yet with Snape, but I anticipate he will, assuming also as I do, that Snape is fighting against Voldemort. Gollum and Snape's character, motives and actions are interestingly parallel. Both are despised by most; however each finds acceptance that motivates them too uncharacteristic acts in support of others and the common good. Both find acceptance however. Gollum is accepted by Frodo, Snape is trusted and accepted by Dumbledore. In return both take on incredible risk to return this acceptance, regardless that their true nature remain cruel and self-centered. Both are striving in parallel with the goals of the hero, but each are not destined to be successful. Gollum seeks unwittingly to prevent Sauron from re-obtaining the ring by the mistaken goal of retrieving the ring for himself. Snape would avenge Lily, by getting close enough to kill Voldemort or destroy the Horcruxes - an almost impossible task. Both are obsessed, paranoid and twisted enough think they can accomplish it themselves. I suppose the question is; Are Gollum and Snape heros? I suggest both are willing, to stand up to the power and evil of Sauron and Voldemort respectively, while many others are content to stand by the wayside - a good qualifier of heroism. This fact, however, avoids their motives, so their identification as a heros is suspect. If not heros, anti-heros maybe? I, however believe they at least act heroically, acting outside of their self-interests at critical junctures, furthering the causes of their respective heros. Don From celizwh at intergate.com Fri Apr 14 20:54:22 2006 From: celizwh at intergate.com (houyhnhnm102) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 20:54:22 -0000 Subject: The "Gang of Slytherins" (wasThe Lucius Sting Theory/Bella's "cadre " ) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150940 Carol: > So when Bella suggests Crucioing Frank Longbottom to > force him to tell what he knows about LV (picking up, > I agree, on Lucius's strategically dropped hint), her > boys (who would actually be men in their late twenties > if they're close to her age) [snip] > Carol, still trying to figure out why Rabastan is so > often overlooked when people talk about the Lestranges > ("They're a married couple") and why JKR bothered to give > Rodolphus a brother when so far he seems unnecessary to > the plot. houyhnhnm: They could have even been in their thirties, as Bellatrix herself would have been 30, at the time of LV's demise. Which is something that's been bothering me since the Black family tree was made public. In GoF27, Sirius says: "Snape knew more curses when he arrived at school than half the kids in seventh year, and he was part of a gang of Slytherins who nearly all turned out to be Death Eaters" Sirius held up his fingers and began ticking off names. "Rosier and Wilkes--they were killed by aurors the year before Voldemort fell. The Lestranges--they're a married couple [or trio]--they're in Azkaban." Snape could not have been part of a gang that included Bellatrix while he was at Hogwarts. She is at least eight years older than he. Thus their school years could not have overlapped at all, although, if her husband is younger than she is, he could have been at Hogwarts when Snape was, and so could the brother-in-law, but only just barely. Still, Sirius, says "The Lestranges--they're a married couple". He is definately including Bellatrix. Is he lying, or getting the Hogwarts years mixed up with the '78-'81 years even though he supposedly doesn't know anything about Snape's activities during that period? Or is it just that hopelessly math-challenged Ms. Rowling striking again? PS: Talisman, I loved the Sting Theory. I'm ready to adopt it. From sherriola at earthlink.net Fri Apr 14 21:28:12 2006 From: sherriola at earthlink.net (Sherry Gomes) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 14:28:12 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Harry and Snape's redemption In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150941 Don wrote: Gollum and Snape's character, motives and actions are interestingly parallel. Both are despised by most; however each finds acceptance that motivates them too uncharacteristic acts in support of others and the common good. Both find acceptance however. Gollum is accepted by Frodo, Snape is trusted and accepted by Dumbledore. In return both take on incredible risk to return this acceptance, regardless that their true nature remain cruel and self-centered. sherry now: More LOTR spoilers. S P O I L E R S P A C E Gollum take on incredible risk to aid the hero? seriously? Gollum aided Frodo as a means of survival and with the intention of treachery. This is clearly born out in the books by the eventual leading of Frodo into the lair of shelob. Gollum wasn't concerned with anything but getting his precious back. He tried to come between Frodo and Sam, and otherwise do anything he could to isolate Frodo. Everything he did was with the intent of stealing away the ring. The fact that he ended up unwittingly keeping the ring from Sauron and destroying it unintentionally, does not mean he cared about fighting Sauron or that he was good or heroic in the end. and what poor childhood? He came from a wealthy family, so he wasn't deprived in whatever would be considered poverty or deprivation in his world. His first act in the saga--not counting the years later first meeting with Bilbo--was to commit murder of his best friend in order to steal the ring. To me, this is not a hero or even an anti-hero. Don again: I suppose the question is; Are Gollum and Snape heros? I suggest both are willing, to stand up to the power and evil of Sauron and Voldemort respectively, while many others are content to stand by the wayside - a good qualifier of heroism. This fact, however, avoids their motives, so their identification as a heros is suspect. If not heros, anti-heros maybe? I, however believe they at least act heroically, acting outside of their self-interests at critical junctures, furthering the causes of their respective heros. sherry: I've read LOTR dozens of times, and I have never read one scene in which Gollum stood up to Sauron or did anything selfless for anyone. Every single action he takes is in his effort to betray Frodo to get the ring back. I can pity anyone so obsessed with such an evil object, but in general have no pity for someone who would betray the only one who ever showed him compassion or pity. He wasn't fighting against Sauron or anything remotely noble in any way. He was just lusting after the Ring. It was his obsession, it ruled and possessed him. That does not make him honorable or against Sauron or fighting the good fight. As for Snape, as yet, we have no canon that he loved Lily and feels some great remorse for his part in her death. And what did he do to try to further the cause of Voldemort's downfall? Another hero who betrayed the one person in the world who gave him absolute trust, probably even love. Again, for me, not a very honorable or noble act. I don't really see Snape and Gollum as very similar, except in this one thing: they each were willing to betray and murder the only true friend they had, to achieve their goals. With Gollum, his goal was to get the ring. We have yet to see what Snape's goal was, but I doubt strongly that murdering Dumbledore was the best way to get rid of Voldemort. in fact, I shudder to think what Voldemort will do now that the one person he ever feared is gone. As Alla said in a previous message in this thread, I can perhaps see Snape committing some act that unintentionally helps Harry and then dying. But I do not see him as either a hero or anti-hero, who will risk his life in the end, sacrifice himself to save Harry and thereby bring Voldemort's downfall. The outcome of the ring is one of the great disappointments in literature for me, that the ring is destroyed in such an unheroic way, and that Frodo was defeated by it in the end. I love LOTR, for the wonderful characters,, not just Frodo, who is only one of several heroes in the story, but the end of the ring was always terrible to me. I wanted to see Frodo, against the power the ring was holding over him, finally take it and fling it into the fire. I feel cheated every time I read and usually skip that part now. To have Snape kill Voldemort and take away Harry's final glory and success would feel like cheating too. Sherry From foxmoth at qnet.com Fri Apr 14 21:47:37 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 21:47:37 -0000 Subject: The Lucius Sting Theory/Bella's "cadre of maniacs" (Was: Where'd He Go . . .) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150942 Pippin: Lucius makes an excellent red herring for the sender, but if he's to be prime suspect, I'd like to see a hint that he knows occlumency. Otherwise surely Voldemort would have found out what he'd been up to and punished him for putting his would-be rescuers in Azkaban long before the MoM screw up. As for Bella not taking advice from half-bloods, she's been taking orders from Voldemort all these years...and if he fooled her, or if she chose to overlook what she's heard about him, that might apply to others as well. Apparently it takes a willing suspension of disbelief for anybody to rank as a pureblood these days. Further, Lucius as the sender doesn't lead us anywhere -- it introduces a personal element between Neville and Lucius, but it's too late for that. ESE!Lupin as the sender gives us a reversal between Lupin and Neville which nicely parallels the reversal between Barty Jr and Neville in GoF. > > Carol, still trying to figure out why Rabastan is so often overlooked > when people talk about the Lestranges ("They're a married couple") and > why JKR bothered to give Rodolphus a brother when so far he seems > unnecessary to the plot Pippin: I immediately thought of Rabastan as a possible RAB. Pippin happy that the sting part of her theory gets some support From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Fri Apr 14 22:13:29 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 22:13:29 -0000 Subject: Harry and Snape's redemption In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150943 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Don L." wrote: Don L: > Aslan, Gandolf and Dumbledore (and Obi-Wan), truly understood their > own individual importance and destiny relative to their respective > heros, as means for determining the outcome. Each understood that > their demise would strengthen their heros, certainly forcing them to > rely on themselves and friends, and to accept their destinies. > Interestingly, each mentor anticipates their sacrifice, but not the > time or place, but as the story progresses the mentors develop the > circumstance and prepare the hero, and at the moment of sacrifice > without hesitation accept their demise, understanding their time has > come to an end. > > Each hero upon the deaths of A, G & D understood at that point they > were basically on their own after a short period of shock, denial, > anger and acceptance. Peter, Frodo and Harry all quickly began to > make important decisions almost immediately upon their respective > mentor's deaths, albeit not correct at first. Yes, later Aslan and > Gandolf were instrumental to the outcomes, but from that point each > hero began to act as a decision maker. Each relied on family and > friends, but from that point all other primary characters, i.e. > Susan, Aragon, Han Solo & Liea and I expect the Order defer to the > decisions of the hero. I believe the mentors, Gandolf, Aslan, Obi- > wan and Dumbledore specifically understood, anticipated and intended > this as part of their anticipated sacrifice ? having done enough to > prepare the hero and for that matter others for the inevitable > destiny of the Hero. > > This is where I believe the relationship between Aslan, Gandolf, > Dumbledore, Obi-Wan (and if you can add in Christ) share a common > bond. Geoff: Hmm..... Maybe. Maybe not. Aslan obviously anticipates his death because that is part of the agreement he makes with the White Witch as she also believes that she can break the pact when he is dead... "And now, who has won? Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor? Now I will kill you instead of him as our pact was and so the Deep Magic will be appeased. But when you are dead what will prevent me from killing him as well?" (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, "The Triumph of the Witch") Peter, as the hero in this book, does not understand that he is on his own because of Aslan's death. At this point in time, the only two who know about the events at the Stone Table - and Aslan's return to life the following morning - are Lucy and Susan. Peter does find himself in charge of the army and has been instructed by Aslan but the great lion has not explained fully why this might happen.... 'During the first part of the journey, Aslan explained to Peter his plan of campaign..... He then went on to outline two plans of battle... And all the time he was advising Peter how to conduct the operations... till at last Peter said, "But you will be there yourself, Aslan" "I can give no promise of that," answered the Lion.' (ibid.) So Peter's understanding of being "basically on his own" does not follow "a short period of shock, denial, anger and acceptance"of his mentor's death. All he has to deal with is the absence of Aslan and the fact that he has been entrusted with the conduct of the battle. In the case of Gandalf, he is not expecting that his earthly incarnation is going to be ended. The confrontation with the Balrog comes as an unpleasant surprise. Consider the scene where the creature is first recognised... '"Ai! Ai!" wailed Legolas. "A Balrog! A Balrog is come!" Gimli stared with wide eyes. "Durin's Bane!" he cried and letting his axe fall he covered his eyes. "A Balrog," muttered Gandalf. "Now I understand." He faltered and leaned heavily on his staff. "What an evil fortune! And I am already weary." (Fellowship of the Ring, "The Bridge of Khazad-Dum") Gandalf is not epecting to be killed even here. Later he seems to have defeated the Balrog as it falls from the bridge and it is only in the final seconds that it drags him down as well. Again, Frodo is not left "basically on his own". He is supported by particularly by Aragorn until the fellowship separates at the end of the first book. By the time he is left only with Sam as a companion, Gandalf's death is behind him and he himself has taken the decision to go on without the others only after the problems with Boromir. And Harry...? Well before Dumbledore's death he has known that he will be alone. 'Perhaps the reason he wanted to be alone was because he had felt isolated from everybody since his talk with Dumbledore. An invisible barrier separated him from the rest of the world. He was - he had always been - a marked man. It was just that he had never really understood what that meant...' (OOTP "The Second War Begins" p.754 UK edition) Dumbledore's death obviously does create anger and shock but here we reach the grey area which awaits Book 7. Was it planned, like Aslan's because Dumbledore was already dying from the injury to his hand? Was it unexpected, like Gandalf's? I agree that the various "heroes" in the books have had to unexpectedly had to take on tasks which they did not anticipate - Harry in the sense that he may well have to operate on his own in Book 7 - but the circumstances in which they were precipitated into this are by no means identical. From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 14 22:27:54 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 22:27:54 -0000 Subject: The Sting: Lucius sent Bella (was:Re: LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150944 > >>Talisman: > Talisman, takes a break from dusting for prints on the tower wall: > The Sting Theory is a rather old and a theory to which I have > always adhered. Indeed, it has only been validated by succeeding > revelations. > > Easy enough to feed Bella & Co. a nonsensical story about how this > Longbottom Auror knows what happened to the Dark Lord. Get her > all pumped up on Glory and Restoration. Then, when the date's > fixed, have a little talk with a certain ambitious Junior Minister > in the Department of Magical Catastrophes. > Betsy Hp: Interesting theory, but I have some questions: First of all, why on earth doesn't Bellatrix nark on Lucius? Why the intense loyalty to a man who's publically disavowed her beloved leader? And that leads to a second question: Why would Bellatrix listen to, or even be around, Lucius who is doing his best at this time to disassociate from the Death Eater crew? I also question the timing of Lucius's influence over Fudge. It doesn't seem to occur from the moment Fudge took office. Remember, Fudge depends quite heavily on Dumbledore at the beginning of his career. And Arthur Weasley is given enough free rein to go after people suspected of hording forbidden dark objects, including Lucius Malfoy, during PS/SS (culminating in the diary being set loose upon his daughter in CoS.) All of those things seem to be strange courses of action for a Minister so beholden to Lucius Malfoy. > >>Magda: > > So, in summary, Lucius Malfoy is the logical instigator of the > attack on the Longbottoms since IMO the purpose wasn't to find out > where Voldemort was (that was only the pretext). The true > purpose was to stop the MOM and Barty Crouch Sr. from hunting > down every DE and sympathizer in the WW. And it worked perfectly. Betsy Hp: But hang on for a second. I thought one of the more psychologically chilling aspects of the attack on the Longbottoms was that it occured at a time when the WW thought they were finally safe, that most of the Death Eaters had been taken care of. "The attacks on [the Longbottoms] came after Voldemort's fall from power, just when everyone thought they were safe. Those attacks caused a wave of fury such as I have never known." (GoF scholastic hardback p.603) It's hard to pinpoint the exact timing of the attacks based on Dumbledore's words here, but it seems to suggest that rather than turn the public *away* from hunting down renegade Death Eaters, it actually did the opposite. Also, Lucius had already gone through his own trial by this time. He had successfully convinced Crouch that he had been acting under Imperius. I'm not sure why he would have feared the question being revisited. (Though it may well have been after the attack on the Longbottoms horrified the public.) I can see Lucius being the one to *inform* on Bellatrix (if he even knew what she was up to) in order to prevent the very hue and outcry the attack brought about. (Though I honestly doubt he did.) But I have a hard time seeing what exactly Lucius hoped to gain from sending Bellatrix on her mission in the first place, and I have a really hard time giving him that amount of influence over his sister- in-law. Betsy Hp From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 14 21:17:18 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 14:17:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Snape and Gollum WAS: Re: Harry and Snape's redemption In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060414211718.67575.qmail@web61313.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150947 Don: I am not a Snape lover, but like Gollum, Spape's actions and motives are often misread and confused by both the heros and readers. Joe: I'm not sure about this. I think for the most part everybody gets Snapes actions, he's a jerk. Even though who think he is poor tortured Snape admit this. really the only confusion is if he is a jerk who fights Voldemort or a jerk who fights for Dumbledore. Don: I believe Snape and Gollum are often confused themselves, and as the primary heros of the story, Harry and Frodo, become more aware of the Snape's and Gollum's childhood, etc. become more compassionate and understanding ? as does the reader. Frodo on many occasions, acknowledging the twisted evil of Gollum, also empathizes with heim, sparing or causing others to spare Gollum's life. Harry has not yet with Snape, but I anticipate he will, assuming also as I do, that Snape is fighting against Voldemort. Gollum and Snape's character, motives and actions are interestingly parallel. Both are despised by most; however each finds acceptance that motivates them too uncharacteristic acts in support of others and the common good. Both find acceptance however. Gollum is accepted by Frodo, Snape is trusted and accepted by Dumbledore. In return both take on incredible risk to return this acceptance, regardless that their true nature remain cruel and self-centered. Joe: I think it is safe to say that Gollum is never working for or with Frodo. Even in his very short Smeagol relapse he is doing what he has to do to get closer to the ring. Don: Both are striving in parallel with the goals of the hero, but each are not destined to be successful. Joe: Sorry but Frodo's and Gollum's goal aren't even close to each other. Frodo wants to destroy the ring amd Gollum wants to hoard it. Don: Gollum seeks unwittingly to prevent Sauron from re-obtaining the ring by the mistaken goal of retrieving the ring for himself. Snape would avenge Lily, by getting close enough to kill Voldemort or destroy the Horcruxes - an almost impossible task. Joe: Maybe you can answer this because I still haven't gotten a good answer for this. What in canon makes you think that Snape wants to avenge Lilly? Besides the pensieve scene I can't remember one single other thing and that one thing is a pretty flimsey things to base this on. He wants to avenge her death because she was once not horrible to him? As I said before if this is evidence then I am a Hermione/Grawp shipper because she was once kind to Grawp as well. Don: Both are obsessed, paranoid and twisted enough think they can accomplish it themselves. I suppose the question is; Are Gollum and Snape heros? I suggest both are willing, to stand up to the power and evil of Sauron and Voldemort respectively, while many others are content to stand by the wayside - a good qualifier of heroism. Joe: Gollum never stand up to Sauron. Gollum chases the ring because he is a junkie. Don: This fact, however, avoids their motives, so their identification as a heros is suspect. If not heros, anti-heros maybe? I, however believe they at least act heroically, acting outside of their self-interests at critical junctures, furthering the causes of their respective heros. Joe: Sorry but I don't see how either one of them is acting outside their own best interests. Gollum is an addict chasing his fix and Snape is (IMHO) following the only path that prevents him from being a slave to Voldemort forever. Joe From shamyn at pacbell.net Sat Apr 15 00:12:37 2006 From: shamyn at pacbell.net (Shamyn D. W.) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 00:12:37 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150948 As a brand new member, I must ask you to forgive me if this question has been asked and answered before. Beyond JKR's furthering of her story, why was Harry placed with the Dursleys, who hated magic and magic users, in the first place? We are told that it was to maintain the blood magic protection placed upon Harry by his mother. But for all anyone knew for sure, Voldemort was dead. His followers were either being rounded up, or were busy covering their tracks. Even if it had been known for sure that Voldemort was NOT dead (all Dumbledore had to go on was a prophecy, remember), he was still too weak to be any kind of threat. Other kinds of magical protection would have been enough to protect Harry. So again we come back to the question: Why was Harry placed with magic-hating Muggles? Well, there *is* a possibility, although I don't doubt that most will dislike it intensely. The reason? Harry's genetic heritage. More specifically, his parents' characters. James was an egotistical hellion, as witnessed by his activities as a Marauder and Harry's peek into Snape's pensieve. We don't know much about Harry's mother, but from the little we do know, it can be inferred that she was a strong personality who thought for herself (James was practically adored by everyone but her, at least at first), and might have had something of a temper. It's a common belief that children inherit the temperament of their parents, and in a society that's about a hundred years behind the times, it would have been even more so. However, it is well known that an abusive environment will often produce timid children. So is it beyond the realm of belief that Dumbledore would think to modify what he would believe to be a too-strong personality in such a way? Even one of his strongest supporters, Minerva McGonagall, says that the Dursleys are "the worst sort of Muggles" and was against putting Harry there, although she bowed to Albus' authority in the matter. Draeconin From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 15 02:56:12 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 02:56:12 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150949 Shamyn D. W. wrote: > > As a brand new member, I must ask you to forgive me if this question > has been asked and answered before. Alla: Welcome to the list! Shamyn D.W.: > Beyond JKR's furthering of her story, why was Harry placed with the > Dursleys, who hated magic and magic users, in the first place? > > We are told that it was to maintain the blood magic protection placed > upon Harry by his mother. But for all anyone knew for sure, Voldemort > was dead. His followers were either being rounded up, or were busy > covering their tracks. Even if it had been known for sure that > Voldemort was NOT dead (all Dumbledore had to go on was a prophecy, > remember), he was still too weak to be any kind of threat. Other > kinds of magical protection would have been enough to protect Harry. Alla: Dumbledore always believed that Voldemort indeed will be coming back and IMO it is totally understandable that he would not want to take a risk, even if as of then Voldemort was indeed too weak. I am not a big fan of Dumbledore placing Harry with Dursleys, not at all, as I said many times in the past, but I have to believe that Dumbledore had Harry's best interests in mind, otherwise in my mind Dumbledore "epithome of goodness" becomes rather monstrous figure, if he did not. So, to answer your question - yes, I believe it was a blood protection and nothing more than that. I mean, just look at what happened to Longbottoms, the parents of another prophecy boy. That happened AFTER Voldemort was supposedly dead. Shawyn D.W.: > So again we come back to the question: Why was Harry placed with > magic-hating Muggles? > > Well, there *is* a possibility, although I don't doubt that most will > dislike it intensely. The reason? Harry's genetic heritage. More > specifically, his parents' characters. > It's a common belief that children inherit the temperament of their > parents, and in a society that's about a hundred years behind the > times, it would have been even more so. However, it is well known > that an abusive environment will often produce timid children. So is > it beyond the realm of belief that Dumbledore would think to modify > what he would believe to be a too-strong personality in such a way? Alla: I have to apologise for voicing such a strong disagreement with your first post. :) But yes, this is to me beyond the realm of possibility. It is obviously only my opinion, but I never saw Puppetmaster Dumbledore lurking in the shadows of Potterverse. May I ask you what in the books caused you to believe that Dumbledore would do anything to modify anybody's personality, including Harry's? Isn't Dumbledore always for people making their own mistakes and finding their own paths in life? Isn't he a bit TOO detached in the books and his approach is not really hands on? Besides, you seem to agree that Dursleys environment was abusive, what makes you think that Dumbledore would condone what Dursleys did, especially after his little speech in the beginning of HBP? Shamyn D.W.: > Even one of his strongest supporters, Minerva McGonagall, says that > the Dursleys are "the worst sort of Muggles" and was against putting > Harry there, although she bowed to Albus' authority in the matter. Alla: Well, yes, of course in my book they absolutely are the worst sort of muggles. I have to believe that Albus had no other choice whatsoever, although yes, I can think of taking Harry of the country, or something like that, but then there would be a different story. Because if he placed Harry for the reason you suggested, IMO he is a monster and somehow I doubt that this is what JKR had in mind. Again, only my opinion. Oh, what part of Lily do you think needs to be modified in Harry? Isn't that the point of all this - for Harry to discover the best parts of his parents in himself in order to win his quest, NOT to forget about them? JMO, Alla. From katbofaye at aol.com Sat Apr 15 00:12:21 2006 From: katbofaye at aol.com (katssirius) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 00:12:21 -0000 Subject: Why Rabastan Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150950 I always thought the pensieve scene in GOF of Bella et al at sentencing indicated one of the brothers had been imperioed. The description "there was a thick set man who stared blankly up at Crouch" is a sharp contrast to the other three but as mentioned in an earlier post JKR never went anywhere with this plot thread. She has left a carpet warehouse behind of plot threads at this point. katssirius, wondering which of the thousands of plot threads from gleams to James' profession will prove to have any bearing on the final book. From bboyminn at yahoo.com Sat Apr 15 07:03:47 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 07:03:47 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150951 > Shamyn D. W./Draeconin: > ... > > Beyond JKR's furthering of her story, why was Harry placed with > the Dursleys, who hated magic and magic users, in the first > place? > > We are told that it was to maintain the blood magic protection > placed upon Harry by his mother. But for all anyone knew for > sure, Voldemort was dead. His followers were either being > rounded up, or were busy covering their tracks. ...edited... > > So again we come back to the question: Why was Harry placed with > magic-hating Muggles? > bboyminn: Never fear asking an old question, if you asked it wisely. When new members come in they reframe old questions and present new perspectives, and that allows us to talk for years about the same issues. So, welcome and great question. You mention that Voldemort was dead and his followers were being rounded up, but is that really true? Remember, that Harry was delivered to Privet Drive scarcely 24 hours after the attack on Godric's Hollow. I don't think that in 24 hours, anything was resolved. People were still trying to determine exactly what happened that fateful night. The status of Voldemort, and even more so, that of his Death Eaters was very unclear. In all likelihood, the few days, weeks, and months immediately after Godrics Hollow were probably the most dangerous time of all. Leadership was uncertain, secondary leaders might try to move in to fill the power vacuum left by Voldemort, there might be last ditch desperate efforts by the DE's to make one last decisive stand. The volatility of the time is confirmed by the fanatical attack on the Longbottoms roughly a year after Godrics Hollow. Just as people were beginning to let their guard down, the Death Eaters rose again. So, Dumbledore is face with several problems. First, he must make sure that Harry survives in the short term. At the Dursleys, Dumbledore was able to offer Harry what I will refer to here as 'Double-Blood Protection'. In a sense, Harry is twice protected. He is first protected by Lily's sacrifice, but Dumbledore re-enforced that protection by adding to it the protection of blood; ie: the protection of family. Additionally, the protection of family kept Harry out of the wizard world and secluded during that volatile and critical time after the events of Godrics Hollow. Next Dumbledore had to make a longer term decision. Perhaps after five years or so, Harry could return to the wizard world and live with a wizard family. I'm sure Dumbledore considered that possibility. But, is that really wise? Is it really wise to have Harry lurking about the wizard world in plain sight? Is it wise to have him eating dinner at the Leaky Cauldron? Is it wise to have Harry lounging about at a table outside Fortescues eating some ice cream? Harry presence in the wizard world couldn't help but create a stir. Everywhere he went, he would be notice. Where he lived would be well known. It would have made it very easy of a lone fanatical suicide assassin to attack Harry. At five, six, seven, even eight years old, Harry would have little grasp of lurking danger or how to protect himself. So, I think Dumbledore decided that it was best to keep Harry out of the wizard world altogether. Unpleasant as the Dursleys was, it did offer Harry powerful protection, and helped keep him out of sight. Dumbledore's first priority was to keep Harry safe, and any sense of keeping him happy would have to wait until later. Once Harry began attending Hogwarts, there was really no way to fully hide Harry, but at the Dursley's during summer holiday, Harry was still more protected than anywhere else, and he was somewhat secluded from the rest of the wizard world. Again, yes, it was unpleasant, but it did give Harry the highest level of protection and reasonable isolation, and did help keep him alive to fulfill his destiny. That's my opinion of Dumbledore's reflective process in making the decision he made. Keeping Harry isolated, safe, and alive trumped all thought of happiness or a pleasant life. > Draeconin: > > Well, there *is* a possibility, although I don't doubt that most > will dislike it intensely. The reason? Harry's genetic heritage. > More specifically, his parents' characters. James was an > egotistical hellion, ... > bboyminn: I can't say that there wasn't some small element of that in Dumbledore's subconscious, but as a conscious decision it strikes me as a bit eugenics-like. While Dumbledore would naturally have some concern about Harry's character development, I don't see him behind the scenes tugging at the strings like the Puppet Master that many others see. That simply seems too contrived and too cold for Dumbledore. I do think that Dumbledore considered every possibility for Harry's disposition, but in the end, the protection of the Dursleys, both the blood protection and the isolation, was just too overwhelming not to use it. For what it's worth. Steve/bboyminn From OctobersChild48 at aol.com Fri Apr 14 21:28:21 2006 From: OctobersChild48 at aol.com (OctobersChild48 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 17:28:21 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore's Death Message-ID: <2f4.35f24a3.31716df5@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150952 In a message dated 4/12/06 10:47:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time, celizwh at intergate.com writes: > If Dumbledore *is* still alive at the beginning of book 7, I think we > will see his real death by the end of the book, but it will be a death > that Harry, the WW, and we the readers can accept as suitable for the > greatest wizard of his time. In my ineloquent, bumbling way I would like to respond to this. I consider the statement "and we the readers can accept" to be profound. I can accept the fact that Dumbledore is dead, and have never had any doubt that he is. What I cannot accept is the way he died. I feel that Jo really let us down with this one. I have to be honest and say that I never really gave much thought to the possibility that DD would die. I expected him to be right beside Harry for the final confrontation with Voldemort. I don't usually read this genre of book, so I was unaware that the mentor is supposed to die so the hero can go it alone. I did give some thought to the fact that DD could die, going out in a blaze of glory during the final confrontation, as would befit the greatest wizard of his time. But to be murdered while weak and feeble, by someone he trusted, just doesn't cut it. Whether he was killed by ESE!Snape, or DDM!Snape, he was murdered nonetheless. I, personally, feel cheated. Dumbledore's funeral did him justice, but his death did not. And the pleading, no matter what he was pleading for, just made it worse. I'm sure there are those who are going to jump in and say that he died nobly for the cause, which I won't argue, but I still think Jo could have done better for the greatest wizard of his time. Sandy [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From soulsong36 at charter.net Sat Apr 15 05:25:46 2006 From: soulsong36 at charter.net (Alice Sanborn) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 00:25:46 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] A Possible Horcrux? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <444083DA.5090204@charter.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150953 Please don't shoot me, but I have had a wild idea about Gryffindor's horcrux. I wonder sometimes if it's not the pensive in Dumbledor's office. Obviously no cannon, real or otherwise, to back this up, and I can't find where this has been put forth as a possibility (altho, I'm sure I could well be overlooking a Lot of material, both in the books and in the postings). "Alice Sanborn" From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Sat Apr 15 12:48:58 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 12:48:58 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150954 Draeconin: > As a brand new member, I must ask you to forgive me if this question > has been asked and answered before. > > Beyond JKR's furthering of her story, why was Harry placed with the > Dursleys, who hated magic and magic users, in the first place? Ceridwen: Hi, Shamyn! Welcome to the board! One reason is because of the blood protection. Harry is safe while he lives where his mother's blood dwells. The only place this is possible is at the Dursleys', where Lily's only full-blood relation lives. Lily and Petunia were sisters, apparently with the same parents (no half-sister or step-sister). So the exact same blood as was in Lily's veins is in Petunia's. Draeconin: > We are told that it was to maintain the blood magic protection placed > upon Harry by his mother. But for all anyone knew for sure, Voldemort > was dead. His followers were either being rounded up, or were busy > covering their tracks. Even if it had been known for sure that > Voldemort was NOT dead (all Dumbledore had to go on was a prophecy, > remember), he was still too weak to be any kind of threat. Other > kinds of magical protection would have been enough to protect Harry. Ceridwen: Most of the WW did indeed think Voldemort was dead. Dumbledore doubted it, but for now at least we don't know why. The prophecy seems to have been fulfilled, 'either must die at the hand of the other', and there's Harry, and what seems to be LV's dead body (or what was left of it). Dumbledore exercised caution when he didn't give in to the gleeful hysteria that gripped the WW following the apparent vaporization of Voldemort. Instead, he took steps to protect the child who had been marked (another part of the prophecy, which may indicate that the final vanquishment would not come at the initial confrontation) At the time when Dumbledore placed Harry with his relatives, all of the Death Eaters had not been caught. Loyal followers, as we saw later with the Longbottoms, could be searching for Harry while still covering their tracks. We do know that there was at least one more attack, that of the Longbottoms. And, it isn't good to bounce a child from home to home. Harry needed to be placed in a stable environment, at a time when there was a question as to where that might be. Any WW family could turn out to have a traitor/LV supporter in their midst (just as the Black family had a 'blood traitor' in Sirius's refusal to go along with family belief, or more directly, Barty Crouch Jr. in Crouch's household). The only people who would not be LV supporters (even though they sometimes show up as such in fan fiction) would be the Dursleys. They have the added advantage of already knowing about the WW, so no Statutes of Secrecy will be violated. Draeconin: > The reason? Harry's genetic heritage. More > specifically, his parents' characters. James was an egotistical > hellion, as witnessed by his activities as a Marauder and Harry's peek > into Snape's pensieve. We don't know much about Harry's mother, but > from the little we do know, it can be inferred that she was a strong > personality who thought for herself (James was practically adored by > everyone but her, at least at first), and might have had something of > a temper. Ceridwen: Hm. Reading this over, I can't disagree that as a youth, James had plenty of faults stemming from his high opinion of himself. But a person's opinion of himself comes from mirroring what other people think about him (Cooley's 'Looking Glass Self'). So there were people who did put James on a pedistal. His parents, who JKR said were older parents of an only child, and apparently his housemates due to his prowess in Quidditch. So if the self is informed by impressions gained from others, then Harry would have to earn the snobbish behavior rather than being born with it. I'm interested in what you think of Lily. As you describe her, she is an admirable person (strong personality who thinks for herself). You say yourself that she doesn't fawn all over James. Would her sister be the same way? (in fact, now that I'm thinking about it, is Petunia's dislike of the WW a gross exaggeration of Lily's refusal to kowtow to Quidditchhero!James? Thanks for bringing this up, Draeconin!) What it seems you are saying regarding Lily is, that Dumbledore doesn't want Harry to be independent or have a strong personality. This brings manipulation into the mix. So, what I am understanding you as saying, and I hope you'll correct me if I'm wrong, is that Dumbledore wants a Prophecy Boy who will naturally follow Dumbledore's instructions, first because his personality was scared out of him by the Dursleys (or beaten out of him, or humiliated out of him, or whatever) and second, because of the stark contrast between the way the Dursleys treated him, and the way Dumbledore and others on the side of Light (Hagrid in particular since he is the first of the WW Harry actually meets). Draeconin: > It's a common belief that children inherit the temperament of their > parents, and in a society that's about a hundred years behind the > times, it would have been even more so. However, it is well known > that an abusive environment will often produce timid children. So is > it beyond the realm of belief that Dumbledore would think to modify > what he would believe to be a too-strong personality in such a way? Ceridwen: This belief isn't so common in our world any more. The debate about Nature v. Nurture has swung back and forth, influenced at least in part by external events. After WWII, for instance, Nature took a back seat due to the Nazi insistence on Blood Supremacy, which is a Nature argument. At the moment, the blended view of both Nature and Nurture is the most common. A hundred years ago, if we can visualize the WW as being that far sociologically behind the real world (and it does seem to hold certain traditional values beside progressive values) they would still hold to the idea that Nature and Nurture both play a part. With the future of the entire WW hanging on Harry, I don't think that Dumbledore would want a timid hero. He could collapse in the face of Voldemort and his supporters, or even have a breakdown. The sort of environment at the Dursleys, I would think, would produce a fighter rather than a doormat or puppet, precisely because of the outright dislike and animosity they show toward him and his parents. Either he'll cave in badly, or he'll stand and grow stronger. If Dumbledore took Harry's parents' personalities into account, then he relied on James's arrogance and Lily's strength to keep Harry from caving, and make him into a fighter instead. No matter what Dumbledore's intentions, Harry did indeed become a fighter during his time at the Dursleys. And if Dumbledore thought of it at all, then this is what he would expect, IMO, whereas a WW family would coddle him and bring out the worst traits, especially of James. Without the tempering of adversity, if you are right and the WW sees Nature as predominant, then Harry would have become a soft little weenie who wouldn't be able to handle his destiny. A final thought on Harry's placement is that the Dursleys are his only living blood relations. It is common in most societies to try and place an orphaned child with relatives whenever possible. It is expected that they will have a greater love for a child of their own blood and will be more likely to raise him as part of the family, because he is. Petunia did indeed raise Harry like a part of her family, only he was the part of her family that she despised or envied or both, and her hatred and/or anger comes out at every turn. Dumbledore was right, in the end, to place Harry with his relations. He may not have had a choice if the WW follows our practices of placing a child with relatives, but whatever the reason, Harry became stronger because of his time with the Dursleys. Interesting points, Draeconin! Ceridwen. From quigonginger at yahoo.com Sat Apr 15 14:51:21 2006 From: quigonginger at yahoo.com (quigonginger) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 14:51:21 -0000 Subject: A Possible Horcrux? In-Reply-To: <444083DA.5090204@charter.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150955 Alice Sanborn wrote: > > Please don't shoot me, but I have had a wild idea about Gryffindor's horcrux. I wonder sometimes if it's not the pensive in Dumbledor's office. Obviously no cannon, real or otherwise, to back this up, and I can't find where this has been put forth as a possibility (altho, I'm sure I could well be overlooking a Lot of material, both in the books and in the postings). Ginger: BANG! Just kidding. I'm not about to shoot anyone over a wild idea. Actually, we know Tommy made a "sudden move" in that office. We assume that he was casting the spell setting in motion the curse on the DADA job. Of course, that "sudden move" may have been a red herring and he actually placed a Horcrux spell, or even doing both at one time. He was, after all, a powerful wizard. So anything in that office is fair game. Personally, I like the idea of the door itself. It has a Gryffin knocker, therefore is truely a Gryffendoor. It has also shown some semblance of sentience, as it locked itself against Umbridge when she set herself as headmistress. We may be right, we may be wrong, but at least we're thinking! Ginger, off to SD. See y'all in a couple of days. Happy Easter to all who are celebrating. From R.Vink2 at chello.nl Sat Apr 15 14:56:56 2006 From: R.Vink2 at chello.nl (Renee) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 14:56:56 -0000 Subject: Harry and Snape's redemption In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150956 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Sherry Gomes" wrote: Sherry: > As Alla said in a previous message in this thread, I can perhaps see Snape > committing some act that unintentionally helps Harry and then dying. But I > do not see him as either a hero or anti-hero, who will risk his life in the > end, sacrifice himself to save Harry and thereby bring Voldemort's downfall. > The outcome of the ring is one of the great disappointments in literature > for me, that the ring is destroyed in such an unheroic way, and that Frodo > was defeated by it in the end. I love LOTR, for the wonderful characters,, > not just Frodo, who is only one of several heroes in the story, but the end > of the ring was always terrible to me. I wanted to see Frodo, against the > power the ring was holding over him, finally take it and fling it into the > fire. I feel cheated every time I read and usually skip that part now. To > have Snape kill Voldemort and take away Harry's final glory and success > would feel like cheating too. > Renee: Making Frodo unable to throw the Ring away and having Gollum destroy it unintentionally is Tolkien's way to depict salvation by grace. Ultimately, Frodo can't save himself, let alone the world; it takes an `act of God' (or Provicence, if you want) to destroy evil. Perfectly in keeping with Tolkien's Catholic faith. If JKR is a Christian, we may well see something similar at the end of the HP series - though I see Wormtail in the role of Gollum, not Snape. Renee From belviso at attglobal.net Sat Apr 15 15:23:10 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 11:23:10 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Harry and Snape's redemption References: Message-ID: <006b01c660a0$8207a210$e460400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 150957 > Renee: > Making Frodo unable to throw the Ring away and having Gollum destroy > it unintentionally is Tolkien's way to depict salvation by grace. > Ultimately, Frodo can't save himself, let alone the world; it takes an > `act of God' (or Provicence, if you want) to destroy evil. Perfectly > in keeping with Tolkien's Catholic faith. > If JKR is a Christian, we may well see something similar at the end of > the HP series - though I see Wormtail in the role of Gollum, not Snape. Magpie: I agree. Speaking from an alternate LOTR view as someone who recognizes Tolkien's own intention to show grace but doesn't get the same thing out of it, Frodo's actions in his life before the moment of truth count too That is, by being the person he was he gave himself more power than he personally had. In both interpretations, "good" for lack of a better word, makes you stronger so that you don't just have to rely on your own personal power. It doesn't have to be Frodo vs. the Ring in just that moment. Peter does seem far more like Gollum in this respect. Snape seems very different, imo, since he is potentially trying to do the right thing. And perhaps it's Wormtongue we should really be thinking of when it comes to Peter, since Peter doesn't have anything like the ring-lust Gollum has. Not to mention, I just don't know if JKR shares the same type of pity for Peter Tolkien had for Gollum, since Gollum does suffer for the ring (despite his own bad character and bad behavior in getting it) in ways Peter doesn't. Though another difference I would point out is that Frodo's task was always impossible where Harry's is not. There was never any chance that Frodo or anyone else could have destroyed the ring. Frodo got it as far as anyone could have, and farther than most would have, but his being unable to destroy the ring himself can't really be considered a failure because it was always impossible. That, to me, is the essence of his heroism in many ways, that he agrees to fail from the outset. (Or if he has any idea that he can triumph he figures out soon enough that he can't, but keeps going.) It's never about a personal victory. Harry's task is far more do-able and I think will be more of a combination between LOTR and something else. The LOTR-aspect is in the Fellowship that Harry has created over the years, having friends around him so he doesn't have to stand alone. Possibly in the last book he will make more key connections that will really seal the deal. And also there's Peter tied to Voldemort through fear but tied to Harry through mercy, which is potentially the more awesome of the two (ancient magic etc.). -m From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Sat Apr 15 17:52:02 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 17:52:02 -0000 Subject: Harry and Snape's redemption In-Reply-To: <006b01c660a0$8207a210$e460400c@Spot> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150958 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Magpie" wrote: Magpie: > Peter does seem far more like Gollum in this respect. Snape seems very > different, imo, since he is potentially trying to do the right thing. And > perhaps it's Wormtongue we should really be thinking of when it comes to > Peter, since Peter doesn't have anything like the ring-lust Gollum has. Not > to mention, I just don't know if JKR shares the same type of pity for Peter > Tolkien had for Gollum, since Gollum does suffer for the ring (despite his > own bad character and bad behavior in getting it) in ways Peter doesn't. Geoff: Interestingly, way back in those halcyon pre-HBP days when we could have a few threads going at one time and not be dominated by Snape/Horcruxes for weeks on end, I suggested that JKR had perhaps pointed up an HP/LOTR connection in her wordplay between Wormtail and Wormtongue. Both had been trusted and close within a circle - Peter as a Marauder and Grima in Theoden's court and both were seduced by evil wizards, namely Voldemort and Saruman. Both have seen their "dark lords" vanquished, Saruman being killed in Hobbiton (I'm working from the book) and Voldemort being sent on a long vacation to Eastern Europe from Godric's Hollow. The only real divergence in their story lines is that Voldemort and Peter are still with us, but since Wormtongue and Saruman died almost simultaneously, is this a harbinger of what might happen at the end of Book 7? From bboyminn at yahoo.com Sat Apr 15 18:02:32 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 18:02:32 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's Death In-Reply-To: <2f4.35f24a3.31716df5@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150959 > Sandy/OctobersChild48: > > ... I can accept the fact that Dumbledore is dead, .... What I > cannot accept is the way he died. I feel that Jo really let us > down with this one. ... > > ... I don't usually read this genre of book, so I was unaware > that the mentor is supposed to die .... I did give some thought > to ... DD ... going out in a blaze of glory during the final > confrontation, .... But to be murdered while weak and feeble, > by someone he trusted, just doesn't cut it. ... I, personally, > feel cheated. > > Dumbledore's funeral did him justice, but his death did not. And > the pleading, ..., just made it worse. I'm sure there are those > who are going to jump in and say that he died nobly for the cause, > which I won't argue, but I still think Jo could have done better > for the greatest wizard of his time. > > Sandy bboyminn: That fact that JKR was able to generate such an emotional response in you associated with Dumbledore's death, tells me that JKR did her job very well indeed. That fact that you didn't like the manner of Dumbledore's death seems to me to be right on track. How could we /like/ any manner of death for such a noble wizard? Also, while JKR writes within certain genres, she also subverts those genres/styles. In most mentor/student stories the Mentor usually dies a heroic, but tragic death, though it is usually in a great battle in which the treachery of the villain is the cause. JKR turned that scenario on its head, and did just the opposite; she had the noble mentor die a quiet and unheroic death. Not completely unheroic, but it was a quiet death with very little of the battle-blaze-of-glory that we typically see. But to some extent, I think that is part of the beauty and of the popularity of JKR's writing. She tells a very common story in a very uncommon way. She makes use of the familiar to give us comfort in the story, then renders the familiar in unfamilar ways to keep the story fresh and interesting. If JKR were to write her stories in one exclusive genre, and were to write them tried-and-true to that genre, her stories would end up one of millions of pulp hackneyed predictable paperbacks that litter the garbage cans of the world. As a side note; let's look at Sirius's death. That was a very unsatifying death. Even though he died in battle, it was so unexpected, so quiet, so pointless, so meaningless. It would have been far better if there could have been a tear-jerking 'death-bed' speech. But I think JKR had a purpose in the type of death she wrote, and that was to illustrate that death in real life is usually unexpected and unpredictable. The person is there and suddenly they are gone, and you are filled with regret, filled with things left unsaid and left undone. Dumbledore's death was the same; unpredictable and filled with regret on the part of those left behind. There is so much more that Dumbledore could have and should have told Harry. There is so much more that Harry needs to learn, yet his greatest protector, his greatest mentor, the one person in whom he placed all comfort, safety, and hope is gone. That leaves Harry and me feeling very empty, sad, and desperate. And that lingering feeling in myself, in Harry, and in the wizard world, that desperate hopeless helpless feeling, tells me that JKR did her job nicely, because that is exactly the frame of mind JKR wants her hero and her readers in at the beginning of the last book. The situation really is hopeless. Harry has to find Horcruxes which are impossible to find. Harry has to fight battles against wizards so much more powerful and skilled that he doesn't have any hope of defeating them. This 'all is lost' feeling is the setup for JKR to masterfully pull everything together in the final book, and find someway to make the hopeless and impossible possible. More than Harry's defeat of Voldemort, I am looking forward to the way JKR will pull it all together in the end; the brilliant way, I'm very sure, in which she will make the impossible possible. So the pointless, hopeless, impossible nature of Dumbledore's death was exactly the setup the books needed at that point in the story. In the end, I think we will see that Sirius's and Dumbledore death really do have meaning and value, and really did serve some higher purpose in the story. Just a few random thoughts. Steve/bboyminn From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 15 18:10:19 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 18:10:19 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150960 Shamyn/Draeconin wrote: > Beyond JKR's furthering of her story, why was Harry placed with the > Dursleys, who hated magic and magic users, in the first place? > > We are told that it was to maintain the blood magic protection placed upon Harry by his mother. But for all anyone knew for sure, Voldemort was dead. His followers were either being rounded up, or were busy covering their tracks. Even if it had been known for sure that Voldemort was NOT dead (all Dumbledore had to go on was a prophecy, remember), he was still too weak to be any kind of threat. Other kinds of magical protection would have been enough to protect Harry. > > So again we come back to the question: Why was Harry placed with magic-hating Muggles? > > Well, there *is* a possibility, although I don't doubt that most will dislike it intensely. The reason? Harry's genetic heritage. More specifically, his parents' characters. James was an egotistical hellion, as witnessed by his activities as a Marauder and Harry's peek into Snape's pensieve. > > It's a common belief that children inherit the temperament of their parents, and in a society that's about a hundred years behind the times, it would have been even more so. However, it is well known that an abusive environment will often produce timid children. So is it beyond the realm of belief that Dumbledore would think to modify what he would believe to be a too-strong personality in such a way? > > Even one of his strongest supporters, Minerva McGonagall, says that > the Dursleys are "the worst sort of Muggles" and was against putting > Harry there, although she bowed to Albus' authority in the matter. Carol responds: Hi, Shamyn, and welcome to the group. If it's any consolation, 99 percent of us start out asking a question that's been asked before, and yours is posed from an unusual angle. I'll start off by saying that I agree with other posters that the blood protection was the most powerful and potent protection that Dumbledore could give Harry. I also think that while it cannot make the Dursleys love him or prevent them from neglecting him, making him sleep in a broom cupboard, or psychologically abusing him, IMO, either it or the blood protection in his veins protects him from serious *physical* abuse while he's in that house: Aunt Petunia's frying pan misses his head and Uncle Vernon receives some sort of electric shock when he tries to choke Harry. In addition, I'm sure that the house is being watched by Mrs. Figg, at least, and if she had any indication that Harry was being seriously abused (e.g., beaten with a clothes hanger), she would have notified Dumbledore instantly. As Steve has pointed out, Harry is much safer hidden among the Muggles than he would have been in a world where every child knows his name. It would have been impossible to keep him hidden (and if the wizarding family had tried to keep him hidden indoors all the time, that would have been abuse, too). I do agree that Dumbledore may have had a secondary consideration in not wanting Harry to grow up like James, a "pampered little prince" with a high opinion of himself, his abilities, and his destiny. Much better that he grow up humble (*not* timid), not knowing that he's famous, neither fearing his destiny nor certain of his power and potential to defeat Voldemort. Just imagine James with more than his quick reflexes and cleverness to be arrogant about--James as the Boy Who Lived. The WW would have been doomed through his arrogance. But Harry, fortunately, isn't James. He has his faults, being human, but arrogance--a fatal overconfidence--is not one of them. I disagree that abuse, especially the level of abuse engaged in by the Dursleys, always makes children timid, and in any case, Harry had defenses that other children didn't have. He could (accidentally) shrink that horrible sweater, grow his hair back, even find himself on a rooftop at school when the other boys bullied him. What Harry developed is what children born in log cabins often developed--the ability to endure hardship without complaint. And he learned through them, and later through Snape, how to deal with bullying--essential preparation for the much worse fate he would endure at Voldemort's hands if he was not ready. So, no, I absolutely do not agree that Dumbledore was trying to make him timid. He wanted him (IMO) to be humble, resourceful, and resilient--as he would have to be to face Voldemort. Put another way, he wanted to bring out the best of whatever qualities Harry inherited from James and Lily, not the worst. I meant to mention that I think DD had more than the Prophecy to go on. He knew, of course, that Bellatrix was still at large. So, at that time, was Antonin Dolohov, the murderer of the Prewitts, and many other evil Death Eaters "nearly as terrible" as Voldemort in DD's words. But I think he *knew* that Voldemort wasn't dead, that the Prophecy had *not* been fulfilled (Harry had only been "marked" and given powers that would eventually enable him to defeat LV), either because of what he had seen with his mysterious instruments or because Snape had shown him his Dark Mark (very faint but not completely gone) or both. So I agree with other posters that Dumbledore, "the epitome of goodness," chose the only possible way to protect Harryfrom Voldemort and the Death Eaters, extending the blood protection created by his mother's self-sacrifice to the home of his mother's sister. But I think DD was aware of secondary advantages as well. When he told McGonagall that Harry would be better off growing up away from all the fame and glory, he was not lying. He was just (as usual) telling as much of the truth as he thought she needed to know. Carol, who is defending Dumbledore's decision, not the Dursleys' treatment of Harry From nkafkafi at yahoo.com Sat Apr 15 19:15:49 2006 From: nkafkafi at yahoo.com (Neri) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 19:15:49 -0000 Subject: The Sting: Lucius sent Bella (was:Re: LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150961 Neri: Since lofty ships has been built (not the least by yours truly) on that single line of JKR "the Lestranges were very definitely sent after Neville's parents", I thought it worth looking more closely at the context in which this line was written: ***************************************************** JKR's website, "Rumours" section http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/rumours_view.cfm?id=25 [Rumour:] The Lestranges were sent after Neville to kill him. [JKR's answer:] No, they weren't, they were very definitely sent after Neville's parents. I can't say too much about this because it touches too closely on the prophecy and how many people knew about it, but the Lestranges were not in on the secret. ***************************************************** Note that the critical word "sent" may not have been originally introduced by JKR at all, but by the fan who wrote this question, and she may have used it only because that fan did. Both question and answer aren't very clear, due to being written in the passive tense and because JKR at the time had to hide Snape's involvement in the prophecy (it was before HBP was published). But it now seems to me that JKR's main (and perhaps only) objective here was to squash the theory that the Longbottoms were attacked because of the prophecy. Taking a guess at what went in JKR's head when answering this I think it was something like this: Question: Oh, I see. This fan thinks that Voldemort sent the Lestranges to find and kill Neville before (or maybe even after) he became vapor because of the prophecy, or alternatively that the Lestranges were in on the prophecy and therefore decided to kill Neville after Voldemort disappeared. Answer: Well, I can't explain this before HBP is out, but the only DE who was in on the prophecy at that time was Snape, and that wasn't because Voldemort trusted him with it, but because it was Snape who overheard it. This is highly classified information at this moment, but I must stress in my answer that the Lestranges didn't know about the prophecy at all and therefore had no reason to go after Neville. They were very definitely after Frank and Alice for reasons other than the prophecy. According to this interpretation the meaning of the words "were sent" is ambiguous to begin with, since in the original rumor they can mean either that it was Voldemort who sent the Lestranges, before or after becoming vapor, or that the Lestranges sent themselves because of a secret (i.e., the prophecy) that Voldemort had told them. It is not clear at all that JKR meant to make the words "were sent" less ambiguous in her answer. From the context it seems to me that by "very definitely" she was actually refering to "after Neville's parents" rather than to "the Lestranges were sent". So interpreting this answer as "JKR said the Lestranges were sent after Frank and Alice by someone other than Voldemort or themselves" is kind of shaky. It depends a lot on whether you think JKR weights very carefully every word she writes in her website or not. Based on some recent examples I personally tend more to the "or not". Now, regarding the Lucius' sting theory, while it generally works well with the canon (especially with that shaky "the Lestranges were sent by someone other than Voldemort or themselves") the problem that I see with it is that it has low BANG quotient and doesn't advance the main plot much. I keep returning to the fact that JKR has just one book left to tie together all the loose ends and still locate and destroy four Horcruxes while maintaining a fast pace moving towards the biggest climax of the series. I see very little that a revelation of a Lucius' sting in Book 7 can do to advance the story. It certainly can cause a nice feud between Bella and Lucius should the plot demand it (though we don't know that it should) but plotting the Longbottoms affair throughout the series mainly in order to cause a feud between Bella and Lucius in Book 7 strikes to me as a bit of an overkill. So my guess is that, if the reason for the attack on the Longbottoms is going to play in Book 7 (which isn't certain at all) it would be in the service of solving a big standing mystery. An obvious possibility would be the location of one of the Horcruxes. Based on Bella's little slip of tongue in Spinner's End ("in the past the Dark Lord had trusted me with his most precious...") it seems that she was entrusted with the safekeeping of a Horcrux shortly before GH, about the same time when Lucius too (according to Dumbledore) was trusted with the safekeeping of the Diary. It also appears that Voldy isn't very satisfied with Bella's safekeeping performances. Perhaps Frank and Alice, working as aurors and/or Order members, stole or confiscated that Horcrux from Bella, probably not knowing what it really was. In this theory the attack on the Longbottoms was Bella's attempt to retrieve this Horcrux, and it looks like she failed. While this theory isn't more canon-based than the Lucius sting, solving the Longbottoms mystery in Book 7 would be considerably BANGier that way and would directly advance the plot by leading to the discovery of this Horcrux. Neri From shamyn at pacbell.net Sat Apr 15 16:46:28 2006 From: shamyn at pacbell.net (Shamyn D. W.) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 16:46:28 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150962 > Alla: > > Welcome to the list! Thank you. > Shamyn D.W.: >> Even if it had been known for sure that > > Voldemort was NOT dead (all Dumbledore had to go on was a prophecy, > > remember), he was still too weak to be any kind of threat. Other > > kinds of magical protection would have been enough to protect > Harry. > > Alla: > > Dumbledore always believed that Voldemort indeed will be coming back What reason did he have, beyond Trelawney's prophecy? Alla: > I mean, just look at what happened to Longbottoms, the parents of > another prophecy boy. That happened AFTER Voldemort was > supposedly dead. I thought the Longbottoms were tortured into catatonia by Voldemort himself? > Alla: > > I have to apologise for voicing such a strong disagreement with your > first post. :) I expected it! :-) > > But yes, this is to me beyond the realm of possibility. It is > obviously only my opinion, but I never saw Puppetmaster > Dumbledore lurking in the shadows of Potterverse. No? To me it seems quite obvious that Dumbledore is very manipulative. He's never unkind about it, but it's there. > May I ask you what in the books caused you to believe that > Dumbledore would do anything to modify anybody's personality, > including Harry's? Read my stories. *grin* No, really, it's more typing than I feel like doing, and I DO set out some of my reasoning in my stories. Er... They *are* H/D slash, though, so... Shall we start with Dumbledore's not checking up on Harry's welfare in almost ten years, nor sending anyone else to do so? He *knows* the type of people the Dursleys are, after all. And then there's the person Dumbledore sends to get Harry. Hagrid. Intimidating just by his size, quite prejudiced against Slytherin - "there's not been a Dark wizard that didn't come out of Slytherin" (or words to that effect) - a blatant untruth, btw. The man is also a drunk and rather slipshod in his duties. Almost any one of the other staff would have been better. And then we have Snape. Yes, he had a grudge against Harry's father, and later he has to maintain a look of hostility towards Harry in order to preserve his status as a spy, but again Harry is being subjected to abuse. Even a detached Dumbledore, if he's the kindly person he's made out to be, would have tried to curb that, wouldn't he? And surely the other staff have noticed? Why haven't any of them tried to intervene? > Isn't Dumbledore always for people making their own mistakes and > finding their own paths in life? Isn't he a bit TOO detached in the > books and his approach is not really hands on? That's part of the problem, though, isn't it. Harry is raised by Muggles in such a way that he'd really have little knowledge of even the way the Muggle world works. Then he's snatched to the Wizarding world, and set free to make his own way, with no instruction in how THAT world works. That's not detached, that's... Well, I can't recall the proper word. > Besides, you seem to agree that Dursleys environment was abusive, > what makes you think that Dumbledore would condone what Dursleys > did, especially after his little speech in the beginning of HBP? Again, he didn't check up on Harry for almost ten years, did he? > Shamyn D.W.: > > Even one of his strongest supporters, Minerva McGonagall, says >> that the Dursleys are "the worst sort of Muggles" and was against >> putting Harry there, although she bowed to Albus' authority in the >> matter. > > Alla: > > Because if he placed Harry for the reason you suggested, IMO he is > a monster and somehow I doubt that this is what JKR had in mind. Perhaps not, but that's what is there. On the surface Dumbledore is a kindly old man; but the things he's done or caused to be done! > Oh, what part of Lily do you think needs to be modified in Harry? Thinking for himself, and I did mention the possible temper (the latter of which Harry seems to have anyway). If Dumbledore truly did believe Harry to be the one to eventually kill Voldemort once and for all, he'd want a weapon that he - or someone - could control, wouldn't he? > Isn't that the point of all this - for Harry to discover the best > parts of his parents in himself in order to win his quest, NOT to > forget about them? I said nothing about Harry forgetting about them, but don't you find it rather odd that Harry, even now, has been told so little about his parents or other family? The Potters *had* to have had family records stored away in a Gringotts vault, at least. Even if JKR didn't want to go to the trouble of making up that past (a tedious and rather useless activity, I admit), how hard would it be to mention that Harry had spent some time researching his family records and now knew his history? Draeconin From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Sat Apr 15 15:51:09 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 11:51:09 -0400 Subject: Another candidate for RAB WAS: James Potter and the Dark Arts In-Reply-To: <1776175278.20060413155936@mindspring.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150963 finwitch: > >f> ... Sirius Orion Black was morally Brightest of those in >f> the Black family... Dave: >Is that name "Orion" Canon? Is there are precedent for Black middle >names being Constellations? Because if so, then I would like to >submit a new nomination for the identity of RAB... >. >. >. >. >. >. >. >. >. >Andromeda! Rachel here: If, indeed, it /is/ Andromeda, perhaps this is a good explanation as to why she goes by Tonks. We do know that Tonks is related to Sirius, however, we do not know her last name as of yet. Also, she is quite youthful and only recently joined forces with the Order after many years of schooling. Although I like this idea, I'm not sure if the timeline would work out. ~ Rachel From MadameSSnape at aol.com Sat Apr 15 19:36:23 2006 From: MadameSSnape at aol.com (MadameSSnape at aol.com) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 15:36:23 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Another candidate for RAB WAS: James Potter and the Dark... Message-ID: <367.272d081.3172a537@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150964 In a message dated 4/15/2006 3:29:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time, rhetorician18 at hotmail.com writes: If, indeed, it /is/ Andromeda, perhaps this is a good explanation as to why she goes by Tonks. We do know that Tonks is related to Sirius, however, we do not know her last name as of yet. Also, she is quite youthful and only recently joined forces with the Order after many years of schooling. Although I like this idea, I'm not sure if the timeline would work out. ============= Sherrie here: Tonks' given name is actually Nymphadora - Andromeda Black is her mother. Since she would be Sirius' generation - perhaps a bit older - the chronology works just fine. Sherrie [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 15 19:49:30 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 19:49:30 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150965 > > Alla: > > > > Dumbledore always believed that Voldemort indeed will be coming back Dracoenin: > What reason did he have, beyond Trelawney's prophecy? Alla: Dumbledore's reasons are never specified (as far as I can remember - can be wrong of course), but in light of HBP I think it is a safe guess to make that he at least guessed that Voldemort made horcruxes. > Alla: > > I mean, just look at what happened to Longbottoms, the parents of > > another prophecy boy. That happened AFTER Voldemort was > > supposedly dead. Draeconin: > I thought the Longbottoms were tortured into catatonia by Voldemort > himself? Alla: Well, that would be a new development. :) But no, again as far as I can remember Voldemort was not there. Bella and others were there too. As far as we know they tortured Longbottoms because they wanted to find out where Voldemort went. :) Which is not to say that this event will not bring any new discoveries to us, since it is strange on many levels and brought so many interesting theories over the years. The recent cool post on this topic was made by Charme and I am kicking myself for not bookmarking it right away, so if anybody has the post number will be much appreciated. Alla: > > But yes, this is to me beyond the realm of possibility. It is > > obviously only my opinion, but I never saw Puppetmaster > > Dumbledore lurking in the shadows of Potterverse. Draeconin: > No? To me it seems quite obvious that Dumbledore is very manipulative. > He's never unkind about it, but it's there. Alla: I have to specify. I never saw Evilly Manipulative Dumbledore in the books and by evilly manipulative I don't mean DD who is on the Dark side, but the one who takes away people's freedom of choice for the sake of it. DD makes HUGE mistakes, many of them, in my book, but I do think that he is a good man, who is in charge of Light side and simply struggles to juggle too many reponsibilities at the same time, maybe that is why he appears to be manipulative to so many people. Not to me :) Draeconin: > Shall we start with Dumbledore's not checking up on Harry's welfare in > almost ten years, nor sending anyone else to do so? He *knows* the > type of people the Dursleys are, after all. Alla: No argument from me on this one, that was wrong in my book. :) But can't you imagine Dumbledore being scared if he does check on Harry, Petunia will throw the boy on the streets and then, good bye, blood protection. Draeconin: > And then we have Snape. Yes, he had a grudge against Harry's father, > and later he has to maintain a look of hostility towards Harry in > order to preserve his status as a spy, but again Harry is being > subjected to abuse. > > Even a detached Dumbledore, if he's the kindly person he's made out > to be, would have tried to curb that, wouldn't he? And surely the > other staff have noticed? Why haven't any of them tried to intervene? Alla: Nods my head in agreement. Hehe. Of course you will get no argument from me on this one either - Snape abuses Harry psychologically, torments him even. But don't you see Dumbledore hoping that Snape will finally get to know Harry on his own and realising that he is a good kid, that he has a kind soul, etc? Don't you see how that could be the main reason of DD insisting Snape teaching Harry Occlumency? Because he would hope that Snape would see what kind of person Harry is? After all Dumbledore loves Harry ( and I do believe him now), so I think DD hoped that Snape would see it too. Was it naive? Oh, sure, naive and wrong on so many levels IMO, but I cannot fault Dumbledore for that. :) Draeconin: > That's part of the problem, though, isn't it. Harry is raised by > Muggles in such a way that he'd really have little knowledge of even > the way the Muggle world works. Then he's snatched to the Wizarding > world, and set free to make his own way, with no instruction in how > THAT world works. That's not detached, that's... Well, I can't recall > the proper word. Alla: Yes and I always say that I want to strangle Snape every time I read the first lesson chapter. It reminds me of the vicious dog attacking the child, who got lost in the completely new world and has no clue how everything works. But Harry finds the way eventually, no? What I am trying to say that I am convinced that the only reason DD placed Harry with Dursleys was to save Harry's life, everything else, I just hope not. :) > > Alla: > > > > Because if he placed Harry for the reason you suggested, IMO he is > > a monster and somehow I doubt that this is what JKR had in mind. Draeconin: > Perhaps not, but that's what is there. On the surface Dumbledore is a > kindly old man; but the things he's done or caused to be done! Alla: IMO he made mistakes, LOTS of them, HUGE mistakes, but I think he did to save Harry. Draeconin: > Thinking for himself, and I did mention the possible temper (the > latter of which Harry seems to have anyway). If Dumbledore truly did > believe Harry to be the one to eventually kill Voldemort once and for > all, he'd want a weapon that he - or someone - could control, wouldn't he? Alla: Why would he want a weapon? Why? Where in the books you see the signs that Dumbledore wants the political power? On the contrary he did not want to become Minister, etc. I think he would want to help Harry to survive the ordeal as best as he can and to live his life afterwards. Draeconin: > I said nothing about Harry forgetting about them, but don't you find > it rather odd that Harry, even now, has been told so little about his > parents or other family? Alla: Plot related reasons, I think. JMO, Alla From tonks_op at yahoo.com Sat Apr 15 21:48:39 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 21:48:39 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's Death In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150966 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" wrote: > Sandy/OctobersChild48: > > ... I can accept the fact that Dumbledore is dead, .... What I > cannot accept is the way he died. (Snip) > Dumbledore's funeral did him justice, but his death did not. (Snip) Jo could have done better for the greatest wizard of his time. bboyminn: That fact that JKR was able to generate such an emotional response in you associated with Dumbledore's death, tells me that JKR did her job very well indeed. That fact that you didn't like the manner of Dumbledore's death seems to me to be right on track. How could we /like/ any manner of death for such a noble wizard? (Snip) >she had the noble mentor die a quiet and unheroic death. Not completely unheroic, but it was a quiet death with very little of the battle-blaze-of-glory that we typically see. (snip) >As a side note; let's look at Sirius's death. That was a very unsatisfying death. Even though he died in battle, it was so unexpected, so quiet, so pointless, so meaningless. (snip some more) Dumbledore's death was the same; unpredictable and filled with regret >on the part of those left behind. There is so much more that Dumbledore could have and should have told Harry. There is so much more that Harry needs to learn, yet his greatest protector, his greatest mentor, the one person in whom he placed all comfort, safety, and hope is gone. That leaves Harry and me feeling very >empty, sad, and desperate. And that lingering feeling in myself, in Harry, and in the wizard world, that desperate hopeless helpless feeling, tells me that JKR did her job nicely, because that is exactly the frame of mind JKR wants her hero and her readers in at the beginning of the last book. The situation really is hopeless. (snip) So the pointless, hopeless, impossible nature of Dumbledore's death was exactly the setup the books needed at that point in the story. In the end, I think we will see that Sirius's and Dumbledore death >really do have meaning and value, and really did serve some higher >purpose in the story. Tonks: As you know I see many symbols in the series that point toward a Christian theme. What is confusing is the way in which JKR stirs these symbols and causes them to come out in rather unexpected way, sometimes in very disguised ways and sometimes hidden in plain site. Everything from the names of each book to the mark on Harry forehead are symbols of something more. And so I think are the deaths of both Sirius and DD. Let us start with Sirius. His closest friends and the ones that he hangs out with most are Peter, James and John (Remus John Lupin). This is also true of Jesus. We hear that he frequently went with Peter, James and John. Jesus also transfigured in their presence, and so does Sirius. All of this points to Sirius being a Christ figure. Also we have the fact, so I am told, that the star Sirius is seen as the `morning star' by some and also as the Messianic star that the magi followed. And the morning star is Christ. But the biggest thing is the way in which Sirius dies. Oddly he goes behind the veil in both body and soul. Has anyone else ever done that in the WW? I would think maybe not. This points to the Ascension of Jesus. Now to DD. I have written about this before. See post: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/147906 The events of the cave and the tower are events, in very disguised form, that are similar to the last hours of Jesus, even to the fact that it happened at the place of the skull. (the dark mark over the tower.) Sandy and Steve are right, it does seem like the death of DD was not befitting the greatest wizard of all time. I too share the pain of his death. I agree that JKR has done a magnificent job of getting all of us to love DD and morn his death. The way we feel and the way Harry feels and way all in the Order feels are the same as what the Disciples felt after the Crucifixion of Jesus. I think that is exactly the way that JKR has set it up for us to feel. I also think that we will see some sort or resurrection in book 7. It will not be as I or others expect, but it will be there, if only in the return of Fawkes. Tonks_op From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Sat Apr 15 21:51:54 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 21:51:54 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150967 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Shamyn D. W." wrote: :Draeconin > I thought the Longbottoms were tortured into catatonia by Voldemort > himself? Geoff: No. canon is very clear about this: '"You know - you know the trial you found me in? The one with Crouch's son? Well... were they talking about Neville's parents?" Dumbledore gave Harry a very sharp look. "Has Neville never told you why he was brought up by his grandmother?" he said. Harry shook his head, wondering, as he did so, how he could have failed to ask Neville this, in almost four years of knowing him. "Yes, they were talking about Neville's parents," said Dumbledore. "His father, Frank, was an Auror just like Professor Moody. He and his wife were tortured for information about Voldermort's whereabouts after he lost his powers as you heard." "So they're dead?" said Harry quietly."No," said Dumbledore, his voice of a bitterness Harry had never heard there before, "they are insane. They are both in St.Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. I believe Neville visits them, with his grandmother, during the holidays. They do not recognise him." Harry sat there, horror-struck. He had never known... never, in four years, bothered to find out..." "The Longbottoms were very popular," said Dumbledore. "The attacks on them came after Voldermort's fall from power, just when everyone thought they were safe. Those attacks caused a wave of fury such as I have never known..."' (GOF "The Pensieve" pp.523-24 UK edition) And we also know that Bellatrix was, on her own admission, certainly involved... 'One of the largest Death Eaters seized Neville from behind, pinioning his arms to his sides. He struggled and kicked; several of the Death Eaters laughed. "It's Longbottom, isn't it?" sneered Lucius Malfoy. "Well, your grandmother is used to losing family members to our cause... your death will not come as a great shock." "Longbottom?" repeated Bellatrix and a truly evil smile lit her gaunt face. "Why, I have had the pleasure of meeting your parents, boy." "I DOE YOU HAB!" roared Neville and he fought so hard against his captor's encircling grip that the Death Eater shouted, "Someone stun him." "No, no, no," said Bellatrix. She looked transported, alive with excitement as she glanced at Harry, then back at Neville. "No, let's see how long Longbottom lasts before he cracks like his parents... unless Potter wants to give us the prophecy."' (OOTP "Beyond the Veil" pp.705-06 UK edition) From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 15 22:43:45 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 22:43:45 -0000 Subject: The Sting: Lucius sent Bella (was:Re: LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150968 Neri wrote: > Note that the critical word "sent" may not have been originally introduced by JKR at all, but by the fan who wrote this question, and she may have used it only because that fan did. Both question and answer aren't very clear, due to being written in the passive tense and because JKR at the time had to hide Snape's involvement in the prophecy (it was before HBP was published). But it now seems to me that JKR's main (and perhaps only) objective here was to squash the theory that the Longbottoms were attacked because of the prophecy. > It is not clear at all that JKR meant to make the words "were sent" less ambiguous in her answer. From the context it seems to me that by "very definitely" she was actually refering to "after Neville's parents" rather than to "the Lestranges were sent". So interpreting this answer as "JKR said the Lestranges were sent after Frank and Alice by someone other than Voldemort or themselves" is kind of shaky. It depends a lot on whether you think JKR weights very carefully every word she writes in her website or not. Based on some recent examples I personally tend more to the "or not". > > Now, regarding the Lucius' sting theory, while it generally works well with the canon (especially with that shaky "the Lestranges were sent by someone other than Voldemort or themselves") the problem that I see with it is that it has low BANG quotient and doesn't advance the main plot much. I see very little that a revelation of a Lucius' sting in Book 7 can do to advance the story. It certainly can cause a nice feud between Bella and Lucius should the plot demand it (though we don't know that it should) but plotting the Longbottoms affair throughout the series mainly in order to cause a feud between Bella and Lucius in Book 7 strikes to me as a bit of an overkill. > > So my guess is that, if the reason for the attack on the Longbottoms is going to play in Book 7 (which isn't certain at all) it would be in the service of solving a big standing mystery. An obvious possibility would be the location of one of the Horcruxes. Based on Bella's little slip of tongue in Spinner's End ("in the past the Dark Lord had trusted me with his most precious...") it seems that she was entrusted with the safekeeping of a Horcrux shortly before GH, about the same time when Lucius too (according to Dumbledore) was trusted with the safekeeping of the Diary. It also appears that Voldy isn't very satisfied with Bella's safekeeping performances. Perhaps Frank and Alice, working as aurors and/or Order members, stole or confiscated that Horcrux from Bella, probably not knowing what it really was. In this theory the attack on the Longbottoms was Bella's attempt to retrieve this Horcrux, and it looks like she failed. While this theory isn't more canon-based than the Lucius sting, solving the Longbottoms mystery in Book 7 would be considerably BANGier that way and would directly advance the plot by leading to the discovery of this Horcrux. Carol responds: I agree with you that JKR is often (intentionally or unintentionally) vague in her responses both in interviews and on her website and that she picked up the phrase "were sent" from the question (just as she picked up "offered" in relation to Voldemort's not originally intending to kill Lily), but I disagree that she's not deliberately using it to conceal the identity of the sender. As a native speaker of English, I can confidently state that people don't "send" themselves. Someone else must have sent them. And that someone could not have been the vaporized Voldemort. Nor, as we know from "Spinner's End," could it have been Snape. But Lucius, whose behavior in CoS shows him capable of exactly the Sting tactics that Talisman described, remains a viable candidate. And as an important minor character, if you'll pardon the oxymoron, we can confidently expect that he still has a role to play. Why not, in part, a connection with the Longbottom incident, which also needs to be resolved? As for the mission of Bellatrix and her male cohorts, Bella makes it clear in both the Pensieve scene and "Spinner's End" that only she and her faithful followers tried to find and rescue Voldemort. *That* was her mission, perhaps self-imposed after Lucius dropped his hint (in which case "were sent" is indeed used loosely but nevertheless implies the involvement of someone not present at the scene), and for some reason she wrongly thought that Frank Longbottom had information about it, again most easily explained if she was deliberately misinformed. Killing Frank would not have suited her purpose as it might have done if she were merely after something in his possession. Not being a Legilimens or having Veritaserum at hand to forcefeed him, she tried to torture the information out of him, and failing that, tortured his wife to make him talk. Had he merely confiscated some object that she wanted, these measures would have worked, but since she wanted information that he couldn't provide no matter how long she and her followers tortured him and his wife, the only consequences were the Longbottoms' insanity, the fury of the WW, and the life sentences in Azkaban of the diehard DEs. I agree that Bella is connected with a Horcrux, but it makes much more sense for it to be the one that Regulus stole. After all, they're cousins and Kreacher is devoted to Bellatrix, suggesting that she was a regular guest at 12 GP before it became Order HQ. (This idea is reinforced by the fact that the last time Sirius saw her was at the end of his fifth year, long after Bella had left Hogwarts. It must have been during a visit to Aunt Walburga.) I doubt very much that there's a Longbottom/Horcrux connection. Bellatrix has clearly stated her motives at least twice. She was trying to find her master and bring him back. Her devoted followers, her husband, her tagalong brother-in-law, and fanatical little Barty Jr., would have shared her motive. Torturing the Longbottoms for the sake of some object that they didn't know was a Horcrux makes much less sense. As to why or how Lucius's sending his sister-in-law and her "cadre of maniacs" (winks at Talisman) to get themselves captured by Aurors could play into the plot later, it would show that Lucius, unlike his mad sister-in-law, is not a diehard DE and very much out for himself, in keeping with his actions in CoS, his relations with Fudge in OoP,and Voldie's own characterization of him as "my slippery friend" in GoF. Unlike most of the other DEs involved in the MoM fiasco, Lucius was not already serving a life sentence for his activities as a DE during VW1, and it's possible that he could be released from prison in Book 7. A certain black-haired friend of his who recently rescued his son from either committing murder or being murdered and who conveniently happens to be a Legilimens could easily determine where Lucius's loyalties lie, taking advantage of Lucius's gratitude to himself and his resentment of Voldie's treatment of himself and his family. (Probably he already knows that Lucius is no friend of Bella's, and if the Sting theory is true, he may even know that Lucius set her up.) Even if Snape isn't DDM!, just committed for reasons of his own to overthrowing Voldemort, he could easily manipulate the whole Malfoy family, from the grateful Narcissa and the indebted Draco to the disgruntled and perennially OFH!Lucius, into secretly siding with him against first Bellatrix and, ultimately, the Dark Lord himself. Much bangier, IMO, than Bellatrix Crucioing the Longbottoms for a confiscated Horcrux, and much more in line with canon so far. Carol, who is now going to finish her much-delayed income tax return. Really. From shamyn at pacbell.net Sun Apr 16 00:34:14 2006 From: shamyn at pacbell.net (Shamyn D. W.) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 00:34:14 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150969 > Carol responds: > Hi, Shamyn, and welcome to the group. Draeconin: Thank you. > I'll start off by saying that I agree with other posters that the > blood protection was the most powerful and potent protection that > Dumbledore could give Harry. > I also think that while it cannot make > the Dursleys love him or prevent them from neglecting him, making him > sleep in a broom cupboard, or psychologically abusing him, IMO, either > it or the blood protection in his veins protects him from serious > *physical* abuse while he's in that house: Aunt Petunia's frying pan > misses his head and Uncle Vernon receives some sort of electric shock > when he tries to choke Harry. In addition, I'm sure that the house is > being watched by Mrs. Figg, at least, and if she had any indication > that Harry was being seriously abused (e.g., beaten with a clothes > hanger), she would have notified Dumbledore instantly. Draeconin: I see. So neglect, 'Harry Hunting', and psychological and emotional abuse are nothing worth doing anything about. *skeptical raised eyebrow* > As Steve has pointed out, Harry is much safer hidden among the Muggles > than he would have been in a world where every child knows his name. > It would have been impossible to keep him hidden (and if the wizarding > family had tried to keep him hidden indoors all the time, that would > have been abuse, too). Draeconin: To a much lesser extent, imo. But with the various sorts of wards available, Harry wouldn't have needed to be kept indoors. > > I do agree that Dumbledore may have had a secondary consideration in > not wanting Harry to grow up like James, a "pampered little prince" > with a high opinion of himself, his abilities, and his destiny. Much > better that he grow up humble (*not* timid), Draeconin: I didn't say that Harry was timid; I said that result was often found in that sort of environment - a consideration that Dumbledore may have taken into account. But with the sort of character he expected Harry to have, the result wouldn't be that severe. IMO, it was still a ruthless act. > Harry, fortunately, isn't James. He has his faults, being human, but > arrogance--a fatal overconfidence--is not one of them. Draeconin: So you're saying it was okay for Dumbledore to do it, because it did what Dumbledore wanted? > I disagree that abuse, especially the level of abuse engaged in by the > Dursleys, always makes children timid, Draeconin: I said 'often' - not 'always'. And there's usually permanent psychological effects - although I'm not sure Dumbledore would have known that last. > and in any case, Harry had defenses that other children didn't have. Draeconin: Dumbledore knew that when Harry was just one year old? > What Harry developed...(etc.) So, no, I absolutely do not agree that > Dumbledore was trying to make him timid. He wanted him (IMO) to be > humble, resourceful, and resilient--as he would have to be to face > Voldemort. Put another way, he wanted to bring out the best of > whatever qualities Harry inherited from James and Lily, not the worst. Draeconin: Please look at the type of person it would take to do that. Rather cold, manipulative and calculating, rather than being "the epitome of goodness", etc. That's my point. Now, I won't argue against Dumbledore *maybe* having developed something of a consciense before Harry started Hogwarts (which would explain why Harry's magical education wasn't pushed more), but he still manipulates Harry when he deems it necessary. Draeconin From shamyn at pacbell.net Sun Apr 16 00:03:29 2006 From: shamyn at pacbell.net (Shamyn D. W.) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 00:03:29 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150970 > Alla: > I have to specify. I never saw Evilly Manipulative Dumbledore in the > books and by evilly manipulative I don't mean DD who is on the Dark > side, but the one who takes away people's freedom of choice for the > sake of it. Draeconin: *confused frown* I don't think I ever made the allegation that Dumbledore was evil. IMO he was forging the weapon that he believed would be needed. He was the hero that defeated Grindlewald, then an unofficial general of sorts in the first war against Voldemort. You don't become good at the latter job, anyway, without being able to look at people as playing pieces. You don't want to lose them, but you do what you believe is necessary in order to win the game. > DD makes HUGE mistakes, many of them, in my book, but I do think > that he is a good man, who is in charge of Light side and simply > struggles to juggle too many reponsibilities at the same time, Draeconin: No argument from me, although a couple of my stories take it further, to a man desperate to remain in control and will do almost anything to keep it. > Draeconin: > > Shall we start with Dumbledore's not checking up on Harry's > welfare in > > almost ten years, nor sending anyone else to do so? > > Alla: > No argument from me on this one, that was wrong in my book. :) But > can't you imagine Dumbledore being scared if he does check on Harry, > Petunia will throw the boy on the streets and then, good bye, blood > protection. Draeconin: No. Petunia is, I think, scared almost spitless of him, and would be terrified of his retaliation were she to do any such thing. > > Draeconin: > > And then we have Snape. > > Even a detached Dumbledore, if he's the kindly person he's made > out > > to be, would have tried to curb that, wouldn't he? And surely the > > other staff have noticed? Why haven't any of them tried to > intervene? > > Alla: > But don't you see Dumbledore hoping that Snape will finally get to > know Harry on his own and realising that he is a good kid, that he > has a kind soul, etc? Draeconin: Over how many years? That kind of patience is willing blind foolishness, if there's no other motive - imo, of course. > Don't you see how that could be the main > reason of DD insisting Snape teaching Harry Occlumency? Because he > would hope that Snape would see what kind of person Harry is? Draeconin: Looking at Harry and Snape's history, that's optimism indeed. > Was it naive? Oh, sure, naive and wrong on so many levels IMO, > but I cannot fault Dumbledore for that. :) Draeconin: I know one person who was put in psychiatric care because he had problems seeing things realistically. I'm sorry, but the person you're painting Dumbledore to be has no business running a school, let alone a resistance movement. At least my manipulative Dumbledore would have the skills and outlook to be able to do those things properly. And by all accounts, he was fairly good at it - most of the time. Okay, I've changed my mind. There's a third option. Pychologically challenged Dumbledore. It fits all the facts so much better! lol > Alla: > But Harry finds the way eventually, no? Draeconin: Has he? Yes, he knows his magic, but he still has had very little contact with the Wizarding world outside of Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and the Burrow. He's been exposed to Diagon Alley, but hasn't spent much time there. As for the rest of Wizarding society? The reasons of danger aside, he still hasn't had much in the way of exposure to them, and I'm guessing no in-depth knowledge of how it works. IF he lives through the war, how is he to fit in afterward? Rather short-sighted of some people. > What I am trying to say that > I am convinced that the only reason DD placed Harry with Dursleys > was to save Harry's life, everything else, I just hope not. :) Draeconin: Yes, I know I brought up only the Dursleys. Sorry it's spread out so much, but it all ties in with Dumbledore, his methods, and his nature. > Alla: > Why would he want a weapon? Why? Er... Voldemort? Death Eaters? > Where in the books you see the signs that Dumbledore wants the > political power? Draeconin: Where in the world did you get the idea I was referring to politics or political power? > :Draeconin > > I thought the Longbottoms were tortured into catatonia by Voldemort > > himself? > > Geoff: > No. canon is very clear about this: > "Yes, they were talking about Neville's parents," said Dumbledore. "His father, Frank, was > an Auror just like Professor Moody. He and his wife were tortured for information about > Voldermort's whereabouts after he lost his powers as you heard." Draeconin: Ah. Thank you. Don't know how I overlooked that - unless it was in book five or six. Didn't care much for either of those, and wanted to forget them. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 16 01:17:12 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 01:17:12 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150971 > > Alla: > > I have to specify. I never saw Evilly Manipulative Dumbledore in the > > books and by evilly manipulative I don't mean DD who is on the Dark > > side, but the one who takes away people's freedom of choice for the > > sake of it. > > Draeconin: > *confused frown* I don't think I ever made the allegation that > Dumbledore was evil. IMO he was forging the weapon that he believed > would be needed. He was the hero that defeated Grindlewald, then an > unofficial general of sorts in the first war against Voldemort. You > don't become good at the latter job, anyway, without being able to > look at people as playing pieces. You don't want to lose them, but > you do what you believe is necessary in order to win the game. Alla: Well, I said that by "evilly manipulative" I don't mean DD being on the Dark side, but yes, I think that the kind of person you describe who simply looks at the people as chess pieces is evil. IMO of course. I DO think that commander should be able to do certain level of manipulation in order as you said to win the game, BUT that's I think the main difference between yours POV and mine. I don't think DD manipulates much, he allows people to make their own choices AND whatever manipulation he does is to help WW, not for his personal gain. Alla: > > DD makes HUGE mistakes, many of them, in my book, but I do think > > that he is a good man, who is in charge of Light side and simply > > struggles to juggle too many reponsibilities at the same time, > > Draeconin: > No argument from me, although a couple of my stories take it further, > to a man desperate to remain in control and will do almost anything to > keep it. Alla: Well, that is I just don't see. I am again going to ask you for canon which supports the argument that DD is a man desperate to remain in control and will do almost anything to keep it. You see, DD who refuses MOM position does not sound to me like man desperate to remain in control. Dumbledore who is leaving school in CoS because Governors said so, also does not look to me like man desperate to remain in control. Dumbledore who is powerless to stop Umbridge also does not fit IMO the profile of the man willing to do anything to remain in control, when he is so clearly NOT in control of school in OOP IMO. I don't know I just don't see Dumbledore's desperation to remain in control in canon. Examples, please? > Draeconin: > No. Petunia is, I think, scared almost spitless of him, and would be > terrified of his retaliation were she to do any such thing. Alla: Well, that is possible of course. It is also possible that Vernon could have thrown Harry out on the streets just as he tried to do in OOP and Petunia would not have been home at the moment to stop it, no? > Draeconin: > > Okay, I've changed my mind. There's a third option. Pychologically > challenged Dumbledore. It fits all the facts so much better! lol Alla: Believe it or not, even though you seem to be joking, I do believe it fits facts better than Puppetmaster!Dumbledore. But I will rephrase it a little bit, instead of "psychologically challenged" Dumbledore, I would put "emotional idiot" Dumbledore. He is 150 years old and is it such a wonder that at such old age he forgot how youth feels? Is it so difficult to imagine that he indeed forgot how hurtful scars of the youth could be and Snape could not have overcome that? ( And no, I don't justify what Snape does to Harry AT ALL, in case you have not read my other posts. :) I think he is complete and utter bastard for taking out on the innocent child whatever grudges he has with James) But I think it is perfectly understandable for Dumbledore to forget that "some wounds run too deep". > > Alla: > > Why would he want a weapon? Why? >Draeconin: > Er... Voldemort? Death Eaters? > Alla: > > Where in the books you see the signs that Dumbledore wants the > > political power? > > Draeconin: > Where in the world did you get the idea I was referring to politics or > political power? Alla: Sorry for misunderstanding you. But could you please clarify what kind of power you were referring to then? I thought you were saying that Dumbledore wants Harry as his weapon because he wants personal control in order to achieve some kind of the political gain for himself? And my question as to why he would want a weapon still stands, because I think that Dumbledore trusts Harry's heroic nature, and trusts that he would want to fight the man who killed his parents without Dumbledore controling him and telling him what to do. I think DD trusts that Harry will figure things for himself and makes the right choice. JMO, Alla From shamyn at pacbell.net Sun Apr 16 01:17:15 2006 From: shamyn at pacbell.net (Shamyn D. W.) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 01:17:15 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150972 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Ceridwen" wrote: > Ceridwen: > Hi, Shamyn! Welcome to the board! Draeconin: Thank you. > Ceridwen: > At the time when Dumbledore placed Harry with his relatives, all of > the Death Eaters had not been caught. Loyal followers, as we saw > later with the Longbottoms, could be searching for Harry while still > covering their tracks. We do know that there was at least one more > attack, that of the Longbottoms. Draeconin: Very good point. > And, it isn't good to bounce a child from home to home. Draeconin: Quite correct. But I don't doubt Harry would have welcomed *any* sort of change to what he had to endure. Do you? It would have taken time to adjust, but very little, imo. > Harry needed to be placed in a stable environment, at a time when > there was a question as to where that might be. Draeconin: I'm sorry, but you consider the Dursleys a 'stable environment'? > Any WW family could turn out to > have a traitor/LV supporter in their midst (just as the Black family > had a 'blood traitor' in Sirius's refusal to go along with family > belief, or more directly, Barty Crouch Jr. in Crouch's household). Draeconin: True, but it would have taken little to verify each member of a family, especially if they started with an OoP member. (There would be far more than are ever mentioned.) > Ceridwen: > So if the self is informed by impressions gained from others, then > Harry would have to earn the snobbish behavior rather than being > born with it. Draeconin: But you're only looking at one facet of James' character. He was a Marauder - a prankster, rule breaker, etc, which implies headstrong, out of control, and so on. > I'm interested in what you think of Lily. As you describe her, she > is an admirable person (strong personality who thinks for herself). > You say yourself that she doesn't fawn all over James. Draeconin: IMO, she probably was a *very* admirable person. But if Dumbledore is looking at Harry as the weapon that will one day destroy Voldemort, he's going to want someone who will follow orders without question. > What it seems you are saying regarding Lily is, that Dumbledore > doesn't want Harry to be independent or have a strong personality. > This brings manipulation into the mix. So, what I am understanding > you as saying, and I hope you'll correct me if I'm wrong, is that > Dumbledore wants a Prophecy Boy who will naturally follow > Dumbledore's instructions, first because his personality was scared > out of him by the Dursleys (or beaten out of him, or humiliated out > of him, or whatever) Draeconin: Not that strongly, but that's the general idea. Controllable, but still able to go to war. That's one of the first things they do when you join the military: take away your individuality - make you a part of a unit rather than be your own person. This would have been Dumbledore's method of doing that. > and second, because of the stark contrast between the way the > Dursleys treated him, and the way Dumbledore and others on the > side of Light (Hagrid in particular since he is the first of the WW > Harry actually meets). Draeconin: Yes, well gratitude is a strong emotion that might lead Harry to easily give his loyalty, isn't it? > Ceridwen: > This belief isn't so common in our world any more. It's not? Funny - I still hear it all the time. But we're also talking about the UK and a society about a hundred years behind the modern Muggle world. > The debate about Nature v. Nurture has swung back and forth, Draeconin: Ah, you're talking about the scientific and intelligentsia communities - not the common person on the street. I'll grant you that attitudes are changing, but not that quickly. > A hundred years ago, if we can visualize > the WW as being that far sociologically behind the real world (and it > does seem to hold certain traditional values beside progressive > values) they would still hold to the idea that Nature and Nurture > both play a part. Draeconin: Ah, but which would they think more influential? It seems to me they still put a great emphasis on blood (inheritance). > The sort of > environment at the Dursleys, I would think, would produce a fighter > rather than a doormat or puppet, precisely because of the outright > dislike and animosity they show toward him and his parents. Either > he'll cave in badly, or he'll stand and grow stronger. Draeconin: Big chance to take, isn't it? > If Dumbledore took Harry's parents' personalities into account, > then he relied on James's arrogance and Lily's strength to keep > Harry from caving, and make him into a fighter instead. Draeconin: But here you're making my point. Thank you. *grin* > A final thought on Harry's placement is that the Dursleys are his > only living blood relations. It is common in most societies to try > and place an orphaned child with relatives whenever possible. It is > expected that they will have a greater love for a child of their own > blood and will be more likely to raise him as part of the family, > because he is. Petunia did indeed raise Harry like a part of her > family, only he was the part of her family that she despised or > envied or both, and her hatred and/or anger comes out at every turn. Draeconin: If I recall aright, they took Harry in because they were bribed. Dumbledore promised to cover Harry's expenses. Well, we can see that Harry didn't get the benefit of that. > Dumbledore was right, in the end, to place Harry with his relations. > He may not have had a choice if the WW follows our practices of > placing a child with relatives, but whatever the reason, Harry became > stronger because of his time with the Dursleys. Draeconin: Again, you make my point. Harry's placement with the Dursleys was NOT so much for *his* good, but for Dumbledore's plans. From shamyn at pacbell.net Sun Apr 16 02:27:39 2006 From: shamyn at pacbell.net (Shamyn D. W.) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 02:27:39 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150973 > Alla: > whatever manipulation he does is to help WW, not for his personal > gain. I think you mistake me. I've said nothing about personal gain. > Alla: > > Well, that is I just don't see. I am again going to ask you for > canon which supports the argument that DD is a man desperate to > remain in control and will do almost anything to keep it. Draeconin: Did you see that part that said I wrote it as part of my stories? Fiction? Entertainment? > Alla: > > Well, that is possible of course. It is also possible that Vernon > could have thrown Harry out on the streets just as he tried to do in > OOP and Petunia would not have been home at the moment to stop > it, no? Draeconin: And if he did, then according to what you've written, Mrs. Figg would have been right on top of the situation. But here we're getting into what *might* have happened, rather than looking at why something *did* happen. >> psychologically challenged > Alla: > Believe it or not, even though you seem to be joking, I do believe > it fits facts better than Puppetmaster!Dumbledore. But I will > rephrase it a little bit, instead of "psychologically challenged" > Dumbledore, I would put "emotional idiot" Dumbledore. He is 150 > years old and is it such a wonder that at such old age he forgot how > youth feels? Draeconin: Not at all. But it seems that you're trying to explain why Dumbledore is manipulative, etc. I'm not worried about that - just the fact that he is. > Is it so difficult to imagine that he indeed forgot how > hurtful scars of the youth could be and Snape could not have > overcome that? Draeconin: How did we begin discussing Snape? > ( And no, I don't justify what Snape does to Harry AT > ALL, in case you have not read my other posts. :) Draeconin: I'm sorry, but no, I haven't. In fact I've found myself so caught up in replying to the responses to my original post that I haven't even had a chance to work on my stories today. If that keeps up, I may have to unsubscribe. But Snape was actually a side issue to point out Dumbledore's lack of interference in bad situations. > > > Alla: > > > Why would he want a weapon? Why? > > >Draeconin: > > Er... Voldemort? Death Eaters? > > > > Where in the world did you get the idea I was referring to > politics or > > political power? > > Alla: > > Sorry for misunderstanding you. But could you please clarify what > kind of power you were referring to then? > > I thought you were saying that Dumbledore wants Harry as his weapon > because he wants personal control in order to achieve some kind of > the political gain for himself? Draeconin: Absolutely not. Harry is (originally only by Dumbledore) the perceived weapon that will either kill Voldemort or be killed by him. Harry is the weapon that the prophecy says is the WW only chance of defeating Voldemort. > And my question as to why he would want a weapon still stands, > because I think that Dumbledore trusts Harry's heroic nature, and > trusts that he would want to fight the man who killed his parents > without Dumbledore controling him and telling him what to do. > > I think DD trusts that Harry will figure things for himself and > makes the right choice. Draeconin: Well he's done his best to ensure that, hasn't he? That was the point of all the manipulation. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 16 03:03:05 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 03:03:05 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150974 > > Alla: > > > whatever manipulation he does is to help WW, not for his personal > > gain. Draeconin: > I think you mistake me. I've said nothing about personal gain. Alla: Sorry again then. > > Alla: > > > > Well, that is I just don't see. I am again going to ask you for > > canon which supports the argument that DD is a man desperate to > > remain in control and will do almost anything to keep it. > > Draeconin: > Did you see that part that said I wrote it as part of my stories? > Fiction? Entertainment? Alla: Of course I saw that part, but now I am confused even more :) I thought that the fact that you wrote it in your stories means that that is how you perceive Canon!Dumbledore, since on this list we discuss canon, not fan fiction. So, you do not perceive Canon!Dumbledore as the man desperate to be in control? Alla: > > Is it so difficult to imagine that he indeed forgot how > > hurtful scars of the youth could be and Snape could not have > > overcome that? > > Draeconin: > How did we begin discussing Snape? Alla: Ooops, bad habit, I guess :) Am working on it. But I do think that Snape is relevant here, because we were talking as to why Dumbledore would not have stopped Snape's abuse of Harry, no? And I was trying to explain why in my opinion nonmanipulative Dumbledore would let Snape just be Snape? Alla: > > ( And no, I don't justify what Snape does to Harry AT > > ALL, in case you have not read my other posts. :) > > Draeconin: > I'm sorry, but no, I haven't. In fact I've found myself so caught up > in replying to the responses to my original post that I haven't even > had a chance to work on my stories today. If that keeps up, I may have > to unsubscribe. But Snape was actually a side issue to point out > Dumbledore's lack of interference in bad situations. Alla: Oh, no, no, no, no. :) You don't have to apologise for reading my other posts. The only reason I brought it up is to avoid the argument that I somehow justify what Snape does, I just wanted to be sure, you know :) Alla: > > And my question as to why he would want a weapon still stands, > > because I think that Dumbledore trusts Harry's heroic nature, and > > trusts that he would want to fight the man who killed his parents > > without Dumbledore controling him and telling him what to do. > > > > I think DD trusts that Harry will figure things for himself and > > makes the right choice. > > Draeconin: > Well he's done his best to ensure that, hasn't he? That was the point > of all the manipulation. > Alla: And we are venturing into agree to disagree area. I disagree that the reason Harry would want to fight Voldemort is because of Dumbledore's manipulations. I really do. I think that this is who Harry is. That is why he would fight Voldemort, because of who Harry is. JMO, Alla From Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com Sun Apr 16 02:49:58 2006 From: Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com (coldsliversofglass) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 02:49:58 -0000 Subject: Why the Dark Lord wanted Dumbledore killed (was Why Dumbledore Had to Die In-Reply-To: <20060412162711.39884.qmail@web36514.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150975 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Arley Dotinei wrote: > I hope I'm not discussing something old, but it occurred to me that perhaps the Dark Lord had some hidden agenda in asking for Dumbledore's demise besides the obvious. I mean, if I had plans to rule the Wizarding world, of course I'd want someone like Dumbledore out of the way, but could there be something more? So, does anyone think he might have had something specific in his Dark mind when he asked Draco to kill Dumbledore? Or was it just a way to punish Draco for Lucius' fiasco, get rid of the old coot (Albus) and leave the path open to finally vanquish that annoying boy (Harry)? > >Or am I just seeing things where they aren't? coldsliversofglass: I could well see Voldemort having more than one intention in his bid to get rid of Dumbledore. I mean, Dumbledore had defeated a Dark Lord before, he's the head of the Order, he always seems to rescue Harry, and he seems to have a lot of influence on those around him...but just as Dumbledore always has more than one-visable-reason for his behavior, Voldemort generally seems to like dovetailing just as much. I don't think it was just a punishment for Draco, though I'm sure Voldemort was amused by the added pleasure he recieved from tormenting his followers. It may have just been the most opportune time: maybe he had some warning that Dumbledore would be weak? Maybe he just wanted to see how much dissent he could cause with the order: Snape, Draco, Draco's family, Harry, Dumbledore...even if it had failed, the consequences would've been enough to shake things up drastically. Anyhow, I just wish JK would turn around and do the story (maybe a biography of Voldemort or something, if she didn't want to write it book by book) from Voldemort's point of view so we could delve into his mind and his beliefs and motivation more. After all, there's always the other side to the story: now what would Voldemort say about Dumbeldore, I wonder... coldsliversofglass From Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com Sun Apr 16 02:39:47 2006 From: Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com (coldsliversofglass) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 02:39:47 -0000 Subject: Emphasis on the title: Professor (Was: Who calls Voldemort "Lord") In-Reply-To: <20060315044441.32714.qmail@web35605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150976 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Maria Holub wrote: > >Doesn't Dobby also call Voldemort 'the dark lord' as >well? Can't quite picture Dobby as a Death Eater.. Too short. Like >Sirius said, the world is not divided neatly into normal people and >death eaters. People read too much into titles and who uses them. >Harry is after all, often reminded to call his teachers 'professor' >or 'sir'. You don't see other kids having to be reminded to show >respect to their teachers by using their titles. >> Flop: >> Again, I feel there's a fairly simple explanation for >> this. Dobby was the MALFOYS House Elf for who knows >> how many years. I can't imagine Lucius Malfoy ever >> even THINKING of The Dark Lord as "You-Know-Who" so if >> ever he was mentioned he would have been referred to >> as The Dark Lord. >> Here's a thought. Do we know anything about the >> lifespans of House Elves? Because some of the things >> Dobby said about the plight of House Elves before >> Harry triumphed over Voldemort in VW1 kind of implies >> that he (Dobby) was AROUND for VW1, and likely already >> belonged to the Malfoys. Bears thinking about, doesn't >> it?... coldsliversofglass: I shudder to think about any House Elf being forced to work for the Malfoys for so long...poor Dobby, if he was around for all that. As for the title part, I have to wonder if part of Harry's need to be reminded to call his professors by their title involves Harry's upbringing. I mean, if you're locked in a cupboard for 11 years and your relatives keep you out of sight I think manners will be stunted in some ways: titles, especially, and Dobby's use of "Dark Lord" seems to exemplify the fact that we're taught how to address others (by how they address themselves to us, or how those around us refer to them)...which I think is the point Flop was making. Also, I may be wrong, but I thought that Harry's slips in addressing his professors usually center around the issues he has with them. I mean, he hates Snape, so he feels no need to show him the respect that the title conveys. I think he did the same when he was mentioning Quirrel (In an, 'he's an enemy, not my professor' kind of way). He may've slipped with Hagrid too, but if so I would imagine that's because of how close he is to Hagrid (Hagrid having introduced him to the wizarding world and having given him his first cake and birthday present). Did anyone else notice this pattern, or were there other slips that I overlooked that might negate the pattern? From laurel_lei at yahoo.com Sun Apr 16 03:03:20 2006 From: laurel_lei at yahoo.com (Laurel Lei) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 03:03:20 -0000 Subject: Magical Late Bloomer/ Was Neville is the one In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150977 > katssirius > > Except that JKR does not say that it is a squib that gets power as > > an adult. That is what been assumed but not what she actually > > said. This is the actual question and the answer. > > > > Will there be, or have there been, any "late blooming" students in > > the school who come into their magic potential as adults, rather > > than as children? > Magpie: > But she still seems to be being asked if people ever *do* magic for > the first time as adults rather than as children, which indicates > the person is asking about either Squibs or Muggles--non magical > people finding out they can do magic. She says "find out their > magic potential" but it seems to be referring to their ability to do > magic, not how good a wizard they will be. She says someone > will "in desperate circumstances do magic quite late in life," but > Neville's been doing magic regularly for six years, starting out the > regular age. Laurel Lei here... I believe that the non-magical person who will "do magic" quite late in life under "desperate" circumstances will be none other than Argus Filch (our friendly squib caretaker and hall monitor)... he has yet to show any magical abilities even with his "study" of his magical correspondence course. I, do believe, however, that he is truly loyal to Hogwarts and would rise to defend her at all costs... we may very well see an attack on Hogwarts itself in book 7. It would be wonderful to see the shocked and pleased look on Filch's face when he was able to do a bit of magic. Just a thought.... From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Sun Apr 16 04:21:44 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 04:21:44 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150978 Draeconin: > Quite correct. But I don't doubt Harry would have welcomed *any* sort > of change to what he had to endure. Do you? It would have taken time > to adjust, but very little, imo. Ceridwen: If children and the elderly can be equated at all in their vulnerability and in certain types of health risks, then it has been proven that moving an elderly person speeds death. Why would it not speed emotional death for the child? Draeconin: > I'm sorry, but you consider the Dursleys a 'stable environment'? Ceridwen: Yes. Stable means not subject to extreme change; consistent, dependable. You can depend on the Dursleys not to change. They have remained married in a time when divorce is trendy in some segments of society. They remain steadfastly against the odd or unfamiliar, including the WW. Vernon goes to his job every work day, and brings home a paycheck every week or two weeks, depending on his company's policies. They have been in the same home for at least sixteen years as of the end of HBP. They haven't even shown enough instability to change the number of children they can claim as dependents. Draeconin: > True, but it would have taken little to verify each member of a > family, especially if they started with an OoP member. (There would be > far more than are ever mentioned.) Ceridwen: I disagree. We have already seen deception (Crouch) and outright rebellion (Sirius). We may have seen another case of rebellion, depending on what you think of Percy Weasley. And if the Weasleys can have a potential loose cannon of a close relation, anybody can. We have also seen that the old families are all related. The Weasleys are related to the Blacks in some way. As are the Potters, as are the Longbottoms. Should they leave Harry at home? Or not announce his arrival? Dumbledore did the best he could. Period. Draeconin: > But you're only looking at one facet of James' character. He was a > Marauder - a prankster, rule breaker, etc, which implies headstrong, > out of control, and so on. Ceridwen: I'm feeling lazy, since I need to rush off in a few minutes to look for meteors. But there was a thread not too long ago, you can use the search feature and cross your fingers that Yahoo!Mort is feeling generous, to look it up. It is all about James's shortcomings to the point that Lily called him a 'toerag'. So, been there, done that. And *soooooo* tired of it! Draeconin: > IMO, she probably was a *very* admirable person. But if Dumbledore is > looking at Harry as the weapon that will one day destroy Voldemort, > he's going to want someone who will follow orders without question. Ceridwen: I am even more interested in where you get your ideas of the military. People are not weapons. This is not Rambo or Soldier. Harry's value is as a soldier, not a weapon. And, weapons do not follow orders. Weapons are not sentient. They are neutral. They only work when soldiers/sailors/Marines/Airmen activate them. Or are you suggesting that Ginny start pushing Harry's buttons? *g* Draeconin: > Not that strongly, but that's the general idea. Controllable, but > still able to go to war. That's one of the first things they do when > you join the military: take away your individuality - make you a part > of a unit rather than be your own person. This would have been > Dumbledore's method of doing that. Ceridwen: Odd. I was in the military. I haven't lost my personality. There is reconditioning, the 'Total Institution', but you do not lose your personality. And there are plenty of strong personalities - strong individuals - in the military. Again, this is not Rambo or Soldier. This is real life. Draeconin: > Yes, well gratitude is a strong emotion that might lead Harry to > easily give his loyalty, isn't it? Ceridwen: Easily give loyalty. No. He does, but as you keep saying, that was never guaranteed. A child raised in these conditions with the intent of making him so beholding to his 'rescuers' that he vows to do anything, including kill himself for them, is not a given. Yet another thread you might be interested in concerns the orphan's usual place in a story. Harry is not like the traditional orphan hero, he fights against that stereotype, including against being a fawning sychophant to his 'saviours'. Draeconin: > It's not? Funny - I still hear it all the time. But we're also talking > about the UK and a society about a hundred years behind the modern > Muggle world. Ceridwen: Pop psychologists on TV like to talk about it. By taking the side of Nurture, they sound so nice and fluffy. Check their ads. They're in it for the money. Draeconin: > Ah, you're talking about the scientific and intelligentsia communities > - not the common person on the street. I'll grant you that attitudes > are changing, but not that quickly. Ceridwen: 'Trickle-down' isn't glacial melt. We're not talking Snowball Earth here. I knew about the NvN debate long before I took Sociology. I'm probably the typical woman on the street, so I don't buy that. Draeconin: > Ah, but which would they think more influential? It seems to me they > still put a great emphasis on blood (inheritance). Ceridwen: Yes, they do. So do a lot of people now. Family is closer and more important than neighbors in most cases, neighbors are more important than people out of the area and so on. But the NvN debate a hundred years ago, since that was your figure, was at the midpoint of both being in some way influential. We're back to that again. Draeconin: > Big chance to take, isn't it? Ceridwen: As big a chance as hoping Harry will lick the mud from Dumbledore's boots. Draeconin: > But here you're making my point. Thank you. *grin* Ceridwen: And again, where is the guarantee that Harry will not think he sees what you see and join Voldemort instead? If, being a fighter, he thought that Dumbledore purposely stuck him in the worst environment he could, why would he give his allegiance to Dumbledore? That doesn't make any sense. Draeconin: > If I recall aright, they took Harry in because they were bribed. > Dumbledore promised to cover Harry's expenses. Well, we can see that > Harry didn't get the benefit of that. Ceridwen: You do not recall 'aright'. Canon for Dumbledore offering to pay? Or is this fanfic contamination? *Harry* has the means to pay, but as far as I know, he hasn't. See Vernon's ears perking up at Harry's inheritance. Draeconin: > Again, you make my point. Harry's placement with the Dursleys was NOT > so much for *his* good, but for Dumbledore's plans. Ceridwen: I do not attribute Harry's strength to manipulation by Dumbledore. I said that Dumbledore probably had no choice, given, as you said, the emphasis on blood (inheritance). Petunia Evans Dursley is Harry's blood aunt. If there was some way for him to live with Sirius (in Azkaban, no less), the Dursleys were still a better bet because of covert Voldemort supporters, who are still around, and people who would try and use Harry for everything from campaign fodder to stumping for whiter teeth. Think of what Umbridge would have done to a toddler Harry, for instance, and then recall that she is probably not the only one like her in the WW. But, since the WW is a hundred years behind the times and obsessed by blood (inheritance), then blood will trump a loving environment every time. So, if Dumbledore hadn't gone ahead and put the blood protection in place, the WW would have stuffed him there anyway, but without the blood protection enhancements, since they all belived that Voldemort was finished. Ceridwen. From nkafkafi at yahoo.com Sun Apr 16 05:12:00 2006 From: nkafkafi at yahoo.com (Neri) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 05:12:00 -0000 Subject: The Sting: Lucius sent Bella (was:Re: LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150979 > Carol responds: > I agree with you that JKR is often (intentionally or unintentionally) > vague in her responses both in interviews and on her website and that > she picked up the phrase "were sent" from the question (just as she > picked up "offered" in relation to Voldemort's not originally > intending to kill Lily), but I disagree that she's not deliberately > using it to conceal the identity of the sender. As a native speaker of > English, I can confidently state that people don't "send" themselves. Neri: Not in the active form, perhaps, but what about the passive form, when the identity of the sender isn't mentioned? And with some vagueness regarding the fine line between the strategic and tactical sending? I'm not a native English speaker, but JKR is, and this seems to be the way she interpreted "the Lestranges were sent to kill Neville" in the question. Note that JKR's explanation as to why the Lestranges couldn't have been sent to kill Neville is that "they were not in on the prophecy". Strictly this isn't an explanation at all, because the Lestranges could have easily been sent to kill Neville without knowing a thing about the prophecy. Voldy could have simply issued a command: "if something happens to me, you should get rid of the Longbottoms' baby" without giving any reason, and then the Lestranges would have been properly "sent". Yet this isn't the scenario that JKR seems to be addressing in her answer. From the words "the Lestranges weren't in on the secret" she appears to be addressing a hypothetical scenario in which Voldemort told the Lestranges about the prophecy, yet didn't strictly send them to do anything. Only after he disappeared they used their knowledge and deduced that he'd want them to get rid of the second boy implicated by the prophecy. They believed that the Dark Lord would have sent them to do that if only he could contact them. This is the scenario that JKR seems to think the question had meant, and she addresses it in her answer, and yet the words "the Lestranges were sent" appear both in the question and in her answer. So is JKR's English as bad as mine? In my Horcrux scenario Bella's actions are actually similar, in this sense, to her actions in the above scenario. She was entrusted with safekeeping a Horcrux. She wasn't strictly "sent" to retrieve it by all costs, but she obviously knew that this was what her master would have told her to do if he was able to contact her. So this theory interprets the words "the Lestranges were sent" in the same sense that JKR seems to interpret them it in her answer. > Carol: > As for the mission of Bellatrix and her male cohorts, Bella makes it > clear in both the Pensieve scene and "Spinner's End" that only she and > her faithful followers tried to find and rescue Voldemort. Neri: Well, this is her official story, and very likely the story that she gave the other members of her cadre of maniacs, but she could hardly give the *real* reason if it was a Horcrux, could she? Voldemort would surely impose the highest degree of secrecy on this, whether Bella herself knew that it was a Horcrux or not. And note that when Voldemort speaks about the Lestranges in the graveyard in GoF he doesn't say they tried to find him. Instead he commends them for going to Azkaban rather than renouncing him. He also says that they "will be honored beyond their dreams" when they are out of Azkaban, and yet somehow it doesn't look like Bella is honored beyond her dreams in OotP and HBP. In the MoM operation Voldy gave Lucius the command over her, and this must have been after he had already learned about Lucius' blunder with the Diary. One might suspect that by that time he had also learned that Bella was guilty of a similar blunder. > Carol: > *That* was > her mission, perhaps self-imposed after Lucius dropped his hint (in > which case "were sent" is indeed used loosely but nevertheless implies > the involvement of someone not present at the scene), Neri: You seem to agree here that it *is* after all possible to use "were sent" loosely. > Carol: > Killing Frank would not have suited her purpose as it might have done > if she were merely after something in his possession. Not being a > Legilimens or having Veritaserum at hand to forcefeed him, she tried > to torture the information out of him, and failing that, tortured his > wife to make him talk. Had he merely confiscated some object that she > wanted, these measures would have worked, Neri: Unless Frank and Alice did guess at that point why the object they confiscated is so important to Bella, and refused to tell her where they'd hidden it. They were both aurors, after all. It doesn't seem far-fetched that during three years of advanced DADA training aurors are also told about Horcruxes, perhaps even some clues for identifying one. And if the Longbottoms believed that Voldemort, like some other Dark wizards in history, had made only one Horcrux, they would think that this Horcrux is the only thing that prevents the final vanquishing of Voldemort. There are some things worth dying for. > Carol: > I agree that Bella is connected with a Horcrux, but it makes much more > sense for it to be the one that Regulus stole. Neri: I'm not sure what is your theory regarding Bella's involvement with the locket Horcrux, but her words in Spinner's End don't seem to fit. The Regulus affair happened the year before GH. If Voldy trusted her to find the locket *then* and she failed him, then he should have stop trusting her before GH. Yet it sounds like Voldemort had become unsatisfied with her only "recently". And anyway it doesn't appear like Voldemort is even aware yet that the locket was stolen, because the R.A.B note was still in the cave by the end of HBP. IMO Bella's words in Spinner's End sound like she was entrusted with safekeeping a Horcrux (most probably not the locket) before GH, yet she's not trusted since recently. Now, did Voldy recently took this Horcrux from her and hidden it somewhere else? If he did, then her slip of tongue is useless to us as a clue to its location. This trail is broken. The only ways I see for this clue to be helpful to us is if (1) she's still in possession of this Horcrux, but her words seem to deny that, or if (2) she had lost it to someone that *we* would be able to guess. Now, who might such someone be? Yup, Frank and Alice. > Carol: > As to why or how Lucius's sending his sister-in-law and her "cadre of > maniacs" (winks at Talisman) to get themselves captured by Aurors > could play into the plot later, it would show that Lucius, unlike his > mad sister-in-law, is not a diehard DE and very much out for himself, > in keeping with his actions in CoS, his relations with Fudge in > OoP,and Voldie's own characterization of him as "my slippery friend" > in GoF. Unlike most of the other DEs involved in the MoM fiasco, > Lucius was not already serving a life sentence for his activities as a > DE during VW1, and it's possible that he could be released from prison > in Book 7. A certain black-haired friend of his who recently rescued > his son from either committing murder or being murdered and who > conveniently happens to be a Legilimens could easily determine where > Lucius's loyalties lie, taking advantage of Lucius's gratitude to > himself and his resentment of Voldie's treatment of himself and his > family. (Probably he already knows that Lucius is no friend of > Bella's, and if the Sting theory is true, he may even know that Lucius > set her up.) Even if Snape isn't DDM!, just committed for reasons of > his own to overthrowing Voldemort, he could easily manipulate the > whole Malfoy family, from the grateful Narcissa and the indebted Draco > to the disgruntled and perennially OFH!Lucius, into secretly siding > with him against first Bellatrix and, ultimately, the Dark Lord himself. > > Much bangier, IMO, than Bellatrix Crucioing the Longbottoms for a > confiscated Horcrux, and much more in line with canon so far. > Neri: Well, BANG is a subjective thing, but in your scenario the whole Longbottoms affair happened merely as a side effect of one of the bad guys betraying some other bad guys, just so that in Book 7 it would be merely one out of several reasons why this bad guy and his family might defect to the side of the good guys, although said bad guy is already in Azkaban and at odds with Voldy right now, and it doesn't look like he or his family have much valuable secrets left in their possession anyway. YMMV, but I feel this scenario kind of sells Frank and Alice cheap. I'd feel much better about their horrible fate if their heroism would somehow turn out worthwhile in the end. Neri, who sent his own tax forms yesterday and so has time now for more important things. From kjones at telus.net Sun Apr 16 06:27:43 2006 From: kjones at telus.net (Kathryn Jones) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2006 23:27:43 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4441E3DF.8010602@telus.net> No: HPFGUIDX 150980 > Draeconin: > *confused frown* I don't think I ever made the allegation that > Dumbledore was evil. IMO he was forging the weapon that he believed > would be needed. He was the hero that defeated Grindlewald, then an > unofficial general of sorts in the first war against Voldemort. You > don't become good at the latter job, anyway, without being able to > look at people as playing pieces. You don't want to lose them, but > you do what you believe is necessary in order to win the game. ALLA: > > DD makes HUGE mistakes, many of them, in my book, but I do think > > that he is a good man, who is in charge of Light side and simply > > struggles to juggle too many reponsibilities at the same time. KJ writes: I think you are both right in these two paragraphs. Frankly, it is canon that Dumbledore had a plan. It was a plan that made Dumbledore extremely sad as he became more and more attached to Harry. He even began to consider giving up his plan, regardless of the effect on other people, because of his feelings for Harry. To my mind, this does not bode well for Harry, and I find it hard to believe that Harry missed the entire point of that speech. If I had been Harry, I would have got the hell out of there. I don't believe that Dumbledore makes very many mistakes. The few he does make are undoubtedly major, such as flying directly to the tower instead of perhaps taking another route. In that case, he would never have been able to even get up to the tower, and his death would not have occurred. Why would he fly into a dangerous area taking a sixteen year old kid with him???? He is very flexible and is able to maneuver around people like Umbridge. He did not consider her much of a threat, nor did leaving Hogwarts temporarily seem to concern him. Considering the fact that Dumbledore had been studying Voldemorte for so many years, the prophesy would have given him the hope of defeating him, and yes, Harry would have been considered a weapon in the fight. I wonder if the stone was brought to Hogwarts for the specific purpose of luring Voldemorte out of hiding. As soon as the words "the heir" were written on the wall in CoS, Dumbledore would have known that Voldemorte was involved. Why was Harry unprotected so much of the time? In PoA, Dumbledore gives Harry and Hermione instructions to use the time-turner. They were only 13 year old kids. I couldn't trust my kids to do the dishes at that age without screwing up. I think that Dumbledore could also have kept Harry out of the tournament, but he uses Harry like a lure. The "gleam" of triumph meant that something went right, not that he was surprised by the outcome. At the end of HBP everything was set in motion. Harry and Voldy share blood, Snape is the most trusted servant of Voldemorte, Harry has been pointed at Voldemorte as the person who killed his parents and is trying to kill him, and all the chess pieces are in place. Manipulative should not be considered a bad thing. All leaders manipulate. Dumbledore is gentler than most, but his decisions were accepted as final. KJ From catlady at wicca.net Sun Apr 16 10:41:48 2006 From: catlady at wicca.net (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 10:41:48 -0000 Subject: Severus / Bellatrix / Dursleys Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150981 Carol wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150922 : << As for a day job between the time Severus left Hogwarts and was hired as Potions Master four years later, I've always imagined that he set up a little potions shop with a basement lab, funded by his dear friend Lucius Malfoy, as a front for the experimental, dangerous, and/or illicit potions he was making for Voldemort. (Just a bit of fun speculation.) >> I thought he was a grad student in Potions, I mean an apprentice and then journeyman in the Potioneers Guild. (Which presumably is not the same as Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers because the latter was founded by Hector Dagworth-Granger, and the former must go back at least to the Middle Ages.) Carol wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150936 : << (It's no coincidence, IMO, that despite young Bella's sultry beauty and her marriage to another pureblood, she's childless.) >> We don't know that Bellatrix has no children, only that she has no sons. If she had borne a daughter when all the other main characters were born, *something* would have been done with the girl when both parents were sent to Azkaban. I suppose she would have been put into a foster family, maybe sent to be raised by her Aunt Andromeda as Nymphadora's little sister. I can't imagine young Bella *wanting* to tie herself down with a child, but I'm still clinging desperately to the few remaining shards of my theory that there are so many DE children in Harry's year because either LV ordered all his followers, or LM ordered his sub-set of LV's followers, to get busy spawning. Draeconin wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150948 : << We are told that it was to maintain the blood magic protection placed upon Harry by his mother. But for all anyone knew for sure, Voldemort was dead. His followers were either being rounded up, or were busy covering their tracks. Even if it had been known for sure that Voldemort was NOT dead (all Dumbledore had to go on was a prophecy, remember), he was still too weak to be any kind of threat. >> I think Dumbledore KNEW that Voldemort was not dead 'n' gone, because Dumbledore knew about the Horcruces. From foxmoth at qnet.com Sun Apr 16 13:14:40 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 13:14:40 -0000 Subject: The Sting: Lucius sent Bella (was:Re: LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150982 > Neri: > Not in the active form, perhaps, but what about the passive form, when > the identity of the sender isn't mentioned? And with some vagueness > regarding the fine line between the strategic and tactical sending? > I'm not a native English speaker, but JKR is, and this seems to be the > way she interpreted "the Lestranges were sent to kill Neville" in the > question. Pippin: Um, no. "The Lestranges were sent to kill Neville" is coy as to the identity of the sender but definitely indicates there was some agency involved. By repeating the verb, JKR confirms that part of the rumour was correct. JKR seems to be saying that the Lestranges would have certainly gone after Neville if they had known about the prophecy, but they didn't. She leaves open the question of whether the mysterious sender knew of the prophecy or not. While Voldemort doesn't say that the Lestranges tried to find him, he does chastise the other DE's for not doing so. I don't make much of Voldemort's failure to honor the L's above all others...he's not exactly known for keeping such promises. Dumbledore makes a point of saying that the DE's are always clamoring for LV's favor, but none of them really have it. I agree that Frank and Alice should not have had to undergo their horrible fate just to show us that a minor character like Lucius is a rotter. We already knew that from his dropping the diary on Ginny. It really should be someone they thought they could trust, don't you think? And if it's someone that Neville trusts, so much the better. Malfoys don't qualify. As for the sender being after a horcrux, I don't think Voldemort thought Bella still had one. Otherwise, he'd have expected her to use it to bring him back, (ala the diary). I expect that he'd either gotten it back or instructed her to hide it in such a way that she could not retrieve it before his vaporization. I believe it was the locket, which must have been swapped before it was hidden. If Regulus put spells on the phony to make it look like the true locket (finally, a use for the switching spell!) they might dissolve with his death, but if the locket was already hidden, who would know? Pippin From foxmoth at qnet.com Sun Apr 16 13:38:02 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 13:38:02 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150983 > > Alla: > > No argument from me on this one, that was wrong in my book. :) But > > can't you imagine Dumbledore being scared if he does check on Harry, > > Petunia will throw the boy on the streets and then, good bye, blood > > protection. > > Draeconin: > No. Petunia is, I think, scared almost spitless of him, and would be > terrified of his retaliation were she to do any such thing. Pippin: "'Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back!" -- Albus Dumbledore, HBP ch 23. If Dumbledore believes that temperament runs in families, would he think that Lily Potter's sister could be so intimidated that she would never think of rebellion? Wouldn't he expect her to find her backbone if she was pushed too far? It is tempting to think that a good reason for bullying is simply to have a good reason, but a great many bullies think they have that. I think Dumbledore is cautious about using his power to get his way through fear because he has so much of it...there is no one who could stop him if he went too far, so he would rather err on the side of caution. Pippin From belviso at attglobal.net Sun Apr 16 14:04:33 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 10:04:33 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Magical Late Bloomer/ Was Neville is the one References: Message-ID: <002c01c6615e$b09a7350$617e400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 150984 > Laurel Lei here... > > I believe that the non-magical person who will "do magic" quite late > in life under "desperate" circumstances will be none other than > Argus Filch (our friendly squib caretaker and hall monitor)... he > has yet to show any magical abilities even with his "study" of his > magical correspondence course. I, do believe, however, that he is > truly loyal to Hogwarts and would rise to defend her at all costs... > we may very well see an attack on Hogwarts itself in book 7. It > would be wonderful to see the shocked and pleased look on Filch's > face when he was able to do a bit of magic. Magpie: I admit Filch is the one I'm really hoping for. With the background we have on him, his being our first Squib, I'd love it. He's a bitter man, but his longing to do magic and lack of respect by the kids makes me root for him to be the one who does magic. -m From eggplant107 at hotmail.com Sun Apr 16 15:44:22 2006 From: eggplant107 at hotmail.com (eggplant107) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 15:44:22 -0000 Subject: Another candidate for RAB In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150985 Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the identity of RAB was pretty much settled from what we know about the translations of the books. In Finnish the Black family name is translated as Musta and the initials become RAM, in Dutch Black is Zwarts and we get RAZ, in Norweigen Black is Svarrt and the initials are translated as RAS. So RAB must be a member of the Black family with a first name that starts with an R, I can't think of anybody who fits that bill except Regulus, besides I can't imagine why JKR would introduce us to a character like Regulus unless she had need of him in a later book. As for his middle name I would guess Arcturus or Aldebaran or Altair or Antares. Eggplant From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Sun Apr 16 16:08:33 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 16:08:33 -0000 Subject: Foreshadowing; The Fountain of Magical Brethren Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150986 This has undoubtably been covered before, but ... Throughout the books foreshadowing has been important (for example Harry immobilized under the invisibility cloak on the train with Draco at the beginning of HBP and Harry again immobilized under the invisibility cloak on the Tower at the climax of HPB). Looking back at Dumbledore's battle with Voldemort in the Ministry at the end of OOP, the statues of non-human magical creatures (house elves, goblins, centaur) "team up" (via Dumbledore's spell) to defend Dumbledore, keep Harry safe, etc. in DD's fight with LV. Could this foreshadow later events in book 7? Harry already has non-human magical allies (Dobby, Firenze, Hagrid/Graup)who have demonstrated that they have important powers (Hagrid fighting off all those stunning spells at the end of OOP, Dobby protecting Harry against Lucios Malfoy at the end of COS, I don't know about Firenze). DD mentioned at the end of OOP that the statue, with its message of the creatures loooking up at humans, told a lie. I think house elves (Kreacher's knowledge re: RAB, the locket, possibly the cave if you believe he went there with RAB/Regulus) in particular will be important in book 7. From hickengruendler at yahoo.de Sun Apr 16 18:12:09 2006 From: hickengruendler at yahoo.de (hickengruendler) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 18:12:09 -0000 Subject: Magical Late Bloomer/ Was Neville is the one In-Reply-To: <002c01c6615e$b09a7350$617e400c@Spot> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150987 > Magpie: > I admit Filch is the one I'm really hoping for. With the background we have > on him, his being our first Squib, I'd love it. He's a bitter man, but his > longing to do magic and lack of respect by the kids makes me root for him to > be the one who does magic. > > -m > Hickengruendler: Yes, I want it to be Filch as well, ever since I first read JKR's quote. And I want to add that he's the only character we know about, who actually tries to *learn* some magic. Mrs Figg might as well or she might be more satisfied with her existence and decides not to try to learn it. The Dursleys are surely not interested in this at all, and I really don't see what them suddenly being able to do magic would offer for the storyline other than maybe poetic justice, that they know have a wizard or witch in their family as well. That's why I am glad that JKR already ruled out Petunia and Dudley, since they were the only Dursleys, who had IMO a realistic chance, with them being related by blood to Lily. JKR would have to do a lot of work to make me believe that it actually were Vernon or even Aunt Marge (who very likely could have been a 'one-chapter-special-guest' anyway), who would suddenly be able to do a spell or two. Also, I think there's a strong likelihood that a Horcrux is hidden in Hogwarts (the one place where Tom really feeled home) and that Voldemort will find out about Harry's Horcrux mission, (maybe through Lucius, who overhears Harry talking to Mundungus Fletcher in Azkaban about the locket and later breaks out) and attack the castle to get his hand at the Horcrux hidden there before Harry finds out, where it is. That would give Filch an excellent reason, and it certainly would count as a desperate circumstance. Of course I find an attack at the Dursleys equally likely therefore wouldn't rule out Arabella. I just hope that it wasn't Merope, because I would find this a bit anticlimatic, especially since, although she certainly had not an easy life, I wouldn't actually call the time she did some magic "Desperate Circumstances". Quite in contrast, with both father and brother away, one could argue that the "circumstances" were the best in her whole life. I am really surprised that people think it might be Neville. Neville's a wizard and even though he's not the best one (particularly in the earlier books), he did some magic since the very beginning, and did not start late in life at all. Same for Hagrid. Hickengruendler From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 16 18:56:54 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 18:56:54 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150988 Ceridwen wrote: > Any WW family could turn out to have a traitor/LV supporter in their midst (just as the Black family had a 'blood traitor' in Sirius's refusal to go along with family belief, or more directly, Barty Crouch Jr. in Crouch's household). > > Draeconin replied: > True, but it would have taken little to verify each member of a family, especially if they started with an OoP member. (There would be far more than are ever mentioned.) > Carol responds: IMO, Dumbledore had to act quickly, to get Harry to a place where the DEs would not find him (they would know nothing about the Dursleys and would expect DD to do exactly what you're suggesting, place him in a wizarding home). There was not time to check for potential traitors; he had to be taken to safety quickly. And in addition to whatever "wards" could be placed on a wizarding home, Petunia's home had the unique advantage of the blood protection. Whatever secondary motives Dumbledore may have had (and I agree with you that it would have been disastrous for the WW for Harry to turn into a second James), he had to keep Harry alive and away from the Death Eaters who at that time were still at large (imagine if Harry had fallen into the hands of Bellatrix and her crew, who Crucio'd the Longbottoms into insanity, or a murderer like Antonin Dolohov). Only the blood protection could guarantee that he was safe from the Death Eaters, "many of whom were nearly as terrible as he [Voldemort], to quote DD from memory. Draeconin wrote: But if Dumbledore is looking at Harry as the weapon that will one day destroy Voldemort, he's going to want someone who will follow orders without question. Carol responds: I can think of only one instance where Dumbledore presents that view to Harry :in HBP before the cave expedition when he tells him that his (Harry's) life is more important than Dumbldore's own and he gets (okay, psychologically pressures) Harry into agreeing that he will do whatever DD says, even if it means abandoning him to his death. Thisis not a case of using Harry as a weapon but of making sure that he survives, both for his own sake and that of the WW. In all other instances that I can recall (except, perhaps, with Snape, who may be under a similar set of orders), Dumbledore is the spokesman for the theme of choice. He motivates Harry to fight Voldemort because he wants to, because he chooses to do so, not because the Prophecy has destined him to do it. From at least CoS onward, he says things like, "It is our choices that show who we are, Harry, not our abilities" (quoted from memory). He believes in second chances, so that a person who chose wrongly the first time can choose rightly the second time (and prove himself through his choices). His belief in freedom of choice is the reason why he has such a hands-off approach to teaching. (If Harry or any other student were actually being harmed, he would probably step in as he does when Umbridge shakes Marietta in OoP. I don't think he would have allowed her to use her poison pen in detentions if he knew about it, either, but that's another thread.) He also takes a hands-off approach to Harry, watching him from afar, either through Order members as in OoP or, perhaps, through those instruments in his office: "I have watched you more closely than you know" (quoted from memory from near the end of OoP). Harry is a special person with a special destiny. Dumbledore *can't* yield to the impulse to protect him, except in dire situations where Harry's life is actually in danger, as for instance in CoS when he arranges for Fawkes to arrive with the Sorting Hat when Harry needs them, or in the MoM, when he fights Voldemort one on one. But if Harry is to survive being the target of Voldemort whenever Voldemort returns to power, he must *not* be cocky and arrogant like James, too sure of himself and his abilities, or he'll be easy prey and the WW will be doomed. But he must be resilient; he must be unafraid; he must be able to think for himself, and quickly. Placement with the Dursleys is the first step in this training, IMO. The second step is watching him from afar as he deals with increasingly more difficult obstacles, ranging from bullying or otherwise dangerous teachers (and I don't just mean Snape) to the TWT tournament to the cave with the Horcrux. Occlumency lessons have him facing Snape as a stand-in for Voldemort: "You are handing me weapons!" says Snape in OoP as Harry lets him see the memory of Cedric's death. (Read, "You are making youself easy prey for the Dark Lord by handing *him* weapons!") Dumbledore knows that Harry must be ready to fight Voldemort, and the only way to do that is to allow him, from the outset, to be faced with obstacles and hardships and to fight his own battles, so long as his life is not actually in danger. Granted, Dumbledore makes mistakes, one of the biggest being his failure to realize that the Goblet of Fire was a portkey that would take Harry to Voldemort. But if Harry had not already been trained to think on his feet, to be resilient, to face pain and even death without fear, he would never have survived that battle. Carol, noting that this is the WW, where children face a future very different from anything in RL, not to mention hexing each other in the hallways, and that Dumbledore has the horrendously difficult task of balancing what's good for Harry against the survival of the entire Wizarding World From HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com Sun Apr 16 18:57:47 2006 From: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com (HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com) Date: 16 Apr 2006 18:57:47 -0000 Subject: Weekly Chat, 4/16/2006, 1:00 pm Message-ID: <1145213867.18.27303.m31@yahoogroups.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150989 Reminder from the Calendar of HPforGrownups http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/cal Weekly Chat Sunday April 16, 2006 1:00 pm - 1:00 pm (This event repeats every week.) Notes: Don't forget, chat happens today, 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern, 7 pm UK time. Chat times do not change for Daylight Saving/Summer Time. Chat generally goes on for about 5 hours, but can last as long as people want it to last. To get into Chat, just go to the group online: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups and click on "Chat" in the lefthand menu. If you have problems with this, go to http://www.yahoo.com and in the bottom box on the left side of the page click on "Chat". Once you're logged into any room, type /join *g.HPforGrownups ; this should take you right in. If you have an Set up birthday reminders! http://us.rd.yahoo.com/cal_us/rem/?http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/cal?v=9&evt_type=13 Copyright 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.yahoo.com Privacy Policy: http://privacy.yahoo.com/ Terms of Service: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 16 19:07:59 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 19:07:59 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150990 Carol: < HUGE SNIP of the whole post basically> > Placement with the Dursleys is the first step in this training, IMO. < HUGE SNIP> Alla: Oh, I so hope not. I so hope that Dumbledore did not know that Harry will be abused at Dursleys and only placed him there to save his life, because honestly, if Dumbledore placed Harry there to train him ( shudders at the thought), well such Dumbledore in my book is no better than Voldemort for whom all his "loyal" DE are nothing more than means to get what he wants. I believe DD who says in HBP that he hoped that Dursleys would treat him as a son. I think DD was truly afraid that Dursleys wil throw Harry out and then nullifying blood protection. But I don't see Dumbledore who knew what torments Harry would face at Dursleys and still would choose to leave him there, I just don't see it at all. IMO of course. JMO, Alla From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 16 19:41:29 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 19:41:29 -0000 Subject: Emphasis on the title: Professor (Was: Who calls Voldemort "Lord") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150991 -coldsliversofglasswrote: As for the title part, I have to wonder if part of Harry's need to be > reminded to call his professors by their title involves Harry's > upbringing. I mean, if you're locked in a cupboard for 11 years and > your relatives keep you out of sight I think manners will be stunted > in some ways: titles, especially, and Dobby's use of "Dark Lord" > seems to exemplify the fact that we're taught how to address others > (by how they address themselves to us, or how those around us refer > to them). > > Also, I may be wrong, but I thought that Harry's slips in addressing > his professors usually center around the issues he has with them. I > mean, he hates Snape, so he feels no need to show him the respect > that the title conveys. I think he did the same when he was > mentioning Quirrel (In an, 'he's an enemy, not my professor' kind of > way). He may've slipped with Hagrid too, but if so I would imagine > that's because of how close he is to Hagrid (Hagrid having introduced > him to the wizarding world and having given him his first cake and > birthday present). Did anyone else notice this pattern, or were > there other slips that I overlooked that might negate the pattern? > Carol responds: I agree with your overall point. Just two small notes. First, Harry wasn't "locked in a cupboard for eleven years"or he'd be a vegetable. He merely *slept* in a broom cupboard for eleven years. (Not exactly healthful or enjoyable, but note how calmly he empties a spider out of his shoe in SS/PS and how he regards it as *his* cupboard--the one place where he can escape from the Dursleys in their house. During the daytime, he goes to school or spends his time in other parts of the house (or more likely, outside, if he's not eating or doing chores). Regarding Hagrid, it's interesting that no one (except Grubblyplank?) calls him "Professor Hagrid" that I can recall. No one calls him "Rubeus," either, except, oddly, Tom Riddle in the CoS diary memory (condescension?) and Dumbledore, who generally calls everyone by their first names. No time for any deep thoughts here. Have to hurry to a restaurant for Easter dinner. Happy Easter to all who celebrate it. Carol From beatrice23 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 16 19:10:45 2006 From: beatrice23 at yahoo.com (Beatrice23) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 19:10:45 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150992 Draeconin: > What reason did he have, beyond Trelawney's prophecy? Beatrice: Well, LV body is not found in the rubble of the Potter's home...that might make someone question if he really had died. Also, DD states that the blood protection given to him by Lily must be sealed by a member of her family to make it completely effective. That is why it is so important that Petunia allows him to stay and why he must stay there even for 1 day a year. (remember DD's gleam of triumph in GoF, I suspect there is even more here). Also, Harry will have a compassion for muggles, an understanding of what it is like to be one that other wizard children lack. Think about all of the misconceptions about muggles that fly around the wizarding world. Finally, (although, I think this is unintentional at first) Harry will understand what it means to be persecuted, hated, and abused. If nothing else this might give him the compassion toward others that is so seriously lacking in people like the Malfoys, etc. It maybe this that gives him the strength and courage to free Dobby. Draeconin: > I thought the Longbottoms were tortured into catatonia by Voldemort > himself? Beatrice: This occurs 1 year after Harry goes to the Dursleys. When Harry and Neville are just over 2 years old. Draeconin: > Shall we start with Dumbledore's not checking up on Harry's welfare > in almost ten years, nor sending anyone else to do so? He *knows* > the type of people the Dursleys are, after all. Beatrice: DD tells Harry in OotP that "he has watched him more closely than he can possibly imagine." (not an exact quote) I suspect the DD watched him very closely. It probably pained him to see what was happening to Harry, but he knew that there was nowhere else for him. He had to seal Lily's blood protection and couldn't help him before he was 11 (entering his 12 year). Before this year he would be unable to control his magic and was too young to be trained. Don't forget that not only is the abused orphan a literary trope, but it also makes for a more interesting and dramatic story. Draeconin: > And then there's the person Dumbledore sends to get Harry. Hagrid. > Intimidating just by his size, quite prejudiced against Slytherin - > "there's not been a Dark wizard that didn't come out of Slytherin" > (or words to that effect) - a blatant untruth, btw. The man is also > a drunk and rather slipshod in his duties. Almost any one of the > other staff would have been better. Beatrice: Better than Hagrid? But any lurking DE would never suspect that DD would give a "half-breed" such an important job. It would make it unlikely that Harry or Hagrid would be attacked by DE. Draeconin: > And then we have Snape. Yes, he had a grudge against Harry's father, > and later he has to maintain a look of hostility towards Harry in > order to preserve his status as a spy, but again Harry is being > subjected to abuse. > > Even a detached Dumbledore, if he's the kindly person he's made out > to be, would have tried to curb that, wouldn't he? And surely the > other staff have noticed? Why haven't any of them tried to > intervene? Beatrice: Snape is pretty much a git to everyone. He is cruel to Hermione (never gives her the credit she deserves), refuses to acknowledge that Hermione has been cursed by Malfoy (the big teeth incident), bullies poor Neville to death, etc. It is a hard fact but some educators are *sses. It doesn't mean that they aren't intelligent *sses. (unless they are Lockhart). But Harry still learns from all of them. Beatrice From catlady at wicca.net Sun Apr 16 20:25:07 2006 From: catlady at wicca.net (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 20:25:07 -0000 Subject: Foreshadowing; The Fountain of Magical Brethren In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150993 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "steven1965aaa" wrote: << Looking back at Dumbledore's battle with Voldemort in the Ministry at the end of OOP, the statues of non-human magical creatures (house elves, goblins, centaur) "team up" (via Dumbledore's spell) to defend Dumbledore, keep Harry safe, etc. in DD's fight with LV. Could this foreshadow later events in book 7? (snip) DD mentioned at the end of OOP that the statue, with its message of the creatures loooking up at humans, told a lie. >> I think (altho' I am usually wrong) that The Fountain of Magical Brethren commemorated some actual event where a wizard, a witch, a House Elf, a centaur, and a goblin teamed up to accomplish some great deed, such as defeating a powerful Dark Lord; I think that Harry will have to re-live this historical event, but this time make sure that history gives accurate credit to all. Harry already has plenty of wizards (Harry himself, Neville, Ron), a witch (Hermione), Dobby the House Elf, and Firenze the Centaur. He needs a goblin, and I keep thinking that Bill's job at Gringotts, the goblin bank, is relevant here. Maybe there will be goblin guests from work at Bill's wedding who will be connected to the goblin families who were attacked by LV (at the first dinner at 12 Grimmauld Place, Arthur mentioned a goblin family who were murdered last time). << I think house elves (snip) in particular will be important in book 7. >> First in CoS, we saw Dobby blow Lucius Malfoy off his feet, Apparate (or Pop!) at Hogwarts, block the Platform 9 3/4 entrance, and interfere with owl post in massive way. It was quite clear that House Elves have tremendous magical powers. Then in GoF, we discovered that there are around a hundred House Elves at Hogwarts. Surely a hundred beings with the amount of power that Dobby has shown would be a major Secret Weapon in a pitched battle / defense against Voldemort's forces (such as defending Hogwarts when LV attacks). Listies speculated that the Hogwarts House Elves might be Dumbledore's *real* army, or that the SPEW subplot actually had some purpose like setting up for the Death Eaters' House Elves to be suddenly freed and free to turn against their masters. HBP damaged the theory that SPEW has a plot purpose and (via Kreachur) the theory that DE HEs want revenge for how they've been tortured. By the way, what is with Kreachur's name? After meeting Dobby and Winky, listies were sure that all House Elves had two-syllable names ending 'y'. If that were the rule, then he would have been Kreachy. Then HBP introduced one more House Elf, named Hokey. Does that show that there is a rule or custom of House Elf names that Kreachur doesn't fit? (Or is it Rowling's way of telling fanatic readers that she thinks the two-syllable-y names are hokey i.e. overdone, corny, insincere?) Who names House Elves anyway? Their parents, their owners, themselves, a bureau at the Ministry of Magic? From celizwh at intergate.com Sun Apr 16 20:47:19 2006 From: celizwh at intergate.com (houyhnhnm102) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 20:47:19 -0000 Subject: Emphasis on the title: Professor (Was: Who calls Voldemort "Lord") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150994 coldsliversofglass: > As for the title part, I have to wonder if part > of Harry's need to be reminded to call his professors > by their title involves Harry's upbringing. [snip] > Also, I may be wrong, but I thought that Harry's > slips in addressing his professors usually center > around the issues he has with them. houyhnhnm: Harry meeting Hagrid for the first time: Harry looked up at the giant. He meant to say thank you, but the words got lost on the way to his mouth, and what he said instead was, "Who are you?" Harry meeting the witches and wizards who crowded around him in the Leaky Cauldron ("Harry Potter ... what an honor." "Welcome back, Mr. Potter, welcome back" "So proud Mr. Potter, I'm just so proud." "Delighted Mr. Potter, just can't tell you.") Harry says, "I've seen you before." Harry meeting Professor Quirrell: "What sort of magic do you teach, Professor Quirrell?" [I think he's trying hard here, bless his little heart.] Harry meeting Mr. Ollivander: "Hello," Harry said awkwardly. I think you are exactly right about Harry's not having had the opportunity to learn social skills while living with the Dursleys. He can be meek when he needs help from an adult (his approach to Mrs. Weasley when he was looking for platform nine and three-quarters). I expect he was meek with his teachers at school. He was probably one of those invisible children who get overlooked because they don't cause any trouble. (The condition of his clothing should have raised the possibility of neglect and been investigated, had his teachers paid any attention to him at all.) On the other hand, all the skills he learned from the Dursleys about getting along with adults were corrupt ones because the relationship was corrupt. His smart mouth was the only weapon he had against his dimmer-witted relatives. Not that it saved him from any actual punishment, but it may have saved his sense of self. So when he gets to Hogwarts, Harry's behavioral repertoire toward adults consists of 1)meekness, 2)a kind of blunt directness which is innocent in Harry's case, but which some adults might misconstrue as insolence, and 3)sarcasm when he perceives the adult as an Uncle Vernon-like threat. It is not too surprising that Severus "Stict Upbringing" Snape mistook Harry's lack of socialization for arrogance. If he were not "The Boy Who Lived", I think he might have had more trouble getting along with his other teachers as well, particularly McGonagall. From neil.zoe.collishaw at ntlworld.com Sun Apr 16 20:49:19 2006 From: neil.zoe.collishaw at ntlworld.com (zoe0coll) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 20:49:19 -0000 Subject: Emphasis on the title: Professor (Was: Who calls Voldemort "Lord") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150995 coldsliversofglass: > As for the title part, I have to wonder if part of Harry's > need to be reminded to call his professors by their title involves > Harry's upbringing. I mean, if you're locked in a cupboard for 11 > years and your relatives keep you out of sight I think manners will > be stunted in some ways: > > Also, I may be wrong, but I thought that Harry's slips in > addressing his professors usually center around the issues he has > with them. I mean, he hates Snape, so he feels no need to show him > the respect that the title conveys. I think he did the same when > he was mentioning Quirrel (In an, 'he's an enemy, not my professor' > kind of way). He may've slipped with Hagrid too, but if so I would > imagine that's because of how close he is to Hagrid . Did > anyone else notice this pattern, or were there other slips that I > overlooked that might negate the pattern? Hi all - De-Lurking to answer this question - Did you not refer to your teachers by their last names? We all did - we would also have nicknames for some of them for example Roger Ramjet for Mr Ramshaw or Boring Brocky instead of Mr Brock and yes we would quite often refer to them by their sirnames or their nicknames - I can remember being reminded (by other teachers) on a number of occasions that it was MR Arnett rather than Arnett, or MRS Wakeley, not old Wakeley etc - and she was my tutor who I really liked! It's nothing to do with manners or whether you respect a teacher or not - it's just part of that teenage rebellion thing - and don't forget, in Hogwarts as well as my (and many other schools) puplis are often addressed to their faces by just their sirnames, (especially Harry by Snape - who always refers to him as Potter). I had an awful last name - Wrigley - and I hated being called by it, so it's just kind of a kickback. Back to lurkdom Zoe C From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Sun Apr 16 22:17:10 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 22:17:10 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150996 Carol: > < HUGE SNIP of the whole post basically> > > Placement with the Dursleys is the first step in this training, > IMO. > < HUGE SNIP> Alla: > Oh, I so hope not. *(snip)* > I believe DD who says in HBP that he hoped that Dursleys would treat > him as a son. I think DD was truly afraid that Dursleys wil throw > Harry out and then nullifying blood protection. > > But I don't see Dumbledore who knew what torments Harry would face > at Dursleys and still would choose to leave him there, I just don't > see it at all. IMO of course. Ceridwen: At the time when Harry was taken to the Dursleys', it seemed to me that Dumbledore had some faith that the Dursleys would treat Harry like another son. They had a child just a bit older, if things had gone like one would expect, Harry and Dudley would have grown up like brothers, been friends as well as enemies, shared a room at first and later, toys and friends. When SS/PS shows the Dursleys at first, then brings Harry literally to their doorstep, this is what I'd imagined. I was unpleasantly surprised by the way Harry was shown to be treated after that. But, once Dumbledore knew, and he probably knew at least a little of what went on (didn't Harry stay with Mrs Figg when the Dursleys took Dudley fun places? She must have mentioned a pattern, and even the way Petunia talked about her 'incorrigible' nephew), there was still the issue of the blood protection. It is impossible to remove that protection from the reason why Harry had to stay. Everyone wonders what happened during those missing 24 hours: With the deeper information we have for intricate spells like LV's resurrection, I am almost certain that Dumbledore spent the day finding out what he could about the events at GH, then researching ancient blood spells, and formulating one or more that would enhance the natural protection provided by Lily's sacrifice. I am also almost certain that Dumbledore would have had to create the proper spells taking Lily's blood properties into account to make these protections compatible with Petunia's blood (which lacks full wizarding genes, if she has any recessive genes to pass on at all, maybe an Rh sort of thing), and he would have had to laterally create the spells since Lily's protection had never been done before so no known enhancements could exist. With this/these intricate spell(s) in place, Harry is protected, as Carol mentioned, from even the Dursleys' attempts to physically harm him. My speculation of where Harry was during that time, was at either Hogwarts because of the protections, or at another secure location such as wherever OotP headquarters were then. And I am almost certain that Dumbledore would have been in the same location working on his spells. A lot of 'almosts', but there is no canon to back this up, it is all speculation. *IF* I am right, then the protections are firmly entrenched until Harry reaches his majority. He cannot suffer physical harm there, so he is safe at least from death. He might as well stay under the distant eye of DD, Mrs Figg, and perhaps other Order members. The blood protection, in my opinion, cannot be discounted when discussing Harry's placement. Ceridwen. From katbofaye at aol.com Sun Apr 16 21:05:03 2006 From: katbofaye at aol.com (katssirius) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 21:05:03 -0000 Subject: Voldemort's body (was Re: Godric's Hollow) Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150997 Brady wrote: > The AK doesn't destroy the the body to the extent that it can't be > seen, right? We are always left with a body behind. But in GH, till > date, there has not been any mention of James', Lily's or Voldy's > body! Why? What happened then? katssirius: How do we know Voldmort's body is not found in the rubble? From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Sun Apr 16 22:37:10 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 22:37:10 -0000 Subject: Emphasis on the title: Professor (Was: Who calls Voldemort "Lord") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 150998 Zoe C: > Hi all - De-Lurking to answer this question - > > Did you not refer to your teachers by their last names? We all did - > we would also have nicknames for some of them for example Roger > Ramjet for Mr Ramshaw or Boring Brocky instead of Mr Brock and yes > we would quite often refer to them by their sirnames or their > nicknames - I can remember being reminded (by other teachers) on a > number of occasions that it was MR Arnett rather than Arnett, or MRS > Wakeley, not old Wakeley etc - and she was my tutor who I really > liked! Ceridwen: Hi, Zoe, thanks for de-lurking! We did the same thing. A couple of teachers wanted to be addressed familiarily (this was the early 70s), so we had Uncle Guy for English. I don't recall our teachers correcting us, but there were certain teachers/positions for which we didn't drop the titles: Mrs Xxx, girls' vice principle, for instance, and one teacher who kept an iron hand on his classes when other classes were beginning to experience disruptions which have since, apparently, gotten worse: Mr. Kxx insisted that we stay in our seats even after the bell had rung, so we sat until he dismissed us. And he was definitely *Mr.* Kxx, never 'Kxx' alone. Zoe C: > It's nothing to do with manners or whether you respect a teacher or > not - it's just part of that teenage rebellion thing - and don't > forget, in Hogwarts as well as my (and many other schools) puplis > are often addressed to their faces by just their sirnames, > (especially Harry by Snape - who always refers to him as Potter). > I had an awful last name - Wrigley - and I hated being called by it, > so it's just kind of a kickback. Ceridwen: Could it also be that Harry comes from the Muggle world, which in the early 1990s was experiencing greater and greater disruptions by students in the classrooms as schools changed their tactics in dealing with disruptive students? The WW does seem to be a bit behind in some things, maybe because wizards appear to live longer than Muggles, and there are more traditions being shown and passed down through multiple generations. Also, teachers would have earned their titles by making it through school in the first place, which the students haven't done yet, then gone on to further studies under that idea. I think McGonagall also refers to Harry as 'Potter'. I'm not one hundred percent certain, I hear Maggie Smith's voice (and she's got a great voice for McGonagall!) saying it, so it could be movie contamination. But, we called each other by our surnames in school, too. I think we all got a little tired of hearing our last names! Ceridwen. From entlzab5 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 16 23:01:57 2006 From: entlzab5 at yahoo.com (Arley Dotinei) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 16:01:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Another candidate for RAB In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060416230157.92821.qmail@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 150999 eggplant: So RAB must be a member of the Black family with a first name that starts with an R, I can't think of anybody who fits that bill except Regulus, besides I can't imagine why JKR would introduce us to a character like Regulus unless she had need of him in a later book. As for his middle name I would guess Arcturus or Aldebaran or Altair or Antares. Arley: I agree with you, RAB is definitely a Black and Regulus is the most likely candidate. But why couldn't it be Aunt Andromeda? If her full nome was something like Regina Andromeda Black (my guess, not suggested anywhere in the books), it could be. But it would be a long shot. For everything we know about Regulus, I'm almost sure it's him. cheerio From gelite67 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 16 23:36:13 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 23:36:13 -0000 Subject: Harry's Horcrux Helper? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151000 I've posted before concerning my puzzlement about how Harry is going to be able to find and destroy the other Horcruxes. After giving it some more thought, I'm wondering if help is not already at hand, or perhaps I should at, at head. Not the scar itself, but the connection b/w Harry and LV that the scar represents. Did LV transfer more than his powers to Harry? What about some of his memories/knowledge about his very own Horcruxes? I think it's significant and foretelling that in COS, when Harry destroyed Riddle's diary, he did so "without thinking, without considering, as though he had meant to do it all along..." U.S. softcover, at 322. I always wondered how Harry knew how to do that? Well, isn't it possible that this unbidden, sudden insight came from LV's knowledge of how the diary was created and how to destroy it? If anyone knows how to destroy LV's Horcruxes, it is old LV himself. I'm not talking about Harry actively trying to enter LV's mind to get this information, but maybe COS foreshadows that when the time is right, Harry will be able to "recall" knowledge that was transferred to him on that fateful night, the same way he did in COS? Wild theory number . . . what number are we on now???? :) Angie From kchuplis at alltel.net Sun Apr 16 23:53:50 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 18:53:50 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Harry's Horcrux Helper? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0E02CDEE-B434-4EB0-84EB-B7C047558106@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151001 What about Dobby? I keep remembering the line "elves have a powerful magic all their own." I can see Dobby as being someone that Harry would definitely let in, it would protect Harry from Kreacher. Dobby isn't really an idiot like everyone paints him. He'd keep his mouth shut for Harry. Hmmm..... From celizwh at intergate.com Mon Apr 17 00:08:03 2006 From: celizwh at intergate.com (houyhnhnm102) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 00:08:03 -0000 Subject: Emphasis on the title: Professor (Was: Who calls Voldemort "Lord") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151002 Zoe C: > > Did you not refer to your teachers by their last > > names? We all did - Ceridwen: > We did the same thing. A couple of teachers wanted to be addressed > familiarily (this was the early 70s), houyhnhnm: That reminds me of a humorous incident that took place my first year of teaching. A boy came to my room after school for some tutoring. The janitor happened to be cleaning the room at the time. "Hey, dog!" the boy cried out as he came through the door. The janitor was outraged and chewed the boy out for disrespecting a teacher. "I wasn't talking to her; I was talking to you," the boy protested. "Well, then, I'm Mister Dog to you," said the janitor. Certainly I called teachers by their last names (sans title) when I was in school--behind their backs, never to their faces. I overhear students in the halls referring to teachers by sirname only, and by less complimentary epithets as well, but I've never had a student do it to my face and I teach in an urban district where the kids are pretty fresh. From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Mon Apr 17 00:23:00 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 20:23:00 -0400 Subject: Harry's Horcrux Helper? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151003 Angie: > Did LV transfer more than his powers to Harry? What about >some of his memories/knowledge about his very own Horcruxes? > >I think it's significant and foretelling that in COS, when Harry >destroyed Riddle's diary, he did so "without thinking, without >considering, as though he had meant to do it all along..." U.S. >softcover, at 322. I always wondered how Harry knew how to do that? > >Well, isn't it possible that this unbidden, sudden insight came from >LV's knowledge of how the diary was created and how to destroy it? >If anyone knows how to destroy LV's Horcruxes, it is old LV himself. > >I'm not talking about Harry actively trying to enter LV's mind to get >this information, but maybe COS foreshadows that when the time is >right, Harry will be able to "recall" knowledge that was transferred >to him on that fateful night, the same way he did in COS? Rachel here: We do know that there is some sort of a connection between LV and Harry. The diary example you cited here sounds very plausible when you consider this theory; however, if the locket found in Sirius' home is another horcrux of LV, wouldn't Harry be more drawn to it than he was? It seems to me that given this theory, Harry would perhaps not know where to find the horcruxes, but he would probably know one when he saw one (and, it would seem, possibly know how to destroy it). ~ Rachel From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 17 01:21:29 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 01:21:29 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151004 Ceridwen: > *IF* I am right, then the protections are firmly entrenched until > Harry reaches his majority. He cannot suffer physical harm there, so > he is safe at least from death. He might as well stay under the > distant eye of DD, Mrs Figg, and perhaps other Order members. The > blood protection, in my opinion, cannot be discounted when discussing > Harry's placement. Alla: Oh, of course I agree with you. Blood protection cannot be discounted when discussing Harry's placement. Moreover, what I am arguing is that I accept "blood protection" as the ONLY reason Dumbledore did not remove Harry, that is if we are talking about decent Dumbledore as I perceive him. Does it make sense? Of course it is possible that DD knew something from Mrs. Figg reports, BUT I completely disagree that Dumbledore did not interfere with Dursleys abuse because he wanted to train Harry, make him more resilient, etc. I think he was afraid to interfere, that's all. That is just as I said before, IMO if Dumbledore allowed Harry to endure what he got from Dursleys for any reason except wanting to keep him alive with blood protection, to me Dumbledore stops being a decent man, who makes mistakes and becomes rather monstrous figure, who thinks that child abuse for ten years is OK as long as it is for training purposes. It is just what you said in your other post, if DD consciously placed Harry to endure Dursleys upbringing to be more resilient, etc, DD runs awfully big risk that Harry would find out about that and you know, join the other side. I think Dumbledore was faced with horrific choice. Did he do the best he could? As some people know, I was very angry with Dumbledore speech at the end of OOP and if he would continued this way in HBP, I may have hated him a great deal, but luckily JKR rehabilitated him VERY well in HBP in my eyes. :) I don't believe that DD is a monster, that is why I refuse to believe that he would allow a young child to stay with Dursleys, unless he truly had no other way to keep the child alive. JMO of course. Alla. From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Mon Apr 17 01:48:21 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 21:48:21 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Help please... Message-ID: <20060417014821.22614.qmail@web37007.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151005 Hi and happy Easter/Passover to those who celebrate.... I need a little help finding some canon references. My husband is convinced that at some point in the books, Harry says "abra cadabra" and people freak out and tell him not to say that because it's a derivative of the AK curse. I have absolutely no recollection of that happening in any of the books. Anyone else? Thanks in advance! Catherine (who has read the books a great many times, and her husband only once, so is really hoping to be right....) --------------------------------- Make free worldwide PC-to-PC calls. Try the new Yahoo! Canada Messenger with Voice [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From chnc1024 at earthlink.net Mon Apr 17 02:30:50 2006 From: chnc1024 at earthlink.net (chnc1024 at earthlink.net) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 19:30:50 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Help please... Message-ID: <410-22006411723050452@earthlink.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151006 > Hi and happy Easter/Passover to those who celebrate.... > > I need a little help finding some canon references. My husband is convinced that at some point in the books, Harry says "abra cadabra" and people freak out and tell him not to say that because it's a derivative of the AK curse. I have absolutely no recollection of that happening in any of the books. Anyone else? > > Thanks in advance! > > Catherine > (who has read the books a great many times, and her husband only once, so is really hoping to be right....) > *************************************** Chancie: I found a note at HP-Lexicon saying "Abracadabra is a cabalistic charm in Judaic mythology that is supposed to bring healing powers. One of its sources is believed to be from Aramaic avada kedavra, another is the Phonenician alphabet (a-bra-ca-dabra-) It is NO WHERE mentioned that Harry said "abaracabra" anywhere in the books perhaps your Husband read this somewhere, and thought he read it in the books? Hope this helped. You can search any spell by going to this link at the lexicon. http://www.hp-lexicon.org/magic/spells/spells_a.html Hope you all have a wonderful Easter! Chancie From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 17 02:39:23 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 02:39:23 -0000 Subject: The Sting: Lucius sent Bella (was:Re: LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151007 Carol earlier: > > I agree with you that JKR is often (intentionally or unintentionally) vague in her responses both in interviews and on her website and that she picked up the phrase "were sent" from the question , but I disagree that she's not deliberately using it to conceal the identity of the sender. As a native speaker of English, I can confidently state that people don't "send" themselves. > Neri responded: > Not in the active form, perhaps, but what about the passive form, when the identity of the sender isn't mentioned? And with some vagueness regarding the fine line between the strategic and tactical sending? I'm not a native English speaker, but JKR is, and this seems to be the way she interpreted "the Lestranges were sent to kill Neville" in the question. Carol again: Sorry. I'm a bit confused. *What* seems to be the way she interpreted it? She clearly states, and I quote, "They [the Lestranges and Barty Jr.] were very definitely sent after Neville's parents." So she repeats the phrase "were sent," indicating that the questioner is right that they were sent, but specifies that the reason they were sent was to do something to Neville's parents, not to kill Neville. If they had not been sent by someone other than themselves, she would have corrected that misconception, too, stating that they acted on their own. (Now, Bella does enjoy torturing people, and she did want to bring LV back, so maybe she sees the whole sordid episode as her own idea, but that's not the idea conveyed by the words "were sent." Apparently someone at the very least gave them information that they acted on, apparently faulty information. The speculations that the person was Lucius assume that Bellatrix would not have acted on a direct order from her brother-in-law, and she certainly doesn't give him any credit ("We alone looked for him," to quote GoF from memory, implies that only the four in the courtroom were involved), but nevertheless, Lucius could have "sent" them by manipulating them into going there, in which case, they would be fulfilling his wishes under the delusion that they were acting of their own volition. IOW, he would have "sent" them to get information out of the Longbottoms which he knew the Longbottoms didn't have in hopes that their sadistic would land them in Azkaban and get them out of his white-blond hair. (I'm not saying thatLucius as sender is canonical, only that he's the logical candidate. But I am saying that "sent" means "sent," and they could not have been sent by themselves. English does not allow that construction, at least not in normal, nonfacetious use. (I can see a child who knows that she's been naughty saying, "I'm sending myself to my room, Mommy," but I doubt that JKR has any such unusual use in mind.) Carol earlier: > > As for the mission of Bellatrix and her male cohorts, Bella makes it clear in both the Pensieve scene and "Spinner's End" that only she and her faithful followers tried to find and rescue Voldemort. > > Neri: > Well, this is her official story, and very likely the story that she > gave the other members of her cadre of maniacs, but she could hardly > give the *real* reason if it was a Horcrux, could she? Voldemort would surely impose the highest degree of secrecy on this, whether Bella herself knew that it was a Horcrux or not. Carol again: And yet Bellatrix, for all her many faults, is very direct and outspoken. When have we ever heard her tell a lie? Geoff recently quoted her words to Neville about wanting to see him suffer as his parents suffered. In the Pensieve, she takes pride in the crime she committed and proudly boasts that the Dark Lord will return. I *do* think that Voldemort entrusted her with the locket Horcrux, but she may not have known what it was given that same boastful tendency combined with Voldemort's secretiveness. But I have yet to recall her telling a lie. As for her belief that Voldemort will reward her above all others, that certainly fits better with trying to find him and restore him than with trying to retrieve a Horcrux that somehow slipped out of her hands. And in the graveyard, Voldemort says much the same thing, speaking of the Lestranges as a couple, "They alone were loyal; they alone tried to find me." (Poor Rabastan. I guess he's the next-door neighbor. And before anyone takes me too seriously, I don't really feel sorry for any torturer of the Longbottoms. I'm just mystified by JKR's treatment of him.) > > > Carol: > > *That* was her mission, perhaps self-imposed after Lucius dropped his hint (in which case "were sent" is indeed used loosely but nevertheless implies the involvement of someone not present at the scene), > > Neri: > You seem to agree here that it *is* after all possible to use "were sent" loosely. > Carol: Loosely, yes. But not ungrammatically. "Sent" requires the involvement of another person even if that person only gave them a little boost rather than a direct order. Here's the entire definition of "send" from Merriam-Webster online. Admittedly, not all of the definitions are applicable, but none will admit the use you are trying to impose: 1 : to cause to go: as a : to propel or throw in a particular direction b : DELIVER c : DRIVE 2 : to cause to happen 3 : to dispatch by a means of communication 4 a : to direct, order, or request to go b : to permit or enable to attend a term or session c : to direct by advice or reference d : to cause or order to depart : DISMISS 5 a : to force to go : drive away b : to cause to assume a specified state 6 : to cause to issue: as a : to pour out : DISCHARGE b : UTTER c : EMIT d : to grow out (parts) in the course of development 7 : to cause to be carried to a destination; especially : to consign to death or a place of punishment 8 : to convey or cause to be conveyed or transmitted by an agent 9 : to strike or thrust so as to impel violently 10 : DELIGHT, THRILL intransitive senses 1 a : to dispatch someone to convey a message or do an errand -- often used with out b : to dispatch a request or order -- often used with away 2 : SCEND 3 : TRANSMIT > > Carol: > Neri: > Unless Frank and Alice did guess at that point why the object they > confiscated is so important to Bella, and refused to tell her where > they'd hidden it. They were both aurors, after all. It doesn't seem > far-fetched that during three years of advanced DADA training aurors > are also told about Horcruxes, perhaps even some clues for identifying > one. And if the Longbottoms believed that Voldemort, like some other > Dark wizards in history, had made only one Horcrux, they would think > that this Horcrux is the only thing that prevents the final > vanquishing of Voldemort. There are some things worth dying for. Carol responds: I think you're grasping at straws here. Why introduce a completely new motive for the Crucioing of the Longbottoms when we already have a canonical one, all based on your view that "were sent" means "sent themselves"? How could the Longbottoms' knowledge of or guessing the existence of a Horcrux become when they're both insane, and how would it further the plot? Wouldn't they have told Dumbledore, in any case? And if the Lestranges "sent themselves," despite grammar and logic, why not do so for the reason already specified at least twice in the books? (Now if you want to argue that Lucius wasn't the sender and make a case for someone else, say Peter Pettigrew, that I would like to hear.) > > > > Carol: > > I agree that Bella is connected with a Horcrux, but it makes much more > > sense for it to be the one that Regulus stole. > > Neri: > I'm not sure what is your theory regarding Bella's involvement with > the locket Horcrux, but her words in Spinner's End don't seem to fit. Carol again: That's easily remedied. Here's a link to the post: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/145831 Skip to the paragraph following the lead-in, "Here's an alternative scenario for people to shoot down." Neri: > IMO Bella's words in Spinner's End sound like she was entrusted with > safekeeping a Horcrux (most probably not the locket) before GH, yet > she's not trusted since recently. > Carol again: Why not the locket? The connection between Regulus Black and his cousin Bellatrix, not to mention Kreacher's devotion to her, makes perfect sense with regard to the locket. (Maybe you should read my other post to see the details of the theory?) > Carol, still sure that "were sent" means what it says and that there's no need to connect the insane Longbottoms with some unidentified Horcrux when there's already a logical, canonical reason for their the Lestranges and Barty Jr. Crucioing the Longbottoms From gelite67 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 17 02:46:52 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 02:46:52 -0000 Subject: Harry's Horcrux Helper? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151008 > > Angie: > > Did LV transfer more than his powers to Harry? What about > >some of his memories/knowledge about his very own Horcruxes? > > > >I think it's significant and foretelling that in COS, when Harry > >destroyed Riddle's diary, he did so "without thinking, without > >considering, as though he had meant to do it all along..." U.S. > >softcover, at 322. I always wondered how Harry knew how to do that? > > > >Well, isn't it possible that this unbidden, sudden insight came from > >LV's knowledge of how the diary was created and how to destroy it? > >If anyone knows how to destroy LV's Horcruxes, it is old LV himself. > > > >I'm not talking about Harry actively trying to enter LV's mind to get > >this information, but maybe COS foreshadows that when the time is > >right, Harry will be able to "recall" knowledge that was transferred > >to him on that fateful night, the same way he did in COS? > > > Rachel here: > We do know that there is some sort of a connection between LV and > Harry. The diary example you cited here sounds very plausible when > you consider this theory; however, if the locket found in Sirius' > home is another horcrux of LV, wouldn't Harry be more drawn to it > than he was? > > It seems to me that given this theory, Harry would perhaps not know > where to find the horcruxes, but he would probably know one when he > saw one (and, it would seem, possibly know how to destroy it). > > ~ Rachel >Angie again: Good point, but Harry wasn't, shall we say, in the moment, with the locket like he was with the diary. But I bet he'll remember the locket -- well, I guess he'll have to if it turns out to be a Horcrux, won't he? :) I really don't know how else he's going to know a Horcrux when he sees one (but I'm not JKR!). DD didn't tell him how to positively ID one. From gelite67 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 17 02:57:15 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 02:57:15 -0000 Subject: Harry's Horcrux Helper? In-Reply-To: <0E02CDEE-B434-4EB0-84EB-B7C047558106@alltel.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151009 Karen wrote: > > What about Dobby? I keep remembering the line "elves have a powerful > magic all their own." I can see Dobby as being someone that Harry > would definitely let in, it would protect Harry from Kreacher. Dobby > isn't really an idiot like everyone paints him. He'd keep his mouth > shut for Harry. Hmmm..... > Angie again: I agree that Dobby would be trustworth where Harry's concerned. I can also see Dobby being helpful if Lucius has or had a Horcrux, since we know from COS that Lucius at one time had some of LV's stuff at his house. But I doubt that Dobby knows that anything in particular is a Horcrux, or even what a Horcrux is. Dobby would bend over backwards to help Harry, but probably has limited information or at least, doesn't know that he has information that would be valuable to Harry. I'll be Kreacher knows more, but of course, will do everything possible to avoid helping Harry. Interesting contrast. Nonetheless, I can see Kreacher helping, against his will, if there are any Horcruxes at Grimmauld Place or if Bella has one and Kreacher knows about it. But I think Harry would have to ask Kreacher something direct like, "Does Bella have/keep anything for LV?" Or, "Do you have something that Regulus left?" Something like that, helping to identify the Horcruxes, but I don't know about helping to destroy them. That just might do poor Kreacher in. :) From kchuplis at alltel.net Mon Apr 17 03:07:25 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 22:07:25 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Harry's Horcrux Helper? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151010 On Apr 16, 2006, at 9:57 PM, gelite67 wrote: > Karen wrote: > > > > What about Dobby? I keep remembering the line "elves have a powerful > > magic all their own." I can see Dobby as being someone that Harry > > would definitely let in, it would protect Harry from Kreacher. Dobby > > isn't really an idiot like everyone paints him. He'd keep his mouth > > shut for Harry. Hmmm..... > > > Angie again: > > I agree that Dobby would be trustworth where Harry's concerned. I can > also see Dobby being helpful if Lucius has or had a Horcrux, since we > know from COS that Lucius at one time had some of LV's stuff at his > house. But I doubt that Dobby knows that anything in particular is a > Horcrux, or even what a Horcrux is. kchuplis: What I was thinking though was how DD could "sense" magic. It sounds crass, but Dobby might be like a "scent dog" in the magic department. Dobby has also listened to more than just Lucius over the years at the Malfoy house, I'll reckon. He might know more than he knows but not know he knows it and still be a help? From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Mon Apr 17 03:07:03 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 23:07:03 -0400 Subject: Help please... In-Reply-To: <20060417014821.22614.qmail@web37007.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151011 Catherine: > I need a little help finding some canon references. My husband is >convinced that at some point in the books, Harry says "abra cadabra" >and people freak out and tell him not to say that because it's a >derivative of the AK curse. I have absolutely no recollection of that >happening in any of the books. Anyone else? Rachel here: Haha, no, I'm afraid I don't remember that. I do remember, however, a time when Dudley was harassing Harry yet again (this is in Chamber of Secrets I believe, when Dudley is picking on Harry because it's Harry's birthday) and Harry starts muttering "wizardy" words. "Abra Cadabra" may have been involved with that scene, but I don't believe it's ever brought up along with AK. I'll side with you on this one :-). ~ Rachel From elfundeb at gmail.com Mon Apr 17 04:54:06 2006 From: elfundeb at gmail.com (elfundeb) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 00:54:06 -0400 Subject: What Frank Knows, and Stinger!Lucius Message-ID: <80f25c3a0604162154q2bae71f6p877d0bd2b05996f4@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151012 Now that the taxes are done, the houseguests are gone and everything cleaned up, I can turn my attention to important matters like Frank Longbottom and The Sting Theory. Some random comments -- Rebecca: The question this all begets is why *Frank Longbottom* would be tortured for information about LV's whereabouts after GH? [snip] Would not talk about "what"? How would Frank know anything about where LV went? Debbie: So many people have assumed for so long that Frank could not have known anything about LV's whereabouts that it seems to have almost become canon. But why couldn't Frank have any knowledge? For those who know where -- or perhaps how -- to look, VaporMort's whereabouts could be discovered. Dumbledore states at the end of CoS that his information was that LV was hiding in the forests of Albania, which of course was exactly where Pettigrew found him a year later. So why would Frank know? Dumbledore, head of the OOP, made it his business to know. He could have searched himself, or he could have sent another Order member. Frank Longbottom wasn't just an Order member; he was also an Auror. Now unlike Dumbledore, who probably was busy cogitating about the possible horcrux effect, the Ministry probably wanted only to confirm that Voldemort was not only really dead but really most sincerely dead. In any event, they would (or at least should) have felt obligated to investigate, and Frank had every motive to volunteer for the mission, just to reassure himself that nobody was going to come after his son too. There's also the fact that the Ministry accepts this motive in its prosecution of the Lestranges & Co. Why? Talisman would tell us that it's because Lucius told them so, in the guise of an informant. But since Frank was an Auror, the Ministry would likely have reason to know if there was any basis for that supposition. Therefore, I'm not prepared to write off the stated motive as a well-placed lie. We also don't know Frank's whereabouts before, during or after GH. In fact, we don't even know where the Longbottom torture took place (though most speculation assumes it occurred at their house). What if Frank took a road trip shortly after Voldemort disappeared? That would certainly fuel speculation that he was after Voldemort. It also provides a possible basis for the Lestranges et al to show up on his doorstep, with or without a prod from Lucius. My supposition has hitherto been that Barty Jr. learned about Frank's absence, and perhaps the reason for the absence, from his father and brought his juicy tidbit to the fanatical Bella. With dual motives: (i) bring back his master, his substitute father, and (ii) show how despite the fall of the Dark Lord his father could not ensure the people's safety. So Barty is the sender. And then Bella demanded him to come along "because you *know* the Longbottoms, and *you* will knock on the door and get them to open up." It all fits. Barty claimed he wasn't involved, but he must have been along for a reason, right? And the Crouches and Longbottoms are related, at least by marriage to the Blacks. Rebecca: Wouldn't that line of thought perhaps lead one to the speculation Frank saw what happened at GH? Debbie: I doubt he was there -- it must have been quite a party if he was there along with LV and whoever he brought with him and if he was tailing someone in his capacity as an Auror to boot. Even assuming that he was there, and saw Voldemort's spirit floating away, he wouldn't have known where it went. He would've needed to investigate later. And if the extra participant at GH was Snape, he could have given Frank some leads. (I doubt very much that Snape would have gone searching for the vapour himself.) Rebecca: The other alternative is one that I feel slightly queasy about, and hate to even mention. What if Gran's darling Frank did something that might not be so Order-ish - like trying to save his family in lieu of the Potters' demise. Debbie: Oho! Another one who suspects Frank might not be as saintly as Gran would have us believe. You don't think he enjoyed using unforgivables on suspects, do you? A little Crucio down in the dungeons, maybe? OTOH, with a couple of obvious exceptions, JKR's kids seem to take their character from their parents. As Neville demonstrates his bravery every day, just by showing up and trying despite his problems (not to mention his willingness to do what he believes is right regardless of consequences), I don't think we're ever going to see Frank's underside. Yeah, JKR has signalled loud and clear that he's the kind of guy that would allow himself to be Crucio'd into insanity rather than reveal a secret. (Of course, it's not just any secret; revealing it could get his son killed.) Because in the DoM, Neville was willing to suffer the same fate rather than give up a prophecy he knew nothing about. Talisman: Explain how you'd like to keep a low profile, ratting out your sister-in-law and all. And by the way, Cornelius, it's a shame but I think Crouch's son will be with them, too. Tsk, tsk. Imagine what this could do to old Barty's career, and him a shoe-in to be Minister, and all. But you, my dear Fudge, will certainly deserve a promotion for capturing this last vicious gang of DEs. Yes, I think your star is about to rise; we should chat more about this...perhaps over dinner? [snip] The spring snaps and Bella, Barty Jr--and the Dark Lord?fs remaining would-be rescuers--are safely neutralized (it is supposed) for life. I don't think Lucius worried about being named in a prosecutor's deal, at all. For one thing, Bella's crowd was too fanatical to cut deals--but better yet--Fudge would vouch for him as the informant. Plenty of insurance. Debbie: Stinger!Lucius is a very appetizing dish, but your scenario leaves a few bones in the fish, I think. Fudge, for one. I'm very fond of Evil!Fudge theories, but he has already exited stage left after bumbling his way through six or so years center stage at the MoM without having shown a talent for anything except ignoring reality. When Voldemort became Vapormort, Fudge was merely a Junior Minister in the Department of Magical Catastrophes. And we need to consider the nature of the relationship between Fudge and Malfoy. When Fudge first became MoM, it was Dumbledore he sought for advice. Lucius' strategically placed gifts have cultivated influence with Fudge, and more importantly, a blind eye ("Lucius was cleared! A very old family -- donations to excellent causes --"). Only a blithering idiot would *mention* the money that greased the wheels. Second, I think Lucius would have had trouble pulling off *both* the informant act and the imperio act. We know he was successful at the latter. In PS/SS, we learn that "his family . . . were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said they'd been bewitched." Sounds like an offensive strategy to me. Now, if Lucius was claiming the Imperio defense, how can he simultaneously be passing information about Death Eater plans? How does Fudge produce this information to the powers that be at the Ministry -- because he was clearly in the wrong department for that -- without arousing their suspicion of Lucius? Crouch was still in charge, and I'm sure he would have been only too happy to send Lucius to Azkaban. Or did he convince the Ministry to ignore those little inconsistencies, and accept his story in exchange for information? Betsy Hp: can see Lucius being the one to *inform* on Bellatrix (if he even knew what she was up to) in order to prevent the very hue and outcry the attack brought about. (Though I honestly doubt he did.) But I have a hard time seeing what exactly Lucius hoped to gain from sending Bellatrix on her mission in the first place, and I have a really hard time giving him that amount of influence over his sister- in-law. Debbie: I find myself agreeing with most of Betsy's questions, but I think Lucius has ample motive to get Bella out of the way. Quite simply, a sister-in-law who is intent to find and resurrect Voldemort presents a clear and present danger to an ex-DE who is loudly claiming he was imperio'd into all that torture and whatnot. And those buttons are easy to push. My question is, just when did Lucius rat on her? Because the public was in an uproar after the Longbottoms' brains were turned to mush, and the Ministry was all in a dither because the public had put the pressure on them to catch those who had done it. How does someone in the Department of Magical Catastrophes convince the Aurors to go after the Lestranges? We also have to contend with Dumbledore's statement that he had no idea if Barty Jr had even been involved because "the Longbottoms' evidence was -- given their condition -- none too reliable. Does that mean that the Longbottoms implicated the Pensieve Four? Or, as Talisman will certainly assert, did the Ministry coach the Longbottoms to give the necessary testimony? (Don't answer that; the Ministry was certainly capable of subornation of perjury.) Ok, maybe the Lucius theory works as long as we leave Fudge out of it. Why not have him deal directly with Crouch Sr? They're undoubtedly related, aren't they? It's the Karkaroff deal. Neri: Note that JKR's explanation as to why the Lestranges couldn't have been sent to kill Neville is that "they were not in on the prophecy". Strictly this isn't an explanation at all, because the Lestranges could have easily been sent to kill Neville without knowing a thing about the prophecy. Voldy could have simply issued a command: "if something happens to me, you should get rid of the Longbottoms' baby" without giving any reason, and then the Lestranges would have been properly "sent". Yet this isn't the scenario that JKR seems to be addressing in her answer. From the words "the Lestranges weren't in on the secret" she appears to be addressing a hypothetical scenario in which Voldemort told the Lestranges about the prophecy, yet didn't strictly send them to do anything. Debbie: I think JKR's response shows how immersed she is in *her* plotlines, in which neither Bellatrix nor Voldemort would give a flying fig about the existence of bawling infants such as Harry or Neville but for the prophecy. Therefore, the Lestranges' lack of knowledge of the prophecy is a complete explanation to the question. Neri: Well, BANG is a subjective thing, but in your scenario the whole Longbottoms affair happened merely as a side effect of one of the bad guys betraying some other bad guys, just so that in Book 7 it would be merely one out of several reasons why this bad guy and his family might defect to the side of the good guys, although said bad guy is already in Azkaban and at odds with Voldy right now, and it doesn't look like he or his family have much valuable secrets left in their possession anyway. YMMV, but I feel this scenario kind of sells Frank and Alice cheap. I'd feel much better about their horrible fate if their heroism would somehow turn out worthwhile in the end. Pippin: I agree that Frank and Alice should not have had to undergo their horrible fate just to show us that a minor character like Lucius is a rotter. We already knew that from his dropping the diary on Ginny. It really should be someone they thought they could trust, don't you think? And if it's someone that Neville trusts, so much the better. Malfoys don't qualify. Debbie: The fate of Frank and Alice shows us something much worse than death. It stands in stark contrast to the martyrdom of James and Lily, just as Harry's role as prophecy boy and his heroic escapes from Voldemort stand in stark contrast to the boy in bunny slippers who is willing to be Crucio'd into insanity for the sake of protecting a prophecy he knows nothing about, just because it's important to Harry. Not everyone gets to be a martyr, and not everyone gets to be a hero. JKR is reminding us that while we revere the obvious heroes, and rightly so, we should not ignore the contributions of the unsung heroes. If, as I have posited, Frank knew where Voldemort was, his silence delayed Voldemort's return for 12 years. As for Lucius' involvement, one of the remaining mysteries as of the end of HBP (and one much more interesting than a Horcrux hunt) is the fate of his son. Dumbledore offered to protect Lucius when his term at Azkaban was up, as well as his dependents (with apologies for the tax reference). If Snape can be DDM! after revealing to contents of the prophecy to Voldemort, Lucius' fate would not be sealed by his decision to sic Bella after the Longbottoms. Lucius has played second fiddle to Voldemort for a long time. He'd be much happier as a free agent, and as Talisman pointed out, DEs can only retire feet first. I think Lucius could be convinced to aid in Voldemort's downfall. Surely there'd be a bit of BANG in that? Then again, JKR may never tell us who sent Bella & Co. Debbie [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From bboyminn at yahoo.com Mon Apr 17 07:44:37 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 07:44:37 -0000 Subject: Help please... Hocus Pocus In-Reply-To: <20060417014821.22614.qmail@web37007.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151013 > Catherine/saberbunny: > > .... > > I need a little help finding some canon references. My husband is convinced that at some point in the books, Harry says "abra cadabra" and people freak out and tell him not to say that because it's a derivative of the AK curse. ... > > Catherine bboyminn: I don't think you will find 'abra cadabra', the closest I can find is 'hocus pocus'. - Chamber of Secrets - Chapter 1 - "Why're you staring at the hedge?" he said suspiciously. "I'm trying to decide what would be the best spell to set it on fire," said Harry. Dudley stumbled backward at once, a look of panic on his fat face. "You c-can't - Dad told you you're not to do m-magic - he said he'll chuck you out of the house - and you haven't got anywhere else to go - you haven't got any friends to take you -" "Jiggery pokery!" said Harry in a fierce voice. "Hocus pocus squiggly wiggly -" "MUUUUUUM!" howled Dudley, tripping over his feet as he dashed back toward the house. "MUUUUM! He's doing you know what!" - End Quote- Sorry no page numbers. I really can't recall 'abra cadabra' or anything close to it anywhere in the books. Sorry. Steve/bboyminn From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Mon Apr 17 10:50:44 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 10:50:44 -0000 Subject: The Sting: Lucius sent Bella (was:Re: LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151014 Carol: > She clearly states, and I quote, "They [the Lestranges and Barty > Jr.] were very definitely sent after Neville's parents." So she > repeats the phrase "were sent," indicating that the questioner is > right that they were sent, but specifies that the reason they were > sent was to do something to Neville's parents, not to kill Neville. *(snip)* Ceridwen: Before I started paying attention to speculation - before I even knew that someone was out there speculating - I thought that Bella and cadre went to the Longbottoms because they knew that LV was going to hit the Potters first, then the Longbottoms. I never did think, and still don't, that LV made a choice between possible prophecy boys. I was, and am, convinced that he was going to kill them both in the same sweep so the second child and his family would not have a chance to hear what had happened to the first child and family and get away. This doesn't mean that Bella or any of the other DEs besides Snape knew about the prophecy. All they would need to know is that LV was going to kill the Potters, then the Longbottoms. To someone looking for their missing lord, without knowing the prophecy, it would make more sense that LV successfully completed his mission at Godrick's Hollow and moved on to the Longbottoms, where he was defeated. If only a few people knew where LV was going, Bella and her cohort might not have been in the need to know loop. So, at some point after the event, they learned that LV was going to see the Longbottoms after the Potters, got the idea from this that the Longbottoms did something to him, and took off to torture the information out of them. This could even have been the end result of months of DEs trying to figure out what had happened and not quite believing that their wonderful lord could have been defeated by a toddler. By pooling information, they came up with the alternative scenario of kill Potters, fight and lose to Longbottoms. Someone, perhaps the person with the key knowledge that LV was going after both the same night, asked for volunteers to go and 'question' the Longbottoms, and so Bella & Co were 'sent'. That was what I believe may have happened. No canon to back me up directly, but I think it fits into canon without changing anything we know. Ceridwen, who does realize that she has used the name 'Longbottom' more times in a post than she ever has before. From willsonkmom at msn.com Mon Apr 17 11:04:19 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 11:04:19 -0000 Subject: Help please... In-Reply-To: <20060417014821.22614.qmail@web37007.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151015 Catherine asked: > I need a little help finding some canon references. My husband is convinced that at some point in the books, Harry says "abra cadabra" and people freak out and tell him not to say that because it's a derivative of the AK curse. I have absolutely no recollection of that happening in any of the books. Anyone else? Potioncat: I recall a meal at the Dursleys when Harry tells Dudley to "say the magic word" and the family flips out...but the magic word was, of course, "please." The only thing I can think of that Harry says in the wizarding world that upsets anyone is "Voldemort." From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Mon Apr 17 11:26:56 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 11:26:56 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151016 Alla: > > Oh, of course I agree with you. Blood protection cannot be > discounted when discussing Harry's placement. Moreover, what I am > arguing is that I accept "blood protection" as the ONLY reason > Dumbledore did not remove Harry, that is if we are talking about > decent Dumbledore as I perceive him. Ceridwen: It seems to me that this level of the stories relies on ancient and arcane magic, so the blood protection must be involved. I think it also relies on 'modern technology' in updating that magic, so we have Dumbledore's expertise in formulating or modifying supporting protections to enhance Lily's sacrificial act of magic. IF I am right, then all of the protections Dumbledore placed are as new or untested as Lily's sacrifice, and will probably be difficult to remove or switch, even if they found an unknown Evans relation later who would fit the criteria (Father an Evans, mother the sister of Lily's and Petunia's mother, for instance, same blood). I think the magic may not only be tied to the place where Lily's blood dwells, but to Petunia in the sense that she has the same blood lineage as Lily. So removing Harry would be dangerous and foolish, except in very extreme circumstances, which the blood protection would guard against in any case. Alla: > Does it make sense? Of course it is possible that DD knew something > from Mrs. Figg reports, BUT I completely disagree that Dumbledore > did not interfere with Dursleys abuse because he wanted to train > Harry, make him more resilient, etc. > > I think he was afraid to interfere, that's all. Ceridwen: I think both could come into play. But more the latter. Adversity makes us grow stronger, just as exercise, though painful, strengthens our muscles ('pain is weakness leaving the body', a Marine slogan I saw a few times). There is pain, and there is pain. One is weakness being replaced by strength, the other is a signal that there is something desperately wrong. I think Mrs Figg was put in Little Whinging expressly as an observer for the Order and Dumbledore. She was one of the old crowd, this would make sense. She was able to fulfill her duties by becoming Harry's occasional child minder. She was both observer and safe haven if he wished to take advantage. And I think you're absolutely right, Dumbledore was afraid to interfere. Not only because of the knife-edge balance of the Dursleys keeping Harry as opposed to tossing him out, but because of the blood protections on the place, tied to the blood in Petunia's veins. He would be right to be afraid to interfere because it would mean Harry's life if he did remove him. Alla: > That is just as I said before, IMO if Dumbledore allowed Harry to > endure what he got from Dursleys for any reason except wanting to > keep him alive with blood protection, to me Dumbledore stops being a > decent man, who makes mistakes and becomes rather monstrous figure, > who thinks that child abuse for ten years is OK as long as it is for > training purposes. Ceridwen: I can't see the futuristic 'training the children like a bunch of Spartans' mentality from some movies and books we have as playing into the story at all. The easiest, as well as the most efficient, reason for keeping Harry at the Dursleys is the blood link between Lily and Petunia, and Lily's sacrifice. Anything Dumbledore said, to himself or to Harry or anyone, in my opinion, is taking the 'lemons' life gave him and Harry, and making 'lemonade' - rationalizing. It had to be so, that is the harsh reality. And it's very tempting to give it a reason beyond saying that was the best that could have been done. Alla: > It is just what you said in your other post, if > DD consciously placed Harry to endure Dursleys upbringing to be more > resilient, etc, DD runs awfully big risk that Harry would find out > about that and you know, join the other side. Ceridwen: Of course I would agree with you agreeing with me! ;) But Dumbledore also runs the risk of Harry being injured, physically not so much due to the protections (see Carol's examples), but mentally and emotionally, to the point that he would not be able to fight LV. Alla: > I think Dumbledore was faced with horrific choice. Did he do the > best he could? As some people know, I was very angry with Dumbledore > speech at the end of OOP and if he would continued this way in HBP, > I may have hated him a great deal, but luckily JKR rehabilitated him > VERY well in HBP in my eyes. :) Ceridwen: Oh, yes, he had a very horrible choice, based on a horrible event, the death of Harry's parents. And he absolutely did the best he could. He may even have created new charms/spells, or modified existing ones, that would have taken him nearly a day to devise, just to see to Harry's safety. I mentioned above that the justification at the end of OotP was probably DD rationalizing to himself the treatment Harry endured. Yes, in the end it did make Harry stronger, but that was never a guarantee. A manipulative Dumbledore would have placed Harry with people he trusted and ordered up a regimine that would have done the same thing but with much more of his own involvement, just to make sure that he got the results he wanted. Sort of like basic training, where the curriculum is set, instead of random as it was at the Dursleys'. Alla: > I don't believe that DD is a monster, that is why I refuse to > believe that he would allow a young child to stay with Dursleys, > unless he truly had no other way to keep the child alive. Ceridwen: No, of course not. That is not the character JKR wrote. We do know that his creatrix sees him as Good, therefore, that is how she writes him. If his only goal, or even his regrettable priority, was to create the perfect Killing Machine instead of a boy, he would have done things much differently. Harry would probably have had more exposure to magic from infancy, which would have left the Dursleys out as guardians; he would have been in an environment directly controlled by DD's edicts. Protecting him was top priority, and once what I assume to be complicated spells were placed, the most sensible thing to do would be to leave him there, set observers in place, and hope that he had done everything in his power to ensure Harry's *survival*. Ceridwen. From foxmoth at qnet.com Mon Apr 17 12:56:19 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 12:56:19 -0000 Subject: Another Gollum Comparison Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151017 Pippin: A late addition to the recent thread of Gollum comparisons: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/150906 While Snape resembles Gollum in his relentless capacity to hate, and Wormtail was mentioned for his treachery and general repulsiveness, both of these characters lack Gollum's most outstanding characteristic-- his divided nature. Neither Snape nor Wormtail seems to be anywhere as conflicted as Gollum. Neither seems to be in a constant dialogue with himself. It's important to understand that Tolkien does not present Gollum as wholly evil. We see it most clearly in the moment in the Two Towers where Gollum finds Frodo and Sam asleep, and for a moment seems to be filled with doubt and regret. He reaches out to touch Frodo, almost as if it were a caress. Much of the time, though, Gollum's fawning and would-be friendliness are deceptive and clearly indicated as such. But deception in Rowling is handled very differently than deception in Tolkien. Although in Sauron and Saruman Tolkien created villains who could conceal their evil intentions for centuries on end, the reader is always clued in. Rowling, on the other hand, allows the reader to be misled along with her unsuspecting hero, first by Quirrell, then by Riddle, and finally by Fake!Moody. If Gollum had been a Rowling character, we might expect that Slinker would do a much better job of keeping Stinker under wraps. We might hardly know that Stinker existed, though Rowling always carefully drops a hint that her deceptive characters are liars. Perhaps some of you are already thinking of a Rowling character who reaches out to Harry with an aborted caress. He is starved and miserable in appearance, though not so obviously wasted as Gollum is. This character also seems to be in a non-stop argument with himself, has tried to kill one of his old friends, and has taken advantage of others' sympathy for his miserable plight. Like Gollum he has undoubtedly been mistreated by both sides and like Gollum he is a skillful liar. In terms of conflict and story arc, perhaps the most Gollum-like character is Lupin. Pippin From rdoliver30 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 17 15:39:56 2006 From: rdoliver30 at yahoo.com (lupinlore) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 15:39:56 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: <4441E3DF.8010602@telus.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151018 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Kathryn Jones wrote: > > > KJ writes: > > I think you are both right in these two paragraphs. Frankly, it > is canon that Dumbledore had a plan. It was a plan that made Dumbledore > extremely sad as he became more and more attached to Harry. He even > began to consider giving up his plan, regardless of the effect on other > people, because of his feelings for Harry. To my mind, this does not > bode well for Harry, and I find it hard to believe that Harry missed the > entire point of that speech. If I had been Harry, I would have got the > hell out of there. > Yes, DD definitely had a plan. But what was it? Was it some Machiavellian thing spanning years and involving multiple players? Or was it the more straightforward, and believable, plan to simply insure the survival and education of the person that Voldemort had marked as his equal (although granted DD's belief in the power of the prophecy seems to wax and wane according to the needs of the plot)? Did DD regret his plan? I don't know, it seemed to me he more regretted not being honest with Harry. What was the gleam of triumph? Was it part of DD's plan coming to fruition? Or was it simply that he realized that Voldemort, being human (or at least biological) once again could now be permanently destroyed -- something that could not be done to Vapor!Mort. Or was it something else entirely? DD, as I recall, exclaimed in surprise along with Sirius as that part of Harry's story. Did he realize that Voldy had just made a crucial mistake? Who knows? We'll find out pretty soon now. But I suspect that elaborate conspiracy theories will, as elaborate conspiracy theories usually do, come mostly to naught. Lupinlore From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 17 22:07:52 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 22:07:52 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151019 > >>Alla: > > I think Dumbledore was faced with horrific choice. Did he do the > > best he could? As some people know, I was very angry with > > Dumbledore speech at the end of OOP and if he would continued > > this way in HBP, I may have hated him a great deal, but luckily > > JKR rehabilitated him VERY well in HBP in my eyes. :) > >>Ceridwen: > > I mentioned above that the justification at the end of OotP was > probably DD rationalizing to himself the treatment Harry endured. > Yes, in the end it did make Harry stronger, but that was never a > guarantee. > Betsy Hp: I was confused about what upset you both about Dumbledore's speech at the end of OotP, so I re-read it. And I'm still confused. Dumbledore never says anything about Harry's treatment at the Dursleys being a positive thing. He does the exact opposite, in fact. "You had suffered. I knew you would when I left you on your aunt and uncle's doorstep. I knew I was condemning you to ten dark and difficult years." (OotP scholastic hardback p.835) Then Dumbledore explains *why* he'd felt it necessary to leave Harry with the Dursleys, and strength training had nothing to do with it. "You might ask -- and with good reason -- why it had to be so." [...] "My answer is that my priority was to keep you alive. You were in more danger than perhaps anyone but myself realized." [...] "Your mother's sacrifice made the bond of blood the strongest shield I could give you." [...] "She [Aunt Petunia] knows that allowing you houseroom may well have kept you alive for the past fifteen years." (ibid p. 835, 836) The only part of his speech, with regards to the Dursleys, that might possibly offend (that I could find anyway), was this part here: "You were not a pampered little prince, but as normal a boy as I could have hoped under the circumstances." (ibid p.837) Is this the offending statement? Because I think that harkens back to Dumbledore speaking of so many in the Wizarding World who'd have been thrilled to call Harry their own. Dumbledore never says anything to suggest that the Dursleys kept Harry humble, but he does spend a great deal of time stressing that the blood protection that only Petunia could offer kept Harry alive. And he even goes on to suggest that part of the reason he kept the rather horrifying prophecy from Harry was that he knew Harry had suffered rather a lot already. "I defy anyone who has watched you as I have -- and I have watched you more closely than you can have imagined -- not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered." (ibid p.838-839) At this point Dumbledore has only reached the end of Harry's second year in his narration. And while Harry went through some rather large adventures his first and second year, I don't know that he really *suffered* all that much. In fact, he seemed to mostly enjoy himself during those relatively innocent times. So I think it's pretty safe to say that Dumbledore is referring to the suffering Harry went through growing up at the Dursleys. (Especially since Dumbledore already used the word "suffered" to describe Harry's life at the Dursleys.) I do think Dumbledore wanted to avoid Harry being brought up in the spotlight the WW would have turned on him. But I don't think he chose the Dursleys for that reason. If Harry's protection hadn't been dependent upon blood (and if Sirius had still been locked away in Azkaban) I'm betting Mrs. Figg would have raised Harry in the Muggle world. (As a squib we've seen it's quite easy for her to drop off the WW's radar.) From this speech I got the sense that Dumbledore left Harry at the Dursleys with great reluctance and *only* because of the blood protection. [It does raise an interesting question though. If Sirius had been free (and Harry's protection didn't depend on blood) or if Petunia had been a witch, would Dumbledore have encouraged them to leave the WW and live as Muggles in order for Harry to have as "normal" an upbringing as possible?] Anyway, I'm just curious as to what was so wrong with what Dumbledore said about leaving Harry at the Dursleys, what about it read as rationalizing on Dumbledore's part? Betsy Hp, who remembers a great deal of back and forth on how Dumbledore spoke about Sirius, but not the Dursleys so much. (There must have been a rip-roaring Snape discussion going on at the time). From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Mon Apr 17 23:39:05 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 23:39:05 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151020 Betsy Hp: > I was confused about what upset you both about Dumbledore's speech > at the end of OotP, so I re-read it. And I'm still confused. > Dumbledore never says anything about Harry's treatment at the > Dursleys being a positive thing. He does the exact opposite, in > fact. *(snip)* Ceridwen: I'm not so upset about the OotP speech as I am uneasy with the impression I got from it. It does, on one level, sound like rationalizing a poor choice. And it has added to speculation about Puppetmaster!Dumbledore, so I am not the only one who saw the kernel of this idea in it. Of course, saying 'on one level' means there are other levels, and on other levels, say, the bald explanation rather than the excuse, it does work. ;) *(snip)* > "You were not a pampered little prince, but as normal a boy as I > could have hoped under the circumstances." (ibid p.837) > > Is this the offending statement? Because I think that harkens back > to Dumbledore speaking of so many in the Wizarding World who'd have > been thrilled to call Harry their own. Dumbledore never says > anything to suggest that the Dursleys kept Harry humble, but he does > spend a great deal of time stressing that the blood protection that > only Petunia could offer kept Harry alive. Ceridwen: I agree that the blood protection trumps all else in the consideration of where to place Harry. Not pampering, not Rambo training, just the fact that Harry has the best opportunity to stay alive by being placed where this protection is the strongest. It isn't any one statement in isolation that tweaks that little reservation. But, if I had to pick a statement out of all that you posted, it would have to be: "You had suffered. I knew you would when I left you on your aunt and uncle's doorstep. I knew I was condemning you to ten dark and difficult years." This, I think, is the core of the idea that Dumbledore knew about horrible abuses but preferred not to step in, willfully leaving Harry at the mercy of his enemies. 'I knew you would (suffer)... I was condemning you...' would be the active phrases. By the way, thank you for typing all that out! Betsy Hp: > I do think Dumbledore wanted to avoid Harry being brought up in the > spotlight the WW would have turned on him. But I don't think he > chose the Dursleys for that reason. If Harry's protection hadn't > been dependent upon blood (and if Sirius had still been locked away > in Azkaban) I'm betting Mrs. Figg would have raised Harry in the > Muggle world. (As a squib we've seen it's quite easy for her to > drop off the WW's radar.) From this speech I got the sense that > Dumbledore left Harry at the Dursleys with great reluctance and > *only* because of the blood protection. Ceridwen: Yes, most definitely, the blood protection is the most important underpining (sp?) in the out of Hogwarts part of Harry's life. There can be no discussion about his placement with the Dursleys, or anything associated with it, without having to go back and point to this extrordinary protection. Some people want to, or perhaps they want to explore other issues surrounding the placement without covering already established ground. And that is more where we were going with the original discussion. But I don't think the blood protection can possibly be seperated from Harry's placement. Others may disagree, of course, but I'll argue an inseperable relationship. I do agree that there was the possibility that Harry might have succumbed to Celebrity Rot, or whatever you want to call it, by being in the WW spotlight, as Snape supposed in SS/PS. I think that line of Snape's had a double purpose - to show Snape's personality, and to underscore tacitly the dangers of his being raised as The Boy Who Lived rather than the (despised and feared) nephew of his Muggle aunt. Yes, I do think Harry could have gone there - what child - what person - wouldn't have been in danger from it by being subjected to constant attention? But I do not think it had anything to do with genetics, with James's teenaged personality as shown in SWM. And, that is a tantalizing little gem, that Squibs can drop off the WW radar so easily. There are so many possibilities to be played with there! Betsy Hp: > [It does raise an interesting question though. If Sirius had been > free (and Harry's protection didn't depend on blood) or if Petunia > had been a witch, would Dumbledore have encouraged them to leave the > WW and live as Muggles in order for Harry to have as "normal" an > upbringing as possible?] Ceridwen: Good question! I've gotten close to wondering that same thing myself. We see what happens to child celebrities all the time in the real world, and I do wonder if Harry might have gone that way if things had been different. Sometimes, I wonder what he would have been like being raised by two strong and sometimes diverging personalities like James and Lily, but that's a completely different question. Anyway, I hoped I answered for me. The speech, no matter what its intent, did have the potential for leaving the door open to speculation which I think unfairly categorized Dumbledore as a manipulative puppetmaster. By the way, I just asked my youngest, age 14, if she thinks Dumbledore is manipulative. She says he is, but not in a bad way. She also said I'm obsessed about Harry Potter. Me? Obsessed??? Hmph. Betsy Hp, who remembers a great deal of back and forth on how > Dumbledore spoke about Sirius, but not the Dursleys so much. (There > must have been a rip-roaring Snape discussion going on at the time). > Ceridwen, saying that any thread can morph into a Snape thread these days, stay tuned! *g* From willsonkmom at msn.com Mon Apr 17 23:51:42 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 23:51:42 -0000 Subject: Emphasis on the title: Professor (Was: Who calls Voldemort "Lord") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151021 "coldsliversofglass" > > Also, I may be wrong, but I thought that Harry's slips in addressing > his professors usually center around the issues he has with them. I > mean, he hates Snape, so he feels no need to show him the respect > that the title conveys. I think he did the same when he was > mentioning Quirrel Potioncat: I think there are a number of times that the trio between themselves refer to teachers by just last names...could be wrong...but I think they say "McGonagall" when talking about her. Of course, no fussy adults are around to correct them. I know Harry called Dolores "Umbridge" in front of DD and I think he called Quirrell by his surname only as well without being corrected in either case. At the Weasleys, DD is referred to simply as Dumbledore by adults and children with no reaction. It seems to be only the name Snape that is corrected to include Professor. Perhaps it's as much tone of voice as anything, and perhaps in the Umbridge/Quirrell case a bit of agreement. Hagrid...unless this is movie contamination..asks Harry to call him Hagrid. From rdoliver30 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 17 20:41:14 2006 From: rdoliver30 at yahoo.com (lupinlore) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 20:41:14 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151022 > Alla: > > Oh, I so hope not. I so hope that Dumbledore did not know that Harry > will be abused at Dursleys and only placed him there to save his > life, because honestly, if Dumbledore placed Harry there to train > him ( shudders at the thought), well such Dumbledore in my book is > no better than Voldemort for whom all his "loyal" DE are nothing > more than means to get what he wants. > I certainly agree that the whole "placing Harry with the Dursleys as a step in training" would be reprehensible beyond belief, WW or not. Having said that, it would also be stupid beyond belief, as DD would be letting loose an experiment he had no way of controlling or directing, while taking frightful risks in the process. Indeed, the whole idea of a manipulative DD really does really on Dumbledore having godlike foreknowledge of how things will turn out. He would have to know how the Dursleys will act and how Harry will respond, in this instance. To choose another situation often used as an example of "DD being manipulative," if the events in SS/PS were designed to train Harry, DD would not only have to know that Voldy was in the midst of his students, he would also have to know that Harry, et. al. would approach McGonnagall and Hagrid at a particular time in a particular way, that Hagrid/McG would say certain things, that Harry would respond in a particular manner, etc. In other words, he would have to be JKR, and although he is often the author's mouthpiece, that seems to be taking things a bit too far. As I've said before, I think a lot of this arises from the fact that DD's speech at the end of OOTP was poorly conceived and not well executed. JKR was running behind, in the midst of a pregnancy,under a lot of pressure in general, and she's sometimes not too careful about the inadvertant messages she sends, in any case. Much of HBP was spent, not surprisingly, back peddling like crazy. Such is the soil in which confusion and frustration takes seed. Lupinlore From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Mon Apr 17 22:49:26 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 18:49:26 -0400 Subject: Christianity in HP? (WAS: Dumbledore's Death) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151023 Tonks: >Let us start with Sirius. His closest friends and the ones that he >hangs out with most are Peter, James and John (Remus John Lupin). >This is also true of Jesus. We hear that he frequently went with >Peter, James and John. Jesus also transfigured in their presence, >and so does Sirius. All of this points to Sirius being a Christ >figure. Also we have the fact, so I am told, that the star Sirius is >seen as the `morning star' by some and also as the Messianic star >that the magi followed. And the morning star is Christ. But the >biggest thing is the way in which Sirius dies. Oddly he goes behind >the veil in both body and soul. Has anyone else ever done that in >the WW? I would think maybe not. This points to the Ascension of >Jesus. >The events of the cave and the tower are events, in very disguised >form, that are similar to the last hours of Jesus, even to the fact >that it happened at the place of the skull. (the dark mark over the >tower.) > >Sandy and Steve are right, it does seem like the death of DD was not >befitting the greatest wizard of all time. I too share the pain of >his death. I agree that JKR has done a magnificent job of getting >all of us to love DD and morn his death. The way we feel and the way >Harry feels and way all in the Order feels are the same as what the >Disciples felt after the Crucifixion of Jesus. I think that is >exactly the way that JKR has set it up for us to feel. I also think >that we will see some sort or resurrection in book 7. It will not be >as I or others expect, but it will be there, if only in the return >of Fawkes. > Rachel here: First off, lovely post, I hated to snip any of it :-). I know that many people believe DD and/or Sirius and/or Harry and/or Voldemort (I have heard that before...) are Christ figures in some sense. There are undoubtedly hidden references to Christianity, however, aren't there also many many references to Greek and Norse mythology? The names of many of the characters are taken from these old religions, as a few of the names could possibly be taken from Christianity. It seems to me that JKR loves to include allegories and references within her books however I think people should take a look at all of these religions if they want to find a religious meaning behind the series. As tempting as it is to compare parts of Harry Potter to Christianity, especially in light of the Narnia series' revival, readers seem to be ignoring the various cultural references found throughout. IMO, it seems almost a certain doom to use witches and wizards as the prime protagonists in a Christian novel. I found an article dated July 13, 2005, about the new Pope's views on Harry Potter. The site can be found here: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/jul/05071301.html "In a letter dated March 7, 2003 Cardinal Ratzinger thanked Kuby for her "instructive" book Harry Potter - gut oder bse (Harry Potter- good or evil?), in which Kuby says the Potter books corrupt the hearts of the young, preventing them from developing a properly ordered sense of good and evil, thus harming their relationship with God while that relationship is still in its infancy. "It is good, that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly," wrote Cardinal Ratzinger. The letter also encouraged Kuby to send her book on Potter to the Vatican prelate who quipped about Potter during a press briefing which led to the false press about the Vatican support of Potter." It seems to me that JKR wouldn't use witches and wizards (often associated with being in cohorts with the devil, see the Salem Witchcraft Trials, the term "witchhunts" which refer to looking for the bad people, and many other negative associations) to express Christianity. Also, I would assume that JKR would respond to the Pope and insist that she was attempting to teach children Christianity, I don't see her allowing the Pope to suggest such things about her series if she was really trying to instill Christian morals. Rather I see her encouraging children to learn more about the world in which they live and, also, to live morally. A book doesn't need to teach Christianity to teach morality. ~ Rachel From estesrandy at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 00:57:52 2006 From: estesrandy at yahoo.com (Randy) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 00:57:52 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151024 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lupinlore" wrote: > > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Kathryn Jones > wrote: > > > > > > > KJ writes: > > > > I think you are both right in these two paragraphs. > Frankly, it > > is canon that Dumbledore had a plan. It was a plan that made > Dumbledore > > extremely sad as he became more and more attached to Harry. He > even > > began to consider giving up his plan, regardless of the effect on > other > > people, because of his feelings for Harry. To my mind, this does > not > > bode well for Harry, and I find it hard to believe that Harry > missed the > > entire point of that speech. If I had been Harry, I would have got > the > > hell out of there. > > > > Yes, DD definitely had a plan. But what was it? Was it some > Machiavellian thing spanning years and involving multiple players? > Or was it the more straightforward, and believable, plan to simply > insure the survival and education of the person that Voldemort had > marked as his equal (although granted DD's belief in the power of > the prophecy seems to wax and wane according to the needs of the > plot)? > > Did DD regret his plan? I don't know, it seemed to me he more > regretted not being honest with Harry. What was the gleam of > triumph? Was it part of DD's plan coming to fruition? Or was it > simply that he realized that Voldemort, being human (or at least > biological) once again could now be permanently destroyed -- > something that could not be done to Vapor!Mort. Or was it something > else entirely? DD, as I recall, exclaimed in surprise along with > Sirius as that part of Harry's story. Did he realize that Voldy had > just made a crucial mistake? > > Who knows? We'll find out pretty soon now. But I suspect that > elaborate conspiracy theories will, as elaborate conspiracy theories > usually do, come mostly to naught. > > > Lupinlore > I always wondered why the AK on Harry does not appear in Priori Incantatem list of spells? I am assuming that someone in this list has expounded on this at length. Any advice would be welcome. Randy From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 01:02:49 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 01:02:49 -0000 Subject: The House of Gaunt Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151025 Does Dumbledore understand Morfin and Marvelo speaking Parseltongue in the Pensieve? If so, how? From puduhepa98 at aol.com Tue Apr 18 01:21:35 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 21:21:35 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Emphasis on the title: Professor (Was: Who calls Vold... Message-ID: <2a8.2a8e1e2.3175991f@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151026 ZoeC Did you not refer to your teachers by their last names? We all did - we would also have nicknames for some of them - and don't forget, in Hogwarts as well as my (and many other schools) puplis are often addressed to their faces by just their sirnames, (especially Harry by Snape - who always refers to him as Potter). . Back to lurkdom Nikkalmati: Delurking herself. Not being from the UK, this custom of referring to people -even one's contemporaries- by their last names is one of the charming quaint features of the HP books. Here in the US I have friends whose last names I don't even know. Of course there is the wearing of robes to class and house scarves. In fact, the whole concept of sending children away to school at age 11 is pretty rare here. Do any other customs in the books appear quaint to other listees? BTW could any UK or Aussie or Canadian listees explain the term "bloody minded"? Someone used it in a post and it is a term I can't get a handle on, so to speak. Is it related to the swear word "bloody" or is it related to sanguine? I know it is not complimentary. Nikkalmati [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From muhahawa at yahoo.com Mon Apr 17 19:06:39 2006 From: muhahawa at yahoo.com (Leonard Kim) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 19:06:39 -0000 Subject: Harry Potter: A Horcrux In-Reply-To: <443B4285.8040602@telus.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151027 Rather than argue whether this theory is or is not likely (I happen to think it is) I was wondering whether anybody in the past several thousand posts or so has tried to work out its consequences if true? Assuming all other Horcruxes are disposed of ... the most basic outcome, which has been proposed here before is that if Harry is a horcrux, then he has to die in book 7. If that is in fact true, then somebody else must be tabbed to vanquish Voldemort (a phoenix-like re-risen Dumbledore, "good" Snape, etc.). That wouldn't necessarily be inconsistent with the prophecy, since presumably Voldemort will be the one to have killed Harry, thus making himself vulnerable just when he thinks he has triumphed. Yet, I think this would be a nearly impossible scenario to pull off in a way that would be satisfying either in a literary sense or to the readers. A slightly more complicated scenario, again I'm sure somebody's thought of this -- not only is there a piece of Voldemort in Harry, but after GOF, there is a piece of Harry in Voldemort. Obviously Harry hasn't murdered anybody, but this could mean that Voldemort is de facto a kind of Horcrux for Harry. That makes something like the following sequence of events possible: 1) False tragic ending: Voldemort "kills" Harry, in the process destroying the Harry/scar Horcrux. However, Harry is not dead dead because some part of him lives on inside Voldemort. (Just as Voldemort was not dead dead after having a killing curse rebound on him.) 2) Somehow, that essence of Harry is extracted from Voldemort and used to restore him in a scene that parallels the end of GOF and in the actual climactic ending, revived Harry vanquishes Voldemort. Of course, that event sequence is purely speculative and unlikely, but it does follow from the observations that not only does Harry unquestionably have some essence of Voldemort transferred to him, but the opposite is also true. This gets my "gleam of triumph" vote. It is also consistent with the prophecy (especially "neither can live while the other survives" which at the face of it doesn't make much sense -- after all, aren't both "living" now? But not if they are both missing parts of themselves to the other.) Finally, having an incomplete soul explains why Harry's personality is so much more unpleasant starting with OOtP (sorry, that last bit's just subjective reaction. It can't all be teenage angst, can it?) Anyway the point is not whether the Harry==horcrux theory (or any other theory) is right or not, but that it might make a better story than Harry destroying a bunch of objects and then having a lightsaber duel with Voldemort, and I have some faith (though a bit less after HBP) that Rowling knows this. My only actual prediction for book 7 is that Ron and Luna end up a couple. I just hope that doesn't portent a bad fate for Hermione. muhahava From katbofaye at aol.com Mon Apr 17 19:19:34 2006 From: katbofaye at aol.com (katssirius) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 19:19:34 -0000 Subject: abracadabra Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151028 Avada Kadavra and its relationships to abracadabra are mentioned extensively in Harry Potter companion books which have their own theories about HP. It is never mentioned in the six books by JKR and I was unable during a brief scan of JKR's quotes to find any mention from her at all but you can look more closely at www.quick-quote-quill.org katssirius From estesrandy at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 01:42:35 2006 From: estesrandy at yahoo.com (Randy) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 01:42:35 -0000 Subject: Christianity in HP? (WAS: Dumbledore's Death) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151029 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Rachel Crofut" wrote: > > Tonks: > > . > > >The events of the cave and the tower are events, in very disguised > >form, that are similar to the last hours of Jesus, even to the fact > >that it happened at the place of the skull. (the dark mark over the > >tower.) > > > > You know I had the same impression when I first read "The Half Blood Prince". When Dumbledore is drinking from the bowl, he seems to be taking on the sins of others. He can hardly bear it but Harry dutifully keeps filling his cup to drink. I have mentioned other Christian motifs before, but I have noticed that it is not very well accepted in Potterland. As for the comment that JKR should defend her Christian based books against the arguments of the Pope and others....I think she would rather have the allow all the books to be read by the masses before she makes any such comment. The more mystery and controversy that surrounds the series; the larger the crowd of readers becomes. She can always explain the series after all the books are done. She may also have guessed by now that she will be attacked by someone no matter what she says. It's like the time, John Lennon tried to explain his comments about the Beatles having more attention than Jesus. No matter what he meant to say...he was in deep doo doo from that point on. It's like trying to answer a loaded question from the media with thousands of pundits just waiting to attack your answer. Sort of like posting on some HP lists.;0) Randy From nkafkafi at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 01:51:29 2006 From: nkafkafi at yahoo.com (Neri) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 01:51:29 -0000 Subject: The Sting: Lucius sent Bella (was:Re: LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151030 > Neri responded: > > Not in the active form, perhaps, but what about the passive form, > when the identity of the sender isn't mentioned? And with some > vagueness regarding the fine line between the strategic and tactical > sending? I'm not a native English speaker, but JKR is, and this seems > to be the way she interpreted "the Lestranges were sent to kill > Neville" in the question. > > Carol again: > Sorry. I'm a bit confused. *What* seems to be the way she interpreted > it? Neri: I have explained what is the way she seems to interpret the question in my very next paragraph, which you snipped. I'm starting to repeat myself, but I guess I'll just have to paste it here again: Note that JKR's explanation as to why the Lestranges couldn't have been sent to kill Neville is that "they were not in on the prophecy". Strictly this isn't an explanation at all, because the Lestranges could have easily been sent to kill Neville without knowing a thing about the prophecy. Voldy could have simply issued a command: "if something happens to me, you should get rid of the Longbottoms' baby" without giving any reason, and then the Lestranges would have been properly "sent". Yet this isn't the scenario that JKR seems to be addressing in her answer. From the words "the Lestranges weren't in on the secret" she appears to be addressing a hypothetical scenario in which Voldemort told the Lestranges about the prophecy, yet didn't strictly send them to do anything. Only after he disappeared they used their knowledge and deduced that he'd want them to get rid of the second boy implicated by the prophecy. They believed that the Dark Lord would have sent them to do that if only he could contact them. This is the scenario that JKR seems to think the question had meant, and she addresses it in her answer, and yet the words "the Lestranges were sent" appear both in the question and in her answer. So is JKR's English as bad as mine? > Carol: > " So she > repeats the phrase "were sent," indicating that the questioner is > right that they were sent, but specifies that the reason they were > sent was to do something to Neville's parents, not to kill Neville. If > they had not been sent by someone other than themselves, she would > have corrected that misconception, too, stating that they acted on > their own. Neri: Unless she didn't even think about the issue of who did the sending. Because maybe her mind was totally occupied with the *why* rather than the *who*. So she just repeated the word "sent" in the question without thinking about it. I assure you that there is no need to quote the dictionary to me. I really know what the word "send" means. But I keep coming back to the *context* while you continue to focus on the single word. If you look at JKR's whole answer, especially with our post-HBP knowledge of Snape knowing about the prophecy, then the context appears to be refuting the prophecy as the Lestranges' motive, while the word "sent" is used in a loose way. > Pippin: > Um, no. "The Lestranges were sent to kill Neville" is coy as to the > identity of the sender but definitely indicates there was some > agency involved. By repeating the verb, JKR > confirms that part of the rumour was correct. > > > JKR seems to be saying that the Lestranges would have certainly > gone after Neville if they had known about the prophecy, but they > didn't. She leaves open the question of whether the mysterious sender > knew of the prophecy or not. Neri: This is a rather complex message for just two sentences, and it doesn't go very well with her use of words. You posit that her first sentence was about reaffirming the "were sent" part while the second is adding a hypothetical as to what the Lestranges would have done had they known about the prophecy. But her words "I can't say too much about this because , but " imply that this second sentence is *about* her first sentence, not a separate hypothetical. This second sentence reveals that in her first sentence too, her mind was on the "after Neville's parents" and "the prophecy" rather than on the "were sent" part. Here, I'll paste the whole question and answer again while stressing the parts I think JKR's mind was on: ************************************************* Rumour: The Lestranges were sent AFTER NEVILLE to kill him. Answer: No, they weren't, they were very definitely sent AFTER NEVILLE'S PARENTS. I can't say too much ABOUT THIS because it touches too closely on THE PROPHECY and how many people KNEW about it, but the Lestranges were NOT in on the secret. ************************************************* When you read it like this the whole "sent" issue kind of fades into the background, and JKR is totally occupied with squashing the prophecy as the Lestranges' motive (keeping with the whole point of the Rumors section, which is to squash erroneous theories). It's only when you take the first sentence of her answer out of context that it might sound like: No, they weren't, they were VERY DEFINITELY SENT after Neville's parents. But like I said, it's depends on whether you generally tend to think JKR weights every word in her website. I know you think she not merely weights every word, and also gives it double and hidden meanings. Personally I think she frequently has one thing on her mind when answering and completely misses other issues and implications that the fans are bothered with. Like in her answer on the last poll question "what happens to a secret when the SK dies" she only talked about Peter's case, and apparently completely missed that the fans were asking this in regard to Dumbledore and the 12GP secret. I'm not saying the Lestranges *weren't* strictly sent by someone other than themselves or Voldemort, but personally I won't be surprised or disappointed with JKR's integrity if it turns out they weren't. It's a rather vague canon detail and I would hesitate to build a whole theory on it. > > Carol again: > And in the graveyard, Voldemort says much > the same thing, speaking of the Lestranges as a couple, "They alone > were loyal; they alone tried to find me." Neri: To my knowledge, the above words aren't canon. As I wrote in my previous post, Voldemort does not say in the graveyard, nor in any other place I know of, that the Lestranges tried to find him. His exact words in the graveyard (GoF, Ch. 33, p. 650 Scholastic) are: "they were faithful. They went to Azkaban rather than renounce me ". BTW, in Spinner's End too Bella doesn't say that she tried to find Voldemort. Her words there (HBP, Ch. 2, p. 27 Scholastic) are: "He'd have me! I, who spent many years in Azkaban for him". So AFAIK the only place where Bellatrix proclaims that she and her friends tried to find Voldemort is once in the Pensieve trial, and even there she doesn't actually announce that they tried to do that by attacking the Longbottoms. The only one who says *that* is Crouch Sr. (GoF, Ch. 30, p. 595): "the four of you stand accused of capturing an Auror ? Frank Longbottom ? and subjecting him to the Cruciatus Curse, believing him to have knowledge of the present whereabouts of your exiled master". And how could Crouch know what they believed? He surely didn't have the corroboration of Frank and Alice on that. This could easily be their cover story for the trial. And you know, as a cover story it wouldn't even be a lie, strictly speaking: They didn't actually torture Frank for the whereabouts of the Voldy soul part #7, but for the whereabouts of the Voldy soul part #4. It's exactly the kind of sneaky non-lies that JKR just loves to put in the words of her villains. > > Neri: > > You seem to agree here that it *is* after all possible to use "were > sent" loosely. > > > Carol: > Loosely, yes. But not ungrammatically. "Sent" requires the involvement > of another person even if that person only gave them a little boost > rather than a direct order. > Neri: I agree, but I think that Voldemort stressing the importance of keeping his Horcrux safe would be much more than a little boost for a fanatic DE like Bella, even if he's not there anymore to issue the direct order "get it back from the Longbottoms now". As I mention above, JKR too was referring to a rumor in which *Voldemort* was the other person involved, although he wasn't there anymore and couldn't issue a direct order. So it seems she either used the word "sent" in this loose sense, or she simply didn't think about the word and in what sense she was using it. > > Carol responds: > I think you're grasping at straws here. Why introduce a completely new > motive for the Crucioing of the Longbottoms when we already have a > canonical one, all based on your view that "were sent" means "sent > themselves"? Neri: Because my "new" motive, namely a Horcrux hunt, is apparently what Book 7 is going to be about, while the motive of finding Vapor!mort would be kind of pass? in Book 7. Now, if the reason for the attack on the Longbottoms won't play at all in Book 7, which as I wrote is quite possible, then we can leave it at that. The Lestranges just thought, for this or that reason, that the Longbottoms knew where Vapor!mort is, and the exact story about it isn't important for the plot. But if JKR had plotted the whole Longbottoms affair from the beginning so that it will be resolved with a satisfying BANG in Book 7, then it should be about something that matters *a lot* in Book 7. It's all about plot considerations, and especially at this late hour they are as important as canon support. As any LOLLIPOPS supporter would be happy to tell you . > Carol: > How could the Longbottoms' knowledge of or guessing the > existence of a Horcrux become when they're both insane, and how would > it further the plot? Neri: Gee, there are so many great possibilities here. Say, the Horcrux is somewhere in plain sight in the Longbottoms' house. Or Neville inherited it from his parents and always had it in his possession. Or when he's 17 he'll inherit it. Or Frank and Alice will somehow manage to convey to him where it's hidden. And Bella might come after it again, probably with several DEs in tow. And just think what the shock of seeing her might do to Frank and Alice. We may have the attack on the Longbottoms all over again, only this time playing live, and with Neville a wizard of age. Now *this* would be what I call BANGy. > Carol: > Wouldn't they have told Dumbledore, in any case? Neri: Not if they only realized that it was a Horcrux when the Lestranges already got them. Plot considerations . > Pippin: > I agree that Frank and Alice should not have had to undergo their > horrible fate just to show us that a minor character like Lucius is > a rotter. We already knew that from his dropping the diary on Ginny. > It really should be someone they thought they could trust, > don't you think? And if it's someone that Neville trusts, so much > the better. Malfoys don't qualify. > Neri: And Neville trusts ESE!Lupin? I'd be more inclined to give this a thought if we had some further interaction between Neville and Lupin since PoA. Something to make a revelation of ESE!Lupin behind the attack on Neville's parents more personal. It would have been very easy for JKR to write such interaction had she wanted to. Say, during the DoM battle scene in OotP, or during the battle in HBP, or in the infirmary after the battle, or wherever. But the fact is, we haven't had any significant interaction between Neville and Lupin for the three last books. No buildup at all. No further tutoring, no further jokes on Snape's expense, no displays of trust, no comradeship, no hero-worship. Nothing. But we did get Bella out of Azkaban, we did get her torturing Neville, we did get to see Neville in the hospital with his poor mother, and we did see him becoming something of a fighter, all suggesting buildup towards a battle between Bella and Neville in Book 7. And after HBP we also get these darned horthingies all over the place. Blame it on JKR, but as we are approaching the last installation of the series, it looks like big ESEs are Out and Horcruxes are In. > > Neri: > > I'm not sure what is your theory regarding Bella's involvement with > > the locket Horcrux, but her words in Spinner's End don't seem to fit. > > Carol again: > That's easily remedied. Here's a link to the post: > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/145831 > > Skip to the paragraph following the lead-in, "Here's an alternative > scenario for people to shoot down." > Neri: In your theory above, Bella plays a small part by putting the locket in the cave, and maybe killing Regulus later. This is quite possible, of course, but as I wrote, it would make Bella's slip of tongue in Spinner's End useless as a clue (or even just as a good red herring) to the location of a Horcrux. We already know that RAB stole the locket, and it's probably the locket last seen in 12GP by OotP. So even if it was Bella who put it in the cave in the first place, this is pretty much immaterial now. For Bella's slip of tongue to be a real clue it should be relevant for the current location of the Horcrux she's talking about. And remember, we need to locate at least *three* Horcruxes in Book 7 (assuming Dumbledore is right about Nagini being the forth). The locket Horcrux already takes center stage with connections to (most probably) Regulus, Kreacher, Sirius and Mundungus. But what about the other two? Their stories need to be as dramatic as the locket's, or it would look too easy. Neri From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 02:13:18 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 02:13:18 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151031 > >>Ceridwen: > I'm not so upset about the OotP speech as I am uneasy with the > impression I got from it. It does, on one level, sound like > rationalizing a poor choice. And it has added to speculation > about Puppetmaster!Dumbledore, so I am not the only one who saw > the kernel of this idea in it. > Betsy Hp: I guess I wasn't able to pick out the rationalization level at all. I thought Dumbledore was very upfront about the fact that living at the Dursleys sucked, but it was better than being dead. And he seemed to be saying that that was the choice he felt he had. Honestly, I thought Dumbledore was being as forthright and forthcoming as he possibly could. He did what he could to keep Harry alive, and Harry suffered because of it. Because Dumbledore hated that Harry had suffered at all he put off telling Harry that he had been chosen by Voldemort to either kill or be killed. I've seen a lot of hints and allusions to this speech being terrible and indicitive of Puppetmaster!Dumbledore, etc. But I haven't read anything that says "here's where Dumbledore goes all creepy and manipulative". (Not saying there haven't been posts saying such, just saying I either missed them or I've totally forgotten them. ) > >>Ceridwen: > It isn't any one statement in isolation that tweaks that little > reservation. But, if I had to pick a statement out of all that > you posted, it would have to be: > "You had suffered. I knew you would when I left you on your aunt > and uncle's doorstep. I knew I was condemning you to ten dark and > difficult years." > This, I think, is the core of the idea that Dumbledore knew about > horrible abuses but preferred not to step in, willfully leaving > Harry at the mercy of his enemies. 'I knew you would (suffer)... > I was condemning you...' would be the active phrases. By the way, > thank you for typing all that out! Betsy Hp: No problem, every once in a while I'll polish off my L.O.O.N badge. I guess it all comes down to how abusive one thinks the Dursleys are. Which is, I think, an agree to disagree thing. (Not unlike abusive!Snape arguments.) I don't consider the Dursleys "horribly" abusive. They're not good guardians, I agree. And yes living with them were "dark" years for Harry. He did suffer in a way he wouldn't have if he'd lived with, say, Mrs. Figg. But he did survive. The Longbottoms were tortured into insanity but Harry wasn't touched. I guess I think Dumbledore faced a horrible choice but made the best decision he could. And I think he tried to be as upfront about his decision with Harry as he could be. That he was aware of who the Dursleys were but that they were the best way Dumbledore could think of to keep Harry alive. The idea that Dumbledore had no clue as to how Harry was treated would have been hard for me (and Harry, I'd think) to swallow, so I appreciated his honesty. > >>Ceridwen: > > Yes, I do think Harry could have gone there - what child - > what person - wouldn't have been in danger from it by being > subjected to constant attention? But I do not think it had > anything to do with genetics, with James's teenaged personality as > shown in SWM. > Betsy Hp: I agree. It would have taken especially strong guardians to head that sort of rot (good word!) off. Which is why I think Dumbledore did want Harry raised outside the WW. However, I don't think that was why he chose the Dursleys. As you said in the part I snipped, it's all about the blood protection. > >>Ceridwen: > > Sometimes, I wonder what he would have been like being raised by > two strong and sometimes diverging personalities like James and > Lily, but that's a completely different question. > Betsy Hp: Ooh, but it's a fascinating one. I've often thought that Harry and James may have had a bit of father-son tension going on. James was so very outgoing and Harry is much more introverted. I can see James going on and on about various pranks he pulled and Harry worring that he had to do something similar to live up to his father's expectations but not really wanting to (shades of Harry and Sirius). Or, in a moment of rebellion going for Slytherin House. Wouldn't that make for an interesting Christmas break at the Potter household. Pure speculation of course. > >>Ceridwen: > Anyway, I hoped I answered for me. The speech, no matter what its > intent, did have the potential for leaving the door open to > speculation which I think unfairly categorized Dumbledore as a > manipulative puppetmaster. > Betsy Hp: I think you cleared up your view, yes. I think it really does come down to how badly you think the Dursleys abused Harry. That moves the bar on what Dumbledore traded to keep Harry alive, which in turn moves how coldly manipulative (or coldly practical, perhaps) Dumbledore comes across to each reader. (To dismiss the danger Harry was in, that Dumbledore saw him as being in, is to dismiss a large chunk of the story, IMO. If false beards and a move to Australia would have protected Harry, I imagine Dumbledore would have taken that option. As you said, Ceridwen, you cannot dismiss the blood protection.) Betsy Hp From puduhepa98 at aol.com Tue Apr 18 02:18:24 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 22:18:24 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Old, old problem. Message-ID: <335.2f7862c.3175a670@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151033 Draeconin: > I thought the Longbottoms were tortured into catatonia by Voldemort > himself? >Beatrice replies: >This occurs 1 year after Harry goes to the Dursleys. When Harry and >Neville are just over 2 years old. Nikkalmati: Sorry, I missed the source for this date. How do we know the torture occurred at this time? If it is true, I have to give up my theory that the DEs went immediately to the Longbottoms when LV disappeared because they knew his itinerary to be 1. Potters 2. Longbottoms. When he disappeared, they went at once to his next stop. Nikkalmati [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 02:24:04 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 02:24:04 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151034 Ceridwen wrote: > Yes, most definitely, the blood protection is the most important > underpining (sp?) in the out of Hogwarts part of Harry's life. > There can be no discussion about his placement with the Dursleys, or > anything associated with it, without having to go back and point to > this extrordinary protection. Carol responds: Agreed. If Dumbledore had any secondary considerations, and that's what this debate seems to be about, they were exactly that, secondary. He had no choice but to place Harry with Petunia, whether that was the best choice otherwise or not. And, of course, we can only judge for ourselves whether the choice was a fortunate one or not, regardless of Dumbledore's intentions, based on two things: 1) The inescapable fact that Harry survived, almost certainly because of the blood protection, and 2) Our view of Harry's character and suitability as the nemesis of Voldemort. I think that most of us like Harry and feel that he will ultimately defeat (destroy, kill, vanquish, choose your adjective) Voldemort. And, regardless of Dumbledore's intentions, IMO placement with the Dursleys fostered in him exactly the qualities that he would need to begin his journey into, erm, herodom. I've already delineated these qualities but I'll repeat them: humility; resilience; lack of fear (resistance to bullying); the ability to think for himself, and quickly. I would add compassion for the hardship and suffering of others, which is hard to acquire if you've never suffered yourself. So what I want to know is first, whether others agree that he has some or all of these qualities, and second, how he acquired them if not from the Dursleys. (Possibly he was born with them, a fortunate combination of Lily's compassion and James's reckless courage, but if so, there's no credit due to Harry for his choices or his development. I think that Nature, or his genetic heritage, worked in concert with Nurture (used loosely here--I'm *not* saying that the Dursleys nurtured him in the usual sense of the word) to produce the Harry that we see in the early pages of SS, before Hogwarts and Dumbledore (and Snape and all the rest) were part of his environment and played their role in shaping his character (along with his own choices, but that's not relevant here. I'm saying that in the Pottervers (we are not talking about RL here), bad (or outright evil) often turns against itself, Voldemort's attempt to thwart the Prophecy by killing Harry being the most obvious example. And I'm arguing that, regardless of Dumbledore's intentions, placement with the Dursleys can be regarded as a "good bad thing," an unfortunate choice that Dumbledore had to make because of the blood protection that turned out to have fortunate consequences, the person that Harry became as a result of his placement with them. (To be sure, his genetic inheritance is also important. Imagine how Draco, or Neville, or for that matter, James if he were twenty years younger, would have been shaped by that environment. Would any of them, even with the powers acquired through the scar, have responded as well as Harry did if placed with the Dursleys? Or suppose that Harry, with his inborn genetic traits and the scr-induced powers, had been placed with a wizarding family and somehow survived? Wouldn't the celebrity syndrome (seCeridwen'sparagraph on "celebrity rot" upthread) have been a terrible danger? Imagine Harry as a "pampered prince,"sure of his powers, basking in his own celebrity. How would he have developed those necessary qualities: humility, fearlessness (as opposed to the recklessness and bullying we see in young James and young Sirius), resilience, the ability to think quickly or even instinctively under pressure or threat of injury. Ceridwen: > We see what happens to child celebrities all the time in > the real world, and I do wonder if Harry might have gone that way if > things had been different. Sometimes, I wonder what he would have > been like being raised by two strong and sometimes diverging > personalities like James and Lily, but that's a completely different > question. Carol: Wecan't ask what he would have been like if he'd been raised by James and Lily because in that case he wouldn't have the links to Voldemort--the scar, the Prophecy, the powers acquired at GH. He wouldn't be the Boy Who Lived, infant celebrity. He might not even have the personal motive of destroying the wizard who killed his parents, though I'm not ruling out their being killed in battle with LV or the DEs if GH hadn't happened. But if GH hadn't happened, Harry wouldn't be Harry. He would be just another wizarding kid, good at Quidditch, possibly good in DADA, probably courageous in a standard Gryffindor sort of way, but with a normal life and normal interests. No scar for people to stare at, no terrible dreams from Voldemort's point of view, no competing in the TWT, none of the stuff that makes Harry Harry. OTOH, we can consider what kind of life Harry would have led if he'd have lived with James Potter's parents (if they were alive). Setting aside blood protection or assuming that it could work using James' blood rather than Lily's, wouldn't he have been a second James or even worse, the Macauley Culkin of the WW, without the redeeming qualities of a Harry raised by the Dursleys? Sweet are the uses of adversity; they can shape a hero as pampering and adulation can't. So I'm asking you to look at what Harry is at the beginning of SS/PS compared with what he might have been if he'd spent his first eleven years as a child celebrity, the Boy Who Vaporized You Know Who. Now, please. I don't want to be accused, as a poster on this list recently implied, of being in favor of child abuse, psychological or otherwise. Of course I'm not. (FWIW, I believe in treating children as individual human beings and expecting/helping them to develop a sense of responsibility and respect for others without being hit or yelled at.) But I'm talking about the child hero of a children's fantasy series, particularly SS/PS, not a real child in the real world, where there are no Dumbledores faced with a choice between a loving family or blood protection for a newly orphaned baby. In the RL,I'm pretty sure that if a family as well off as the Dursleys sent their ward or adopted child to school in his cousin's much-too-large cast-off clothes, Protective Services or the British equivalent would come calling. (OTOH, he's not nearly as badly off as Oliver Twist and other orphans of the literary variety, as I could easily prove but could not do without going off topic.) Opinions on how those first years shaped him, anyone? Is he or is he not better fitted to be the savior of the Wizarding World by having lived with the Dursleys for eleven years? Did he or did he not develop the qualities I specified an/or other strengths and virtues through living with the Dursleys? (And, no, to anticipate a counterargument,I don't regard his not knowing magic for the first eleven years was a handicap. He caught up quickly, and so did Muggle-born Hermione.) Again, I'm talking about the *character traits* he acquired through sleeping (not living!) in a broom cupboard for eleven years, having to do chores while his pampered cousin watched or played with his toys, wearing hand-me-downs, not getting quite enough to eat, and being frequently yelled at and ordered around. Not an ounce of timidity in sight, and, oddly, perhaps, no inclination to become a bully himself. Whatever faults he may have, I think we allagree that he has some noble and heroic qualities, and those qualities must have developed either *because of* or *in spite of* his upbringing by the Dursleys. If there's a third option, I'd be indebted to anyone who points it out. Carol, apologizing to Ceridwen for not turning this into a Snape thread ;-) From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 02:38:31 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 02:38:31 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151035 > Betsy Hp: > I guess I wasn't able to pick out the rationalization level at all. > I thought Dumbledore was very upfront about the fact that living at > the Dursleys sucked, but it was better than being dead. And he > seemed to be saying that that was the choice he felt he had. Alla: I agree with a lot of what Ceridwen said and I snipped, but to me the most upsetting thing which I picked up from Dumbledore's speech was his dismissiveness ( what I felt of course) of Harry's sufferings. I just did not think that he acknowledged Harry's sufferings enough. As I said many times, I often react on emotional level in addition to intellectual level to characters behaviour ( to me the books who make me react on emotional level are the best ones) and the moment when Harry says " she never loved me" and Dumbledore cuts him and does not let him finish was my "want to slap Dumbledore many times" moments. I get that DD had a horrible choice to make and as I said earlier I do think he tried, but even though I in general refrain from criticising JKR's writing,because I think it is very good, about this speech I completely agree with Lupinlore - I think this speech was badly written, I really do. Why? Because again as I said earlier I don't think JKR meant to show Puppetmaster!Dumbledore AT ALL and the fact that after said speech so many people DID think that DD comes off as Puppetmaster shows that JKR did not wrote what she wanted her audience to get from it. Now, I can be completely wrong of course about what JKR meant, but this is just how I feel. > Betsy Hp: > I agree. It would have taken especially strong guardians to head > that sort of rot (good word!) off. Which is why I think Dumbledore > did want Harry raised outside the WW. However, I don't think that > was why he chose the Dursleys. As you said in the part I snipped, > it's all about the blood protection. Alla: Yes, I agree it IS all about blood protection, but then again, I don't think that it was all that clear in OOP that it was all about blood protection. I was just talking with somebody off list and I was thinking out loud that it is awfully tempting to tell the writer how to write better, etc, so I am trying not to, but on the other hand, I also think that it is my right as a reader to say if I am not happy with something in the books. I was NOT happy with Dumbledore's speech in OOP, not at all, but on the other hand, I do applaud JKR for rehabilitating Dumbledore in HBP. I guess besides me wanting more humbleness in OOP Dumbledore for what Harry went through, I also wanted more clear wording that DD did not approve of what Dursleys did to Harry, because I was getting the feeling that Dumbledore despite acknowledging what Harry suffered was not acknowledging enough. It is what Ceridwen said - the general feel of the speech. Come to think of it, I would also not minded to hear Dumbledore apologising to Harry, just apology. Something like I did it to save your life, but I am sorry that to save your life was possible only by making you suffer. Again, I am not telling JKR how to write the books. I think it is very telling that OOP is the ONLY book, parts of which I disliked. Any other book I cannot find much to criticise at all, but yes, I was very angry with Dumbledore after his speech. I hope I answered why. > > >>Ceridwen: > > Anyway, I hoped I answered for me. The speech, no matter what its > > intent, did have the potential for leaving the door open to > > speculation which I think unfairly categorized Dumbledore as a > > manipulative puppetmaster. > > Alla: Yes, dear me too. :) That is the MAIN reason why I am criticising the writing of this speech. It is not how it is written per se, it is just I feel that JKR did not adequately reflected what she wanted to reflect here, although maybe I am wrong. :) JMO, Alla From enlil65 at gmail.com Tue Apr 18 02:48:06 2006 From: enlil65 at gmail.com (Peggy Wilkins) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 21:48:06 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] The House of Gaunt In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1789c2360604171948l2cb70f25q54371d8d00ade3bf@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151036 On 4/17/06, steven1965aaa wrote: > Does Dumbledore understand Morfin and Marvelo speaking Parseltongue in > the Pensieve? If so, how? I always assumed he did, and was surprised when a bunch of people questioned it. However, on going back later and rereading the multiple Pensieve scenes in which Parseltongue is spoken, it becomes obvious that Dumbledore does understand it; there's no question. He and Harry discuss what was said; therefore, the only conclusion is that he does understand it. This shouldn't be surprising, given all the obscure languages Dumbledore understands. As for how he understands it, well, how does he know anything that he knows? He seems to know a lot. He even speaks Mermish (cf. GOF second task). How does he know Mermish? -- Peggy Wilkins enlil65 at gmail.com From enlil65 at gmail.com Tue Apr 18 02:54:53 2006 From: enlil65 at gmail.com (Peggy Wilkins) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 21:54:53 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Harry Potter: A Horcrux In-Reply-To: References: <443B4285.8040602@telus.net> Message-ID: <1789c2360604171954o59500b3bsaf30facc390c785f@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151037 On 4/17/06, Leonard Kim wrote: > Rather than argue whether this theory is or is not likely (I happen > to think it is) I was wondering whether anybody in the past several > thousand posts or so has tried to work out its consequences if true? > > Assuming all other Horcruxes are disposed of ... > the most basic outcome, which has been proposed here before is that > if Harry is a horcrux, then he has to die in book 7... Not necessarily. Now, I don't believe that Harry is a Horcrux, but if he were, I can imagine a scenario where Harry and Voldemort switch bodies (that is, Harry possesses Voldemort's body and vice versa). If this happened, it's possible that Voldemort and his soul piece could become one inside Harry's body, and--presto chango!--no more Harry Horcrux. Now that's a bit of magic. -- Peggy Wilkins enlil65 at gmail.com From dontask2much at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 02:55:35 2006 From: dontask2much at yahoo.com (rebecca) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 22:55:35 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] The Sting: Lucius sent Bella (was:Re: LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank...) References: Message-ID: <01a601c66293$914a7b90$6501a8c0@MITRE.ORG> No: HPFGUIDX 151038 >Neri: > >Here, I'll paste the whole question and answer again while stressing >the parts I think JKR's mind was on: >************************************************ >Rumour: >The Lestranges were sent AFTER NEVILLE to kill him. >Answer: >No, they weren't, they were very definitely sent AFTER NEVILLE'S >PARENTS. I can't say too much ABOUT THIS because it touches too >closely on THE PROPHECY and how many people KNEW about it, but the >Lestranges were NOT in on the secret. >************************************************* >I'm not saying the Lestranges *weren't* strictly sent by someone other >than themselves or Voldemort, but personally I won't be surprised or >disappointed with JKR's integrity if it turns out they weren't. It's a >rather vague canon detail and I would hesitate to build a whole theory >on it. Rebecca now: I've read this whole thread between Carol, Neri and Pippin with great interest and appreciate all your views. For myself, I believe that with the emphasis on certain words in JKR's response as Neri has displayed above, the reader can theoretically come to one possible conclusion that JKR is reluctant speak about this rumor too much because it will give something away for Book 7. However, she specifically wanted to correct the perception that Neville was the target and then hints that the reason Frank and Alice were targeted is relative to who knew about the prophecy. Note that she says the Lestranges didn't know - but did Barty Crouch, Jr? Why isn't he mentioned in JKR's response to the rumor? Because the person asking the question didn't include him? Or is it more than that? Consider that someone who knows about the prophecy that perhaps *LV heard* sent the Lestranges to seek out Frank and Alice. In other words, LV never heard the whole prophecy, did he? His Partially Informed Dark Lordship only heard an incomplete version of it, as Dumbledore's discussion with Harry at the end of OoP details. So did the person who sent the Lestranges know only what LV knew or did they know what the prophecy stated completely? See, I think that's the confusion I have. I waffle between Barty Crouch Jr being the instigator of this activity, or perhaps it being someone else who knows the full prophecy in all its glory and did not share the details with the Lestranges and Barty Crouch Jr. That's an interesting concept, isn't it? Wouldn't that person have to be in DoM or perhaps in the Order or even close enough to the Longbottoms, Potters and Dumbledore to know about such a thing? rebecca, with just my 1.0999 cents and lots of questions after paying for gas this week From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 02:55:52 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 02:55:52 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151039 Carol: > Opinions on how those first years shaped him, anyone? Is he or is he > not better fitted to be the savior of the Wizarding World by having > lived with the Dursleys for eleven years? Did he or did he not develop > the qualities I specified an/or other strengths and virtues through > living with the Dursleys? (And, no, to anticipate a counterargument,I > don't regard his not knowing magic for the first eleven years was a > handicap. He caught up quickly, and so did Muggle-born Hermione.) > Again, I'm talking about the *character traits* he acquired through > sleeping (not living!) in a broom cupboard for eleven years, having to > do chores while his pampered cousin watched or played with his toys, > wearing hand-me-downs, not getting quite enough to eat, and being > frequently yelled at and ordered around. Not an ounce of timidity in > sight, and, oddly, perhaps, no inclination to become a bully himself. > Whatever faults he may have, I think we allagree that he has some > noble and heroic qualities, and those qualities must have developed > either *because of* or *in spite of* his upbringing by the Dursleys. > If there's a third option, I'd be indebted to anyone who points it out. Alla: No, I don't think that his living with Dursleys shaped him to become a better saviour of the WW, I really don't. I think that the third option is that is who Harry is, the essential part of his character. How he developed his qualities? I suspect that first year and a half of being LOVED by his parents played a significant role. Is it possible in JKR's world that Harry was born with such qualities? I think it is possible. I think that JKR's world is largely essential in nature. Just look at the Dudley,which Minerva describes and Dudley is what couple months older than Harry? "And they've got his son- I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets." - SS/PS, p.13. Dudleys is what? year and half here? A bit older? Not sure, but we already see the developing bully, IMO. And we of course remember Tom Riddle bullying habits of early age. I think young Harry already had in himself a lot of his heroic nature. His sufferings at Dursleys could have strengthen those or not, or make Harry like Tom Riddle, we don't know. So, to answer your question, no, I don't think Harry NEEDED to live with Dursleys to develop his nature. It is essential of course to make the hero suffer in literature, but besides blood protection, I don't see any GOOD things Harry acquired in Dursleys and moreover, even if we knew that Harry needed it to become a saviour of WW, I think that he should not have be nade to go through that, because that was not Dumbledore's decision to make, if he had some shred of decency in him and I think Albus IS a decent guy. Having said all that, of course I think that the fact that JKR did away with fairy tale "orphan" so to speak significantly influences my thinking. I don't see Harry as Cinderella by book 4 probably. He became way too "real" and "complicated" character for me to say that Dursleys' abuse is what he needed to become a saviour. JMO, Alla From belviso at attglobal.net Tue Apr 18 03:05:59 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 23:05:59 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) References: Message-ID: <009001c66295$059aad70$62b4400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 151040 > Alla: > It is what Ceridwen said - the general feel of the speech. Come to > think of it, I would also not minded to hear Dumbledore apologising > to Harry, just apology. Something like I did it to save your life, > but I am sorry that to save your life was possible only by making > you suffer. > > Again, I am not telling JKR how to write the books. I think it is > very telling that OOP is the ONLY book, parts of which I disliked. > Any other book I cannot find much to criticise at all, but yes, I > was very angry with Dumbledore after his speech. I hope I answered > why. Magpie: Add me to the list who thought that speech was just awful and hated DD at the end of it. I think the first time I read it I especially hated where DD refers to Harry showing up " al ittle less well-fed" than he'd have liked. I just thought, um, it's not really up to you to decide that Harry's childhood wasn't all that bad, or to dismiss it as him being just "a bit underfed." But it wasn't just that, it was that the whole speech just seemed like crazy DD to me. Presumably JKR was just trying to get as much information in as possible, she's trying to lay out how we're supposed to read everything in OotP, but it reads to me like Dumbledore saying he's got an apology to make, saying that he's going to talk about his mistakes...and then instead explaining how the only real problem is other people and how they messed up. DD's big mistakes were okay. Then he pulls out that, "I really wanted to make you, Prefect, you know!" (Hey Ron, you were right to feel inadequate! And thank goodness Harry has that awful hardship fixed!) with his single tear. Oh man, I thought he was a manipulative jerk. I can't remember it all now, but I remember just the whole speech getting worse and worse for me. -m From belviso at attglobal.net Tue Apr 18 03:14:58 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 23:14:58 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) References: Message-ID: <00a601c66296$49897740$62b4400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 151041 > Alla: > > No, I don't think that his living with Dursleys shaped him to > become a better saviour of the WW, I really don't. I think that the > third option is that is who Harry is, the essential part of his > character. > > How he developed his qualities? I suspect that first year and a half > of being LOVED by his parents played a significant role. Is it > possible in JKR's world that Harry was born with such qualities? I > think it is possible. > > I think that JKR's world is largely essential in nature. Just look > at the Dudley,which Minerva describes and Dudley is what couple > months older than Harry? > > "And they've got his son- I saw him kicking his mother all the way > up the street, screaming for sweets." - SS/PS, p.13. > > Dudleys is what? year and half here? A bit older? Not sure, but we > already see the developing bully, IMO. > > And we of course remember Tom Riddle bullying habits of early age. > > I think young Harry already had in himself a lot of his heroic > nature. His sufferings at Dursleys could have strengthen those or > not, or make Harry like Tom Riddle, we don't know. > > So, to answer your question, no, I don't think Harry NEEDED to live > with Dursleys to develop his nature. It is essential of course to > make the hero suffer in literature, but besides blood protection, I > don't see any GOOD things Harry acquired in Dursleys and moreover, > even if we knew that Harry needed it to become a saviour of WW, I > think that he should not have be nade to go through that, because > that was not Dumbledore's decision to make, if he had some shred of > decency in him and I think Albus IS a decent guy. > > Having said all that, of course I think that the fact that JKR did > away with fairy tale "orphan" so to speak significantly influences > my thinking. > > I don't see Harry as Cinderella by book 4 probably. He became way > too "real" and "complicated" character for me to say that Dursleys' > abuse is what he needed to become a saviour. Magpie: I sometimes think that one of the problematic things about Dumbledore is when we start out with this fairy tale situation Dumbledore is put in the odd role of being both fairy godmother and the sort of Merlin-like character who places Harry far from his kingdom. Only in those kinds of stories, like with King Arthur, the idea is usually that the hero is raised in the country on a farm. Even if he's treated as a sort of servant or his greatness isn't recognized, he's not abused like Cinderella is and like Harry is. So it's just very hard to reconcile the two. When Harry gets to Hogwarts we get that we're supposed to see Dumbledore as this wonderful protector and a wise man, but if you think about it you can't not ask, "Hey, Mr. Really Nice and Wise Guy...could you not have done something about the years of abuse there?" For me it really seems like you just have to let it go or not, because you can't really reconcile it. The blood protection is the best thing we've got, I think, because it suggests that Dumbledore did have to give Harry to this family (though still only interfering only when his plan is threatened, not Harry's well-being). -m From willsonkmom at msn.com Tue Apr 18 03:51:57 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 03:51:57 -0000 Subject: The House of Gaunt In-Reply-To: <1789c2360604171948l2cb70f25q54371d8d00ade3bf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151042 Peggy wrote: This shouldn't be surprising, given all > the obscure languages Dumbledore understands. As for how he > understands it, well, how does he know anything that he knows? He > seems to know a lot. He even speaks Mermish (cf. GOF second task). > How does he know Mermish? Potioncat: I agree that DD speaks/understands Parseltongue. I think he even makes a comment about it himself in his own way. Sorry that I can't go searching for the canon, but I know DD says something to Harry along the line of, "you've learned that some great (good?) wizards can speak parseltongue." That seems to counter what we learned in CoS, that Parseltongue is a sign of a Dark Wizard. I recall several threads on this list wondering how or why that would be a trait of only Dark Wizards since it seems to be a natural skill, not a learned one. I also wonder if Harry really got the ability from Voldemort or if it is natural to him. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 04:12:28 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 04:12:28 -0000 Subject: The Sting: Lucius sent Bella (was:Re: LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151043 Neri: > I have explained what is the way she seems to interpret the question > in my very next paragraph, which you snipped. I'm starting to repeat > myself, but I guess I'll just have to paste it here again: > > Note that JKR's explanation as to why the Lestranges couldn't have been sent to kill Neville is that "they were not in on the prophecy". Strictly this isn't an explanation at all, because the Lestranges could have easily been sent to kill Neville without knowing a thing about the prophecy. Voldy could have simply issued a command: "if something happens to me, you should get rid of the Longbottoms' baby" without giving any reason, and then the Lestranges would have been properly "sent". Yet this isn't the scenario that JKR seems to be addressing in her answer. From the words "the Lestranges weren't in on the secret" she appears to be addressing a hypothetical scenario in which Voldemort told the Lestranges about the prophecy, yet didn't strictly send them to do anything. Only after he disappeared they used their knowledge and deduced that he'd want them to get rid of the second boy implicated by the prophecy. They believed that the Dark Lord would have sent them to do that if only he could contact them. This is the scenario that JKR seems to think the question had meant, and she addresses it in her answer, and yet the words "the Lestranges were sent" appear both in the question and in her answer. So is JKR's English as bad as mine? > Unless she didn't even think about the issue of who did the sending. Because maybe her mind was totally occupied with the *why* rather than the *who*. So she just repeated the word "sent" in the question without thinking about it. > > I assure you that there is no need to quote the dictionary to me. I > really know what the word "send" means. But I keep coming back to the *context* while you continue to focus on the single word. Carol: Actually, no. I'm looking at the meaning of the words *in the context of the quotation.* But you're not looking at the meaning of the words. You're building a speculative house of cards on what you think she may have meant because for some reason you object to the words "were sent" and somehow think that, despite the phrase "very definitely" coming between "were" and "sent," it somehow refers to the rest of the sentence. I'm looking at what she actually said, which makes perfect sense both as a sentence and in the context of the paragraph. My apologies for the dictionary definition, but my point was that a person or group can neither send nor be sent by themselves. Sending requires a sender who is someone other than the person or persons sent. We seem to agree that JKR is answering the question about the Lestranges and Barty Jr. being sent to kill Neville by saying that she's saying, no, they were not sent for that reason. She provides the additional information that they weren't in on the secret, which I take to be merely a further clarification as to why that's not the reason they were sent. They *were sent*, as she says. I don't see any need for them to speculate about the Prophecy they didn't know about. JKR's English is perfectly clear here. Let me put this another way, pretending that I'm JKR: "No, they weren't sent to kill Neville. They knew nothing about the Prophecy. They were sent after Neville's parents." The phrase, the sentence, and the syntax together rule out 1) their sending themselves, which is impossible, and 2) their being after a Horcrux. The sentence states quite clearly that they were sent after Neville's parents. IOW, someone other than themselves sent them, and that person sent them after Neville's parents, not Neville himself. That is the only possible reading of that sentence, and it matches the available canon. Now granted, the wording is vague and we don't know who sent them after the Longbottoms or exactly why, but canon provides the reason: to find out what happened to Voldemort. Whoever sent Bellatrix either had reason to believe or wanted them to believe that Frank Longbottom had information on Voldemort. (The Crucioing into insanity was not necessarily part of the original mission. That seems to have happened because they persisted in torturing the victims long past the point when they could have provided any useful information.) It seems that you now agree that they "were sent" (or is it "would have been sent"?), but you think it was Voldemort who sent or would have sent them. I don't see how that's possible given the fact that he's Vapor at this point. He can neither have sent them nor made his will clear to them, nor could they have guessed the existence of the Prophecy, which JKR clearly states that they knew nothing about. I can understand the objections to Lucius as the sender, butI can'tsee it being Vapormort. Nor is it Snape, whom Bellatrix makes clear did not go looking for her dear master. I don't see how it could have been Wormtail, either, since he would have quickly gone into the sewers after the confrontation with his old friend Sirius Black. Pippin: > > Um, no. "The Lestranges were sent to kill Neville" is coy as to the identity of the sender but definitely indicates there was some agency involved. By repeating the verb, JKR confirms that part of the rumour was correct. > > JKR seems to be saying that the Lestranges would have certainly gone after Neville if they had known about the prophecy, but they didn't. She leaves open the question of whether the mysterious sender knew of the prophecy or not. Carol: Exactly. Thank you, Pippin. > Here, I'll paste the whole question and answer again while stressing > the parts I think JKR's mind was on: > ************************************************* > Rumour: > The Lestranges were sent AFTER NEVILLE to kill him. > > Answer: > No, they weren't, they were very definitely sent AFTER NEVILLE'S > PARENTS. I can't say too much ABOUT THIS because it touches too > closely on THE PROPHECY and how many people KNEW about it, but the > Lestranges were NOT in on the secret. > ************************************************* > > When you read it like this the whole "sent" issue kind of fades into > the background, and JKR is totally occupied with squashing the > prophecy as the Lestranges' motive (keeping with the whole point of > the Rumors section, which is to squash erroneous theories). It's only when you take the first sentence of her answer out of context that it might sound like: > > No, they weren't, they were VERY DEFINITELY SENT after Neville's parents. > > But like I said, it's depends on whether you generally tend to think > JKR weights every word in her website. I know you think she not merely > weights every word, and also gives it double and hidden meanings. Carol responds: JKR has indeed posted many an ambiguous response, starting with "Snape wouldn't be caught dead wearing a turban"(quoted from memory). But as Pippin and I have both stated, there is no ambiguity here other than the identity of the sender. She doesn't want to tell us who knew about the Prophecy, true, but she makes clear that Bellatrix et al. didn't. It's possible that the sender did, but if so, wouldn't he or she have sent them to kill Neville? Neri: > I'm not saying the Lestranges *weren't* strictly sent by someone other than themselves or Voldemort, but personally I won't be surprised or disappointed with JKR's integrity if it turns out they weren't. It's a rather vague canon detail and I would hesitate to build a whole theory on it. Carol: But isn't that exactly what you're doing, with your Horcrux theory and your "They believed that the Dark Lord would have sent them to do that if only he could contact them"? Or are you just speculating for fun as Talisman and I were doing with Lucius as the sender? > > > > > Carol again: > > And in the graveyard, Voldemort says much > > the same thing, speaking of the Lestranges as a couple, "They alone > > were loyal; they alone tried to find me." > > Neri: > To my knowledge, the above words aren't canon. As I wrote in my > previous post, Voldemort does not say in the graveyard, nor in any > other place I know of, that the Lestranges tried to find him. His > exact words in the graveyard (GoF, Ch. 33, p. 650 Scholastic) are: > "they were faithful. They went to Azkaban rather than renounce me ". Carol: Good point, but if you put thpse words together with Bella's from the same book "The Pensieve"), the case is a bit stronger: "The Dark Lord will rise again,Crouch! Throw us into Azkaban; we will wait. He will rise again and will come for us, he will reward us beyond any other of his supporters. We alone were faithful! We alone tried to find him!"(GoF Am. ed. 595-6). Fits together beautifully, no? And Bella is headed forAzkaban with an escort of Dementors. Not likely that she would lie under those circumstances, is it, unless, like Barty Jr., she's trying to get *out* of her sentence, which is clearly not the case. > BTW, in Spinner's End too Bella doesn't say that she tried to find > Voldemort. Her words there (HBP, Ch. 2, p. 27 Scholastic) are: "He'd > have me! I, who spent many years in Azkaban for him". So AFAIK the > only place where Bellatrix proclaims that she and her friends tried to find Voldemort is once in the Pensieve trial, and even there she doesn't actually announce that they tried to do that by attacking the Longbottoms. The only one who says *that* is Crouch Sr. (GoF, Ch. 30, > p. 595): "the four of you stand accused of capturing an Auror ? Frank Longbottom ? and subjecting him to the Cruciatus Curse, believing him to have knowledge of the present whereabouts of your exiled master". Carol: Ah, well, you've just presented the evidence yourself, Barty Sr.,s words, which I don't doubt he has good cause tobelieve are true. The court has already presented a guilty verdict. Again, his source of information is probably Bellatrix herself, and she has no cause to lie. It is also possible that Dumbledore extracted an undamaged memory from one or both Longbottoms as objective evidence. Rather than having the court enter the Pensieve, which would admittedly present a tactical problem, all he needs to do is have Bellatrix and her friends rise individually from the Pensieve, speak their threats, their taunts, and their curses, and voila!Incontrovertible evidence. So we have three sources of information here, Bellatrix herself, Voldemort, and Crouch, with no contradictory information and no reason to doubt those sources. Certainly one of the other DEs, particularly Barty Jr., would have contradicted her story if it weren't true. If JKR wanted us to doubt the truth of Bellatrix's words, she would have presented her as shifty. But Bellatrix's one virtue, if it can be called that, is straightforwardness. She says what she means. So, what I come up with is what we already have, a clearly established motive that would have to be contradicted if we want to go with your Horcrux speculation and which does not require any distortion of the words on JKR's website. It appears that we'll find out who sent the Lestranges, and if I'm right, we already know why they were there. All that remains to be discovered is who sent them and whether the sender had any ulterior motive. Carol, who is through with this thread unless someone wants to put forward another candidate for "sender" From jazmyn at pacificpuma.com Tue Apr 18 04:19:04 2006 From: jazmyn at pacificpuma.com (Jazmyn Concolor) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 21:19:04 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: The House of Gaunt In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <444468B8.20702@pacificpuma.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151044 potioncat wrote: > Potioncat: > >I agree that DD speaks/understands Parseltongue. I think he even >makes a comment about it himself in his own way. Sorry that I can't >go searching for the canon, but I know DD says something to Harry >along the line of, "you've learned that some great (good?) wizards >can speak parseltongue." > >That seems to counter what we learned in CoS, that Parseltongue is a >sign of a Dark Wizard. I recall several threads on this list >wondering how or why that would be a trait of only Dark Wizards since >it seems to be a natural skill, not a learned one. I also wonder if >Harry really got the ability from Voldemort or if it is natural to >him. > > > > Which means we MUST stop taking Ron's word for anything. He only echoes the bigotry and ignorance found in the Wizard world. Blah, blah, Slytherins are all evil, blah, blah, parseltongues are all evil, blah, blah, giants are all evil. blah, blah, all werewolves are dangerous beasts, blah, blah, house elves are all happy little slaves, blah, blah... Obviously, Ron is not a good source of facts about his own world, being as he is so self absorbed most of the time, he can hardly see the forest for the trees.... Hermione at least researches HER facts and don't always have the knee jerk reactions that Ron has... and even she is not always right. She is right more often then Ron though and she's a muggleborn... who in fact knows more about the Wizard World then Ron, who was born in it and whose father works at the MOM.... Jazmyn From kchuplis at alltel.net Tue Apr 18 04:21:11 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 23:21:11 -0500 Subject: Origination of Snape? Message-ID: <49BD09CF-741E-42D9-917C-1452AE281D24@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151045 So I'm re-reading a Georgette Heyer novel that I haven't read for years, "The Foundling", and our hero Gilly runs across a boy who has run away from his grueling tutor Mr. Snape ( a largely villified person by young Tom). Imagine my surprise. I do have to wonder if JKR is a Heyer fan (as anyone in their right mind should be, for such delightful stories as she wrote are rare.) Has anyone ever heard any comments on this? kchuplis From tonks_op at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 04:42:26 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 04:42:26 -0000 Subject: Christianity in HP? (WAS: Dumbledore's Death) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151046 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Rachel Crofut" wrote: > snip) IMO, it seems almost a certain doom to use witches and wizards as the prime protagonists in a Christian novel. I found an article dated July 13, 2005, about the new Pope's views on Harry Potter. --------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ (snip) Tonks: First not all Christians see that as a problem. So the use of witches and wizards is not a problem for most of us. As to the current Pope's words when he was a cardinal, I think that the intent of his words have been misunderstood. As I understand it the Roman Church under John Paul II came out and said that there was nothing wrong with the HP books. But even if the new Pope were against it, which I am not sure that he is, the Pope does not speak for all Christians either. Secondly, it is not the Christians that JKR is writing the books for, IMO. She doesn't need to `preach to the choir'. I do think that she has used many symbols from many sources, some of them from very ancient religions, such as the religions of Egypt. And she does mention Egypt in the books. All of these speak to the collective unconscious of mankind. And those symbols have been with us for as long as humans have been on the earth. Third, the way in which she writes, combined with what she has said in interviews, point to her using specific Christian symbols to tell the world a Christian message in a way in which it can be openly heard. Not every Christian is the kind that will accost you on the street (or TV) with a bible in their hand telling your what a sinner you are and that you need to repent and be saved or burn. It is a sad thing that this is only introduction that many people get to Christianity, and this type is NOT what most of us are about. I think that most Christians are like DD, and like the man that Harry is growing to be. I also think that the message that JKR is giving is a universal message. I was at a HP convention in Canada in 2004 in which someone presented a paper entitled "What is a Good Jewish Boy Doing in a Place Like This" (paraphrased). The author made a good case for Harry from a Jewish point of view using Jewish symbolism. I have hoped that people of other religions might look closely at the books and show us other symbols from their own religions. I am sure that JKR is writing for everyone, young and old, from every race and tongue, etc. And the message is a universal one of God's Love. Tonks_op From the4bodingdawn at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 03:13:51 2006 From: the4bodingdawn at yahoo.com (the4bodingdawn) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 03:13:51 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's Drunken Dream Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151047 I've been trying to make sense of Dumbledore's rantings as he was forced to drink the cave's potion. I have not run across any theories as to what was going through his mind at the time. If this has been debated elsewhere can someone direct me to the information? I also wonder if anyone has drawn a link between the green potion in the cave and the green liquid the brains were kept in in the department of mysteries. the4bodingdawn From yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com Tue Apr 18 04:19:49 2006 From: yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com (yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 23:19:49 -0500 Subject: The House of Gaunt In-Reply-To: <1789c2360604171948l2cb70f25q54371d8d00ade3bf@mail.gmail.com> References: <1789c2360604171948l2cb70f25q54371d8d00ade3bf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6327DC30-08CC-4C4B-A891-815B1AC3B314@stevenmcintosh.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151048 Peggy Wilkins: > I always assumed he did, and was surprised when a bunch of people > questioned it. However, on going back later and rereading the > multiple Pensieve scenes in which Parseltongue is spoken, it becomes > obvious that Dumbledore does understand it; there's no question. He > and Harry discuss what was said; therefore, the only conclusion is > that he does understand it. This shouldn't be surprising, given all > the obscure languages Dumbledore understands. As for how he > understands it, well, how does he know anything that he knows? He > seems to know a lot. He even speaks Mermish (cf. GOF second task). > How does he know Mermish? stevemac: I was going back through chapter 10, Bob Ogden's memory - is this the one in question? While reading it, paying very close attention, DD never mentions anything about understanding Parseltongue. There is a point where DD asks Harry if he does understand what Ogden does not - but does not imply that DD understands it himself. Much of the discussion of the scene afterwards is, in present time, already known by DD (or at least it seems that way) There may be more in other chapters... is there a particular passage? Maybe I'm missing it. I'm not saying that DD does NOT understand it - as you mention, if he speaks Mermish, why not Parselmouth, but I don't think that it is ever implied that he does understand it in the scene. AS A POSSIBILITY THOUGH: Considering how the pensive works (as it is a memory of a third person), and seeing as Harry is reliving this memory at the same time, and that DD is an accomplished Legimens... he could possibly have used Harry as an unwilling interpreter? (just a wild and crazy thought) SteveMac (a potter newbie) From bamf505 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 05:01:55 2006 From: bamf505 at yahoo.com (Metylda) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 22:01:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Christianity in HP? (WAS: Dumbledore's Death) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060418050155.29395.qmail@web31505.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151049 --- Tonks wrote: > I have hoped that people of other religions might > look closely at > the books and show us other symbols from their own > religions. I am > sure that JKR is writing for everyone, young and > old, from every > race and tongue, etc. And the message is a universal > one of God's > Love. bamf here: Not being Christian, one of the things that does bother me is that people always assume that Ultimate Sacrifice for the greater good always equates to Christianity and Christ dying on the cross. For me, being Heathen/Asatru, the scene in book six of Albus drinking reminds me more of Odin drinking from the well of Mimnir to gain knowledge, as well as Albus's death reminds me of Odin hanging himself from the Ydrassil, the tree of life, to gain the knowledge of the runes. It was with these gifts that Odin came to know the future, although he did not reveal it. Odin knew what would happen at Ragnarok, and tried to best prepare the people involved, similarly to a certain headmaster we know, as well as knowing his own fate - that he would also die at Ragnarak. Some sources also tell us that Odin will be reborn and help shape the second world to come. Albus, though, also has many characteristics of Thor, too. Thor is the Thunder God, but he was also the god of the common people, whereas Odin was more the god of the 'upper crust' so to speak. Harry and many of the students, as well as the general population in HP, take comfort in Albus's mere existence. Dumbledore makes time for anyone who wishes to meet with him, from the most lowly first year to heads of state. There are probably more instances, however, these are what I came up with off the top of my head. Ta! bamf There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast. ***** Me t wyrd gewf __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From aceworker at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 04:41:01 2006 From: aceworker at yahoo.com (career advisor) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 21:41:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Subject: Trevor is a Horcrux (Was The Sting: Lucius sent Bella) In-Reply-To: <1145328898.2533.57363.m13@yahoogroups.com> Message-ID: <20060418044101.7721.qmail@web30210.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151050 > Carol: > How could the Longbottoms' knowledge of or guessing the > existence of a Horcrux become when they're both insane, and how would > it further the plot? >Neri: >Gee, there are so many great possibilities here. Say, the Horcrux is >somewhere in plain sight in the Longbottoms' house. Or Neville >inherited it from his parents and always had it in his possession. Or >when he's 17 he'll inherit it. Or Frank and Alice will somehow manage >to convey to him where it's hidden. And Bella might come after it >again, probably with several DEs in tow. And just think what the shock >of seeing her might do to Frank and Alice. We may have the attack on >the Longbottoms all over again, only this time playing live, and with >Neville a wizard of age. Now *this* would be what I call BANGy. DA Jones Well, yeah Bellatrix will battle Neville. But also at the end of the long Lucius lla string is the old Trevor is a horcrux theory! Let's say that at the last moment one of the Longbottoms managed to transfigure the Horcrux into Trevor. Trevor escaped or the toddler Neville somehow rescued him. Isn't Trevor somewhat old for a toad (or is he a frog?). And it would explain why Trevor/Voldermort is always trying to escape from Neville. I say Trevor is the Cup Horcrux. No, I don't believe this theory but it is humorous; makes use of an overly weird hanging plot point and does seem to be JKR's style, sort of. Also remember it is also the sort of thing kids would like, and these are chidlren's books right? :) Another minor point. It seems to me a lot of peole say Alice is an Auror. Frank is an auror obviously, but isthere canon for Alice? I don't recall. What do you think? From laurel_lei at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 04:42:51 2006 From: laurel_lei at yahoo.com (Laurel Lei) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 04:42:51 -0000 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151051 I haven't posted much during the last year... and have absolutely enjoyed reading all the posts daily... But, over that last year or so, I have read many posts that have touched a nerve, so to speak. They mention that Harry is NOT a murderer or NOT a killer or that he is not capable of it or that they hope he doesn't have to succumb to the murder of Voldemort via the prophecy or even that they would throw their copies of the entire Harry Potter series away if J.K. turned Harry into a murderer in book 7... i.e. someone in Harry's stead would carry out the murder (via the veil, another person does it for him, or by other freakish events he just dies...) I may be mistaken in my interpretation of murder within those poster's meanings but... it would seem to me that, Harry is very capable of murder... What about Quirrelmort???? He's dead and no one else was there but Harry... and "two-faced" Vapormort. Does everyone believe that it was Voldemort's possession or abandonment of Quirrel was what brought on his "death"? Or maybe it was the drinking of the unicorn blood? I thought it was Harry's touch... and continued touch. What about Voldemort's soul bit in the diary horcrux??? Again, no one else was there except for an unconscious Ginny and a dead basilisk. The basilisk fang didn't stab the diary on its own... with the intention of destroying (killing/murdering) materializing Tom Riddle/Voldemort. Wouldn't Harry's soul be torn by his involvement in the death of Quirrel or the "death" of Voldie's soul bit...??? This has bothered me for quite some time... I also believe that Harry would have killed Sirius if Lupin hadn't arrived. Harry had stated as much. (Obviously Sirius dying at that time wasn't in J.K.'s plot-line). And I believe that Harry would have killed Bella in the MOM during/post battle. And what about Draco in the bathroom and the sectasempra spell...? The spell for enemies... the spell that Snape "reversed"... had Snape not arrived and known what to do (because he was the "Prince" and possible author)...???? Would Harry then have become a murderer if Draco had died? Isn't what he did attempted murder? Is it believed that he is not a murderer/killer because he was protecting the Sorcerer's Stone, himself or Ginny? Avenging Sirius? Does his anger at his victims somehow make him temporarily insane and not responsible for his actions? Don't get me wrong, I adore J.K. and Harry and the series of books... but I found it very difficult to explain to my sons that if he were to harm another like Harry did to Draco or the others that they wouldn't "just get detentions". Or to explain to them that it is not okay to state that you would like to "kill" someone. (Yes, J.K. opened a door for me for discussions that may not have been opened another way). But, how could "we" believe that Harry is NOT capable of murder or bringing about another's death (per the prophecy or my understanding of it that one (Voldie or Harry) must "die"). Or are "we" rationalizing? Is it something that we as humans choose to define as "NOT murder or a killing" like we often do, because we are in times of war? My opinion of course... I just had to ask this... and I look forward to your responses... especially Steve's (as I admire his level-head and thoughtful posts.) -Laurel Lei From tonks_op at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 05:21:21 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 05:21:21 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's Drunken Dream In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151052 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "the4bodingdawn" wrote: > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "the4bodingdawn" wrote: > > I've been trying to make sense of Dumbledore's rantings as he was forced to drink the cave's potion. I have not run across any theories as to what was going through his mind at the time. If this has been debated elsewhere can someone direct me to the information? > Tonks: Here is a recent post by Randy that mentions the same idea that I am about to put forth: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151029 Some of us think that the potion in the cave is the liquid in a pensive. And a pensive stores memories. I have suggested that what DD is drinking is the memories of mankind. He drinks 12 cups. The cup is given him by Harry. When finished he said "water". If DD is seen as a Christ figure then in this scene he is taking on the sins of mankind. 12 is the 12 tribes of Israel, which symbolize the whole of humanity. And JKR has said that Harry is "everyboy", which can also mean "everyman". It is very telling, I think, when DD ask for water, because when Jesus hung on the cross he said "I thirst". I think there is an intended parallel there. Before I came to this interpretation, I had at first thought it might be the memory of Tom Riddle when he was a boy and took those other kids to the cave and he met some terrible entity there. And later I pondered if it might be Snape's memory of the night of the Potter's murders. Others have said that it could be the memory of Tom senior before he was killed when his parents were being tortured by Tom Jr. Tonks_op From brahadambal at indiatimes.com Tue Apr 18 05:22:19 2006 From: brahadambal at indiatimes.com (latha279) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 05:22:19 -0000 Subject: Harry Potter: A Horcrux In-Reply-To: <1789c2360604171954o59500b3bsaf30facc390c785f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151053 > On 4/17/06, Leonard Kim wrote: > > Rather than argue whether this theory is or is not likely (I happen > > to think it is) I was wondering whether anybody in the past several > > thousand posts or so has tried to work out its consequences if true? > > > > Assuming all other Horcruxes are disposed of ... > > the most basic outcome, which has been proposed here before is that > > if Harry is a horcrux, then he has to die in book 7... > Peggy worte: > Not necessarily. Now, I don't believe that Harry is a Horcrux, but if > he were, I can imagine a scenario where Harry and Voldemort switch > bodies (that is, Harry possesses Voldemort's body and vice versa). If > this happened, it's possible that Voldemort and his soul piece could > become one inside Harry's body, and--presto chango!--no more Harry > Horcrux. Now that's a bit of magic. > -- > Peggy Wilkins > enlil65 at ... > My question is : why didn't that happen in the MoM Battle at the end of OotP? It should have happened then. I feel, the thing that Harry has so much of that the Dark Lord knows not of it INTUITION more than Love. It was intuition that told him what to do with the dairy in CoS. It was again intuition that made him hold on to his wand and will the beads to go towards LV. So, if LV were to possess Harry and the pieces of souls were to merge again, why didn't it happen when there was an opportunity before? Point also is, if there is a piece of Harry in LV, why did he also suffer mortal agony? He should have felt more comfortable there. Can't say - is my vote on this matter. (And I am still a Harry-is-NOT- a-horcrux believer). I don't think JKR would make it that gross even for the drama and hype it could create. Just my opinion, Brady. From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Tue Apr 18 05:01:23 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 01:01:23 -0400 Subject: Christianity in HP? (WAS: Dumbledore's Death) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151054 Rachel: >IMO, it seems almost a certain doom to use witches and wizards >as the prime protagonists in a Christian novel. I found an article >dated July 13, 2005, about the new Pope's views on Harry Potter. >--------------------------------------------------------------------- >------ (snip) > >Tonks: >First not all Christians see that as a problem. So the use of >witches and wizards is not a problem for most of us. As to the >current Pope's words when he was a cardinal, I think that the intent >of his words have been misunderstood. As I understand it the Roman >Church under John Paul II came out and said that there was nothing >wrong with the HP books. But even if the new Pope were against it, >which I am not sure that he is, the Pope does not speak for all >Christians either. Rachel: The new Pope is indeed against the Harry Potter books, though I do know he does not speak for all Christians, not even all Catholics. I was using the Pope as a well-known Christian figure that demonstrated how witches and wizards can be taken to mean evil. Tonks: All of these speak to the >collective unconscious of mankind. And those symbols have been with >us for as long as humans have been on the earth. Rachel: Exactly! I believe that JKR is appealing to the human in us all, regardless of religion. Tonks: >Third, the way in which she writes, combined with what she has said >in interviews, point to her using specific Christian symbols to tell >the world a Christian message in a way in which it can be openly >heard. Rachel: Perhaps, but if you take a look at many main-stream religions, their morals are strikingly similar to those of Christianity. Christianity does not need to be the spear-head of JKR's message, regardless of the subtlety in which she does so. Tonks: >Not every Christian is the kind that will accost you on the >street (or TV) with a bible in their hand telling your what a sinner >you are and that you need to repent and be saved or burn. It is a >sad thing that this is only introduction that many people get to >Christianity, and this type is NOT what most of us are about. Rachel: No, I never thought so. I was born and raised Methodist so I understand the frustration Christians must face when dealing with people who believe that to be the typical Christian. I'm not suggesting that JKR is forcing Christianity down people's throats, rather, I'm suggesting that she is combining several different flavors of the world to demonstrate how similar humans can be. See for example the Tri-Wizard Tournament and the emphasis placed on international relations by Dumbledore and even Hermione. Compare this, then, to Voldemort and Malfoy's "pure-blood" pedestals. IMO JKR is demonstrating the importance of accepting other cultures and beliefs. Tonks: >I >think that most Christians are like DD, and like the man that Harry >is growing to be. Rachel: I agree that DD and Harry are the heroes in the book that the reader is supposed to identify with, however I wouldn't say that they are necessarily the personification of Christianity (or, to use your words, that most Christians are like them). I would suggest that the traits within DD and Harry (which undoubtedly many Christians possess) are those that JKR admires and believes should be held by all people - that of acceptance, trust, and, most importantly, love. Tonks: >I also think that the message that JKR is giving is a universal >message. I was at a HP convention in Canada in 2004 in which someone >presented a paper entitled "What is a Good Jewish Boy Doing in a >Place Like This" (paraphrased). The author made a good case for >Harry from a Jewish point of view using Jewish symbolism. Rachel: Exactly my point :-). Tonks: >I have hoped that people of other religions might look closely at >the books and show us other symbols from their own religions. I am >sure that JKR is writing for everyone, young and old, from every >race and tongue, etc. And the message is a universal one of God's >Love. Rachel: Not even that of God's love, as it is Lily's love that saves Harry. Rather, I believe JKR is showing the beauty of the love that humans have for one another. It is love and friendship that has kept Harry alive throughout his childhood and school years. To sum up - I believe that JKR is expressing an acceptance for separate cultures and beliefs and stresses the importance of love. ~ Rachel (Hoping she made sense somewhere along the line) From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 05:29:16 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 05:29:16 -0000 Subject: When did the Lestranges attack the Longbottoms? (Was: Old, old problem) In-Reply-To: <335.2f7862c.3175a670@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151055 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, puduhepa98 at ... wrote: > > > Draeconin: > > I thought the Longbottoms were tortured into catatonia by Voldemort himself? > Beatrice: > >This occurs 1 year after Harry goes to the Dursleys. When Harry and Neville are just over 2 years old. > > Nikkalmati: > Sorry, I missed the source for this date. How do we know the torture occurred at this time? If it is true, I have to give up my theory that the DEs went immediately to the Longbottoms when LV disappeared because they knew his itinerary to be 1. Potters 2. Longbottoms. When he disappeared, they went at once to his next stop. Carol responds: The exact date is unclear. All we know forcertain is that it occurred at some point after Godric's Hollow, when the WW thought it was safe, and that Sirius Black saw his cousin and her crew enter Azkaban some time after he himself was imprisoned. My guess, given the statement that the WW thought it was safe, is that it occurred many months after Godric's Hollow, after the arrests of a number of Death Eaters made the WWfeel much more secure than the mere vaporization of Voldemort. (People coming out from under Imperius Curses, real or feigned, was another sign that Voldie was really gone.) Life, I'm guessing, took a while to return to normal. Another, more definitive clue is the description of Barty Crouch Sr. in each of the Pensieve memories in GoF. He grows progressively grayer and more stressed with each memory (they're presented in chronological order). In the first memory, the Karkaroff hearing, which occurs after some of the DEs have already been killed or arrested, Crouch's hair is dark, his face much less lined than in the other memories, and he looks "trim and fit" (GoF Am. ed. 587). And yet this scene clearly occurs some time after Godric's Hollow; Moody says that he was looking for Karkaroff for six months; Wilkes and Rosier have already been killed by Aurors; Mulciber, Dolohov, Travers, and Mulciber are in Azkaban; Snape has been cleared by the court. The Bagman trial apparently comes next in the chronological sequence. Crouch's son has not yet been arrested, yet Crouch Sr. looks "more tired and somehow fiercer, gaunter" (591). Clearly some time has passed since the Karkaroff hearing, but it's impossible to know how much: enough, perhaps a month or two, to show that he's under more stress than before. Perhaps he's starting to have serious doubts about his son. In the final scene, the sentencing of the Lestranges and Barty Jr., the strain has caught up with Crouch. He looks "gaunter and greyer than ever before," and a nerve is twitching in his temple (594). Such marked changes in his appearance, striking enough to be noticed by Harry, indicate to me that the Lestrange's trial (if it can be called that) occurs at least several months after the Karkaroff hearing, which seems to occur at least six months after GH (assuming that Moody began searching for Karkaroff after Voldemort's fall). That would make Harry and Neville 21 months old at the time of the Karkaroff hearing and more than a few months older when the Lestranges and Barty Jr. are tried. I would say that Beatrice's guess that the Longbottoms were Crucio'd when both boys were two years old as close to the mark as we can get, assuming that the trial took place soon after the actual torture and not nine or ten months later. So I don't think that Bellatrix et al. went immediately to the Longbottoms' after Voldie was vaporized or that they knew Voldie's itinerary. If you've been reading the Lucius Sting/"were sent" thread, you know that they definitely didn't know about the Prophecy, so unless someone told them that the Longbottoms were most likely the next victims on the agenda, they probably didn't know that, either. So putting everything together, I'd say that they "were sent" to the Longbottoms by person or persons unknown (Lucius?) at least eight to ten months after Godric's Hollow, maybe more, depending on how long it took Mr. Crouch's hair to turn from dark (Karkaroff hearing) to grey (Lestrange trial). It's at least clear that the attack didn't occur immediately after Godric's Hollow. One more thing that has nothing to do with the date of the trialbut doesrelate to the Pensieve scenes. One poster (sorry, don't remember who) suggested that Rabastan Lestrange (or whichever brother was staring blankly at Mr. Crouch) had been Imperio'd. I don't think so, given his behavior at the MoM, which is typical DE. (Rabastan was Crabbe's partner and was with him till Crabbe got attacked by a time turner, after which he seems to have joined with Rodolphus and Bella.) So my guess is that the blank stare indicates either Occlumency (note that Snape's eyes look like tunnels the first time Harry stares into them) or the influence of the Dementors, which may already draining his presumably small store of happiness. Carol, oddly intrigued by Rabastan but without the slightest hope for his redemption From bboyminn at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 06:12:07 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 06:12:07 -0000 Subject: Old, old problem. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151056 > Randy: > > I always wondered why the AK on Harry does not appear in Priori > Incantatem list of spells? > > I am assuming that someone in this list has expounded on this at > length. Any advice would be welcome. > > Randy > bboyminn: Of course, the answer is, we don't know. Maybe there is a plot reason for it, maybe it is a mistake, or maybe it did come out. Here is the problem with the FAILED AK curse, what would we see? We wouldn't see Harry's ghost-like form because Harry wasn't killed. So, really, what is there to see? Of course, we don't know. But I speculate (...like you didn't already know that...) First, not all spells are visual. The Pain Curse (Cruciatus) doesn't emit any visual clues; you hear the screams of its victims. Well, what if the curse or spell doesn't emit any visual or auditory clues? For example, what would we expect to see or hear from the Reverse Spell Effect of a Stunning curse? It doesn't seem to be much of a 'sight or sound' spell. Second, Harry is not an expert at resolving Reverse Spell Effect clues. I have always speculated that someone like Kingley Shacklebolt who seems to be an experienced and very competent Auror could possibly detect subtle clues of spells that would be completely missed by Harry. Perhaps something subtle like a whisp of a particular color smoke. Perhaps smoke density or the particular way the smoke behaves would be the telltale clues of specific spells. Since the expelling from a wand of a trulu FAILED AK has never occured before, I doubt that anyone including Harry would know what to look for. From another perspective, think not about a Faile-AK in the sense of the one Voldemort hit Harry with, but in the sense of one that was successfully cast but it simply misses its target. Now ask yourself what you would expect to see when that missed-AK came back out of the want as it surely would? As I've implied, it would be something vague and indistinct that only an expert would recognise. What I am saying is that there may have been many more spells emitted by Voldemort's wand than Harry was aware of, and that the Fail-AK spell was there but its clues were to vague and indistinct for Harry to recognise. I have a method of resolving seeming inconsistencies in the books. First, I assume that what seems inconsistent is actually true, and then I try to invent an internal-to-the-story explanation for it. It is entirely possible that this is an out and out error, but even if it is, JKR will most like make up some explanation to make it internally consistent. JKR did this with Marcus Flint which coined the term 'Flint' meaning a mistake in the books. Marcus Flint stayed at Hogwarts one year longer than he should have. JKR admitted it was a careless mistake, then followed that with the internal-to-the-story explanation that Flint was doing poorly in his studies and had to stay an additional year. In otherwords, JKR does exactly what I do to explain inconsistencies, she made it up. Until JKR clears up this particular event, the best we can do is assume that what we read wass correct, and then invent explanations as to why it was correct. My invention is that a failed-AK curse doesn't emit any easily identifiable visual or auditory clues that Harry would have been likely to recognise. For what it's worth. Steve/bboyminn From tonks_op at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 06:15:30 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 06:15:30 -0000 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151057 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Laurel Lei" wrote: > > But, over that last year or so, I have read many posts that have > touched a nerve, so to speak. They mention that Harry is NOT a > murderer or NOT a killer or that he is not capable of it or that they hope he doesn't have to succumb to the murder of Voldemort via the prophecy (snip)> (Snip)What about Quirrelmort???? He's dead and no one else was > there but Harry... Snip> What about Voldemort's soul bit in the diary horcrux??? (snip)> > Wouldn't Harry's soul be torn by his involvement in the death of > Quirrel or the "death" of Voldie's soul bit...??? > (snip) > And I believe that Harry would have killed Bella in the MOM > during/post battle. > > And what about Draco in the bathroom and the sectasempra spell...? (snip) Tonks: I think that Harry, like all of us, is capable of murder or killing. I think that there is a difference in degree, but taking a life is taking a life even if in war or in self defense. There is in the books as in RL differences in the punishment depending on the circumstances. It is interesting that the Aurors were given permission to use an AK if necessary in the line of duty. And then you can get into the whole 'just war' debates. As to Harry and the incident with Draco; I don't think that Harry met to kill Draco. He did not know what the spell would do and seemed truly sorry that he did it when he saw what happened to Draco as a result. If there is a message there, it is that sometimes we do not know what the consequences of our actions might be to someone else. The results might be far worse that we intended and that maybe we should think first before using a spell that we know nothing about. If Draco had died, one could argue, I guess, for involuntary manslaughter. I think the events in the books show that Harry is angry enough at times to want to kill someone, but that part of him does not really want to do so. Wouldn't most of us feel that way? If we were really angry and did kill someone in a fit of rage, the feeling of guilt would haunt us for the rest of our life. This is different that LV who does not feel remorse of any kind for anything that he does. ----------- Laurel Lei: I found it very difficult to explain to my sons that if he were to harm another like Harry did to Draco or the others that they wouldn't "just get detentions". Or to explain to them that it is not okay to state that you would like to "kill" someone. Tonks: Tis true that it is best never to say that outloud. It is OK, I think, to acknowledge to ourselves that we feel that way. But telling someone else, even if in jest may be taken the wrong way by some damn fool and then you would be is serious trouble. For example saying it about the President will get you arrested. I am hoping that good old LV will just commit suicide and save us all the grief. Who knows maybe he will. Would that be a kicker? Some say that he is painted in the light of Hitler, so maybe Tonks From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Tue Apr 18 06:44:50 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 06:44:50 -0000 Subject: Harry Potter: A Horcrux In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151058 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Leonard Kim" wrote: muhahava: > Assuming all other Horcruxes are disposed of ... > the most basic outcome, which has been proposed here before is that > if Harry is a horcrux, then he has to die in book 7. If that is in > fact true, then somebody else must be tabbed to vanquish Voldemort (a > phoenix-like re-risen Dumbledore, "good" Snape, etc.). That wouldn't > necessarily be inconsistent with the prophecy, since presumably > Voldemort will be the one to have killed Harry, thus making himself > vulnerable just when he thinks he has triumphed. Yet, I think this > would be a nearly impossible scenario to pull off in a way that would > be satisfying either in a literary sense or to the readers. > > A slightly more complicated scenario, again I'm sure somebody's > thought of this -- not only is there a piece of Voldemort in Harry, > but after GOF, there is a piece of Harry in Voldemort. Obviously > Harry hasn't murdered anybody, but this could mean that Voldemort is > de facto a kind of Horcrux for Harry. That makes something like the > following sequence of events possible: 1) False tragic ending: > Voldemort "kills" Harry, in the process destroying the Harry/scar > Horcrux. However, Harry is not dead dead because some part of him > lives on inside Voldemort. (Just as Voldemort was not dead dead > after having a killing curse rebound on him.) 2) Somehow, that > essence of Harry is extracted from Voldemort and used to restore him > in a scene that parallels the end of GOF and in the actual climactic > ending, revived Harry vanquishes Voldemort. > > Of course, that event sequence is purely speculative and unlikely, > but it does follow from the observations that not only does Harry > unquestionably have some essence of Voldemort transferred to him, but > the opposite is also true. Geoff: I apologise for having to be repetitive but I am going to quote something I wrote in post 140343, back in September last year and actually repeated as recently as post 150494 on this question of Harry being a Horcrux. I believe that if Harry is a Horcrux with a soul fragment inside him, this would be a plot device which would create problems and possible paradoxes within the Potterverse which Jo Rowling has crafted. One of the points which has often been made about the Harry Potter world is that choice is paramount to the action. The pivotal statement is probably the oft-quoted one made by Dumbledore in Book 2: "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." (COS "Dobby's Reward" p.245 UK edition) Harry has made choices ? sometimes consciously, sometimes not ? which have guided him towards the side of light, of compassion and acceptance of the need to be prepared to tackle Voldemort. Tom Riddle, on the other hand, has set his mind to becoming powerful and has chosen evil and selfish ways of doing it. Others, such as Snape and more recently Draco, are making choices which are rather ambivalent leaving us still uncertain about where their final loyalties will lie. I feel that this possibly reflects Jo Rowling's views on Christianity. The Christian faith is a faith of choices. No one is a Christian by birth or privilege but by choice. But, if Harry is a Horcrux, this ability to choose is being seriously eroded and there then seems to be an argument for those who take the Calvinistic view of predestination. Let us therefore consider the various scenarios which might emerge if Harry is indeed "encasing" a piece of You-Know-Who's soul. If he is, then it would seem that, in order to kill Voldemort, he will have to sacrifice himself to do it. If he chooses to walk away from the situation and decides to ignore the prophecy, then he is condemning the Wizarding World to a likely takeover by the Death Eaters. Even then, his security would not be guaranteed because Voldemort would still feel unsafe as long as Harry was around so our hero would spend his time in hiding, looking over his shoulder all the time and knowing that he had left his friends to the tender mercy of the Dark side. But we do know from Book 6 that he is deciding to face up to Voldemort. Ginny says "I knew this would happen in the end. I knew you wouldn't be happy unless you were hunting Voldemort." And for Harry himself, `Moving felt much more bearable than sitting still: just as setting out as soon as possible to track down the Horcruxes and kill Voldemort would feel better than waiting to do it.' (HBP "The White Tomb" p.603 UK edition) However, this is where our paradoxes begin to raise their heads. Harry arrives for a stand-off with the Dark Lord having dealt with all the other Horcruxes. I can see three scenarios here, all of which present problems if Harry is a Horcrux. Number one. Harry apparently kills Voldemort. The last remnant of soul in him is destroyed but ? there is still a piece of soul in Harry. What happens? Does Voldemort become disembodied again? What happens if you have a piece of soul but it is not within you? Does he become an empty shell like a soul-sucked Dementor victim? Or would he be able in some disembodied way to seize on the piece in Harry? I am reminded of the Lord of the Rings here when Gandalf says that, if the Ring is thrown into Mount Doom, Sauron would not die but fall so far that the possibility of him arising again could not even be imagined. Would that happen here and Voldemort become almost a ghost figure? Presumably, as per the words of the prophecy, Harry would have vanquished him, but what of the future? Number two. Voldemort kills Harry. this is the worst case scenario because it would leave Voldemort as the victor in possession of the tattered remnants of his soul and with no viable opposition to him. A new Dark age would descend upon the Wizarding world. Number three. This I consider to have a low probability. They fire spells at each other and kill other simultaneously and both soul fragments are destroyed. The last time they did something like this, we saw the Priori Incantatem effect. If, as I imagine, they are still using the "brother wands", Dumbledore says that "they will not work properly against each other.." (GOF "The Parting of the Ways" p.605 UK edition). So, unless the spells do not "collide" there is a very low likelihood of them killing each other. My feeling is, that for the purposes of the plot, scenario two seems to be unlikely. I cannot see Jo Rowling, having brought us so far along the way, allowing Voldemort to win by a flick of the wand. Scenario one provides an unsatisfying resolution to the problem of really vanquishing him and scenario three hints at a rerun of the GOF event which would leave the fulfilment of the prophecy unresolved. So, for better or for worse, I'm sticking with the Harry-is-not-a- Horcrux camp as I feel that, within our fictional universe, JKR needs to show that the choices, the efforts, the sacrifices of those whose have stood alongside Harry, and those who have taught him to use his gifts have not worked in vain. This is not the real world, it is fantasy and we need a satisfying closure. From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Tue Apr 18 07:31:12 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 07:31:12 -0000 Subject: Christianity in HP? (WAS: Dumbledore's Death) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151060 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Rachel Crofut" wrote: Rachel: > It seems to me that JKR wouldn't use witches and wizards (often associated > with being in cohorts with the devil, see the Salem Witchcraft Trials, the > term "witchhunts" which refer to looking for the bad people, and many other > negative associations) to express Christianity. Also, I would assume that > JKR would respond to the Pope and insist that she was attempting to teach > children Christianity, I don't see her allowing the Pope to suggest such > things about her series if she was really trying to instill Christian > morals. Rather I see her encouraging children to learn more about the world > in which they live and, also, to live morally. A book doesn't need to teach > Christianity to teach morality. Geoff: I speak as a evangelical Christian and my response to your first sentence would be "Why not?" For many years, I allowed myself to be swayed by members of my church into thinking that the HP books were bad without looking for myself. However, I have now come round to the point of view where I believe that they - and this discussion group - present a very good platform where the fundamental truths of Christian faith can be discussed. Those who argue along the lines of your first paragraph cannot see - or refuse to see - a level playing field. C.S.Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien were both staunch Christians - Lewis a non-conformist and Tolkien a Catholic. Both of them use the concept of witches and wizards in their books which are considered perfectly legitimate reading material for Christians. Lewis gives us the White Witch who, like Voldemort, seeks the complete domination of Narnia and has progressed a good deal further along the road to this than JKR in her Wizarding World. Tolkien gives us at least three wizards (Gandalf, Saruman and Radagast) who started on the side of good (white?) although Saruman has been seduced to the side of evil. Sauron can in in many ways be compared to Voldemort although in Tolkien's cosmos, he is probably far more evil, being a fallen angel comparable to Satan. So, are we drawing a line of demarcation in which we are attempting to direct what we should and should not read or is it just plaina and simple bias? From monzaba at poczta.onet.pl Tue Apr 18 10:33:42 2006 From: monzaba at poczta.onet.pl (monika_zaboklicka) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 10:33:42 -0000 Subject: Help please... In-Reply-To: <410-22006411723050452@earthlink.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151061 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Catherine wrote: > > My husband is convinced that at some point in the books, Harry says "abra cadabra" and > people freak out and tell him not to say that because it's a derivative of > the AK curse. I believe that at one point Harry succeeded in terryfing Dudley by muttering some nonesensical "curses", including "abra cadabra", but that was before Crouch Jr. taught him about the AK course. I'm positive there was no mention in canon about any connection between "abra cadabra" and AK Monika From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 11:10:02 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 11:10:02 -0000 Subject: The House of Gaunt In-Reply-To: <1789c2360604171948l2cb70f25q54371d8d00ade3bf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151062 "Peggy Wilkins" wrote: > This shouldn't be surprising, given all the obscure languages Dumbledore understands. As for how he understands it, well, how does he know anything that he knows? He seems to know a lot. He even speaks Mermish (cf. GOF second task). How does he know Mermish? Steven1965aaa: I don't really think this implies anything about DD, certainly not that he's evil or anything. But its different from Mermish because I remember reading somewhere (help please) that Riddle and HP were probably the only 2 parselmouths who passes through Hogwarts in many many years. I would guess that mermish would be more readily learned because of the presence of mempeople, From willsonkmom at msn.com Tue Apr 18 11:24:25 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 11:24:25 -0000 Subject: Subject: Trevor is a Horcrux (Was The Sting: Lucius sent Bella) In-Reply-To: <20060418044101.7721.qmail@web30210.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151063 > DA Jones Let's say that at the last moment one of the Longbottoms managed to transfigure the Horcrux into Trevor. Trevor escaped or the toddler Neville somehow rescued him. Isn't Trevor somewhat old for a toad (or is he a frog?). And it would explain why Trevor/Voldermort is always trying to escape from Neville. I say Trevor is the Cup Horcrux. Potioncat: Well, I'm not sure, but I think Uncle Algie gave Trevor to Neville either after they determined he wasn't a Squib or just before he went off to Hogwarts, but not as a toddler. Toads live around 30 years...at least Muggle toads do. Given all the talk about Trevor as a Horcrux, I wonder if Snape...erm...Professor Snape was testing that theory when he gave Neville's potion to the wee beastie? > DA Jones: > Another minor point. It seems to me a lot of peole say Alice is an Auror. Frank is an auror obviously, but isthere canon for Alice? I don't recall. Potioncat: I think, but would not swear on my books, that Frank was an Auror, but that we were never told Alice was. From elfundeb at gmail.com Tue Apr 18 12:06:49 2006 From: elfundeb at gmail.com (elfundeb) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 08:06:49 -0400 Subject: Alice was an Auror (WAS: Trevor is a Horcrux) Message-ID: <80f25c3a0604180506h4d3df05cs2bdac75fa2050de0@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151064 > > DA Jones: > > Another minor point. It seems to me a lot of peole say Alice is an > Auror. Frank is an auror obviously, but isthere canon for Alice? I > don't recall. > > Potioncat: > I think, but would not swear on my books, that Frank was an Auror, > but that we were never told Alice was. Debbie: Here's the canon, from OOP ch. 23 (Christmas on the Closed Ward): "'They were Aurors, you know, and very well respected within the wizarding community,' Mrs Longbottom went on. 'Highly gifted, the pair of them. I -- yes, Alice dear, what is it?'" But you're right that in GoF they were described as an Auror and his wife. There was, pre-OOP, a lot of grumbling about JKR's treatment of her female characters, and Alice's status as a nameless wife whose only contribution was to suffer with her husband was frequently cited as an example. Who knows if JKR read the criticism, but Alice's promotion to Auror is interesting when viewed in that context, since I doubt that whether she was or was not an Auror will make any difference to the plot. Of course, it's not clear whether Frank's status as Auror has any real relevance either, unless JKR is going to explain in Book 7 who sent the Lestranges after the Longbottoms and why. Debbie who wants to know if Frank used the Unforgivables on suspects when he was an Auror [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Tue Apr 18 12:07:07 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 12:07:07 -0000 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! (Long) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151065 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Laurel Lei" wrote: > > I haven't posted much during the last year... and have absolutely > enjoyed reading all the posts daily... > > But, over that last year or so, I have read many posts that have > touched a nerve, so to speak. They mention that Harry is NOT a > murderer or NOT a killer or that he is not capable of it or that they > hope he doesn't have to succumb to the murder of Voldemort via the > prophecy or even that they would throw their copies of the entire > Harry Potter series away if J.K. turned Harry into a murderer in book > 7... i.e. someone in Harry's stead would carry out the murder (via the > veil, another person does it for him, or by other freakish events he > just dies...) Geoff: You've brought us back onto an interesting discussion subject because we have had some threads about this in the past. I would personally start with a strict dictionary definition of "murder". Mine defines the word as: "The unlawful premeditated killing of one person by another." This, in my opinion hinges on the word "premeditated". We also need to consider the situations where someone is accidentally killed - in other words manslaughter - and also where self-defence might come into the equation. As an aside at this point, I would, with others, agree that Harry, potentially, is capable of murder - in the same way that we are. But we need to look at each of the cases which you quote to see what it was that caused Harry to react in the way that he did and I shall make use of canon where possible to underpin my conclusions. Laurel Lei: > I may be mistaken in my interpretation of murder within those poster's > meanings but... it would seem to me that, Harry is very capable of > murder... What about Quirrelmort???? He's dead and no one else was > there but Harry... and "two-faced" Vapormort. Does everyone believe > that it was Voldemort's possession or abandonment of Quirrel was what > brought on his "death"? Or maybe it was the drinking of the unicorn > blood? I thought it was Harry's touch... and continued touch. Geoff: Let's consider Harry's confrontation with Quirrell. '...Harry's scar was almost blinding him with pain, yet he could see Quirrell howling in agony. "Master, I cannot hold him - my hands - my hands !" And Quirrell, though pinning Harry to the ground with his knees, let go of his neck and stared, bewildered, at his own palms - Harry could see they looked burnt, raw, red and shiny. "Then kill him, fool, and be done!" screeched Voldemort. Quirrell raised his hand to perform a deadly curse but Harry, by instinct, reached up and grabbed Quirrell's face - "AAAARGH!" Quirrell rolled off him, his face blistering too and then Harry knew: Quirrell couldn't touch his bare skin, not without suffering terrible pain - his only chance was to keep hold of Quirrell, keep him in enough pain to stop him doing a curse.' (PS "The Man with two Faces" pp.213-14 UK edition) Harry is not contemplating killing Quirrell - he is trying to stop him performing the killing curse by the only way he can visualise. This is self-defence. Laurel Lei: > What about Voldemort's soul bit in the diary horcrux??? Again, no one > else was there eept for an unconscious Ginny and a dead basilisk. > The basilisk fang didn't stab the diary on its own... with the > intention of destroying (killing/murdering) materializing Tom > Riddle/Voldemort. Geoff: In the first place: '"So I made Ginny write her own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She struggled and cried and became very boring. But there isn't much life left in her: she put too much into the diary, into me. Enough, to let me leave its pages at last."' (COS "The Heir of Slytherin" p.231 UK edition) And then - 'He could hear echoing footsteps and then a dark shadow moved in front of him. "You're dead, Harry Potter," said Riddle's voice above him. "Dead. Even Dumbledore's bird knows it. Do you see what he's doing, Potter? He's crying." Harry blinked. Fawkes' head slid in and out of focus. Thick, pearly tears were trickling down the glossy feathers. "I'm going to sit here and watch you die, Harry Potter. Take your time, I'm?in no hurry."' (ibid. p236) 'A pearly patch of tears of tears was shining all around the wound - except that there was no wound. "Get away, bird," said Riddle's voice suddenly. "Get away from him, I said, get away!" Harry raised his head. Riddle was pointing Harry's wand at Fawkes; there was a bang like a gun and Fawkes took flight again in a whirl of gold and scarlet. "Phoenix tears... " said Riddle quietly, staring at Harry's arm "Of course... healing powers... I forgot..." He looked into Harry's face. "But it makes no difference. In fact, I prefer it this way. Just you and me, Harry Potter... you and me..." He raised the wand. Then, in a rush of wings, Fawkes soared back overhead and something fell into Harry's lap - the diary. For a split second, both Harry and Riddle, wand still raised, stared at it. Then, without thinking, as though he had meant to do it all along, Harry seized the Basilisk fang on the floor next to him and plunged it straight into the heart of the book.' (ibid. p.237) If anyone is likely to fulfil the definition of murder here, it is Tom Riddle.He has already indicated that Ginny is dying and he is quite prepred to let Harry die - either by default or, if necessary, by casting a curse. Harry acts instinctively, probably not knowing precisely why. I certainly would consider this within the parameters of self-defence again. Laurel Lei: > Wouldn't Harry's soul be torn by his involvement in the death of > Quirrel or the "death" of Voldie's soul bit...??? > > This has bothered me for quite some time... Geoff: I think not. '"How do you split your soul?" "Well," said Slughorn uncomfortably, "you must understand that the soul is supposed to remain intact and whole. Splitting it is an act of violation, it is against nature." "But how do you do it?" "By an act of evil - the supreme act of evil. By committing murder. Killing rips the soul apart."' (HBP "Horcruxes" p.465 UK edition) Since the examples you quote are not premeditated killing - murder - I believe that no soul-splitting occurred. Laurel Lei: > I also believe that Harry would have killed Sirius if Lupin hadn't > arrived. Harry had stated as much. (Obviously Sirius dying at that > time wasn't in J.K.'s plot-line). > And I believe that Harry would have killed Bella in the MOM > during/post battle. Geoff: Here, I might be willing to agree with you. Although, I wonder if Remus hadn't arrived, Harry might have had a similar epiphany to Draco at the end of HBP and realised that cold bloodedly killing someone was perhaps nto as easy as it first seemed. 'Harry raised the wand. Now was the moment to do it. now was the moment to avenge his mother and father. He was going to kill Black. He had to kill Black. this was his chance... The seconds lengthened and still Harry stood frozen there, wand poised, Black staring up at him, Crookshanks on his chest. Ron's ragged breathing came from near the bed; Hermione was quite silent. Adn then came a new sound - Muffled footsteps were echoing up though the floor - someone was moving downstairs. "WE'RE UP HERE!" Hermione screamed suddenly. "WE'RE UP HERE - SIRIIUS BLACK - QUICK!" Black made a startled movement that almost dislodged Crookshanks; Hary gripped his wand convulsively - Do it now! said a voice in his head - but the footsteps were thundering up the stairs and Harry still hadn't done it.' (POA "Cat, Rat and Dog" pp.251-52 UK edition) I had never realised before how the two confrontations - Harry's and Draco's - echo each other.... In the case of Bellatrix, Harry is beside himself with grief, fear and rage. But.... Notice.... He does NOT try to cast an Avada Kedavra spell. He has a go at Crucio. That is an attempt to hurt - not murder. Even when canon tells us: 'Hatred rose in Harry such as he had never known before...' (OOTP "The Only One He Ever Feared" p.715 UK edition) Harry does NOT attempt to kill. Laurel Lei: > And what about Draco in the bathroom and the sectasempra spell...? The > spell for enemies... the spell that Snape "reversed"... had Snape not > arrived and known what to do (because he was the "Prince" and possible > author)...???? Would Harry then have become a murderer if Draco had > died? Isn't what he did attempted murder? Geoff: Draco raised the stakes in the duel. The fight began with a Levicorpus and a Leg-Locker Curse and then... 'Harry slipped over as Malfoy, his face contorted, cried, "Cruci-" "SECTUMSEMPRA!" bellowed Hary from the floor, waving his wand wildly.' (HBP "Sectumsempra" pp.488-89 UK edition) Harry was being plain stupid in using an unknown spell and giving into temptation: 'Harry was about to put his book away again when he noticed the corner of a page folded down; turning to it, he saw the Sectumsempra speel, captioned 'For Enemies', that he had marked a few weeks previously. He had still not found out what it did, mainly because he did not want to test it around Hermione but he was considering trying it out on McLaggen the next time he came up behind him unawares.' (Ibid. p484) It must be obvious that he doesn't realise that it could be a highly dangerous spell at this point. Laurel Lei: > Is it believed that he is not a murderer/killer because he was > protecting the Sorcerer's Stone, himself or Ginny? Avenging Sirius? > Does his anger at his victims somehow make him temporarily insane and > not responsible for his actions? Don't get me wrong, I adore J.K. and > Harry and the series of books... but I found it very difficult to > explain to my sons that if he were to harm another like Harry did to > Draco or the others that they wouldn't "just get detentions". Or to > explain to them that it is not okay to state that you would like > to "kill" someone. (Yes, J.K. opened a door for me for discussions > that may not have been opened another way). > > But, how could "we" believe that Harry is NOT capable of murder or > bringing about another's death (per the prophecy or my understanding > of it that one (Voldie or Harry) must "die"). Or are "we" > rationalizing? Is it something that we as humans choose to define > as "NOT murder or a killing" like we often do, because we are in times > of war? > > My opinion of course... I just had to ask this... and I look forward > to your responses... especially Steve's (as I admire his level-head > and thoughtful posts.) Geoff: Harry is very much an everyman like us. We have moments when we act rashly or without thinking. we might even make comments like "I'll kill him for that" but probably are not seriously considering the implications of the statement. As a Christian, I am reminded that, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned not only about murder but also of the lesser sins of retaining anger or contempt for another person even in our thoughts. I know that I personally would find it very difficult to seriously consider action against another person at the level of murder and, as I think I have illustrated, Harry's lapses merely show that he is human. The defence would recommend to the jury that the defendant be acquiitted on all charges. I rest my case. From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Tue Apr 18 12:15:10 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 08:15:10 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: The House of Gaunt In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060418121510.146.qmail@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151066 steven1965aaa wrote: "Steven1965aaa: Riddle and HP were probably the only 2 parselmouths who passes through Hogwarts in many many years. catherine now: Well, if DD could learn parseltoungue, with all the research he was doing on Riddle, he would have learned it, if it were at all possible. If DD happened to already be a parselmouth, we don't know. It does say in the books about Tom and Harry as you said above being the only 2 was it "this century"?. But DD would have "passed through" Hogwarts 139 years ago. That's "many, many years" in my book.... catherine --------------------------------- Share your photos with the people who matter at Yahoo! Canada Photos [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From orgone9 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 02:04:01 2006 From: orgone9 at yahoo.com (Len Jaffe) Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 19:04:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Emphasis on the title: Professor (Was: Who calls Vold... In-Reply-To: <2a8.2a8e1e2.3175991f@aol.com> Message-ID: <20060418020401.46382.qmail@web80602.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151067 puduhepa98 at aol.com wrote: > BTW could any UK or Aussie or Canadian listees... How about an American Anglophile? > ..explain the term "bloody minded"? It means stubborn. Len. From enlil65 at gmail.com Tue Apr 18 12:56:34 2006 From: enlil65 at gmail.com (Peggy Wilkins) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 07:56:34 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: The House of Gaunt In-Reply-To: <6327DC30-08CC-4C4B-A891-815B1AC3B314@stevenmcintosh.com> References: <1789c2360604171948l2cb70f25q54371d8d00ade3bf@mail.gmail.com> <6327DC30-08CC-4C4B-A891-815B1AC3B314@stevenmcintosh.com> Message-ID: <1789c2360604180556n50208376n696c621465bea013@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151068 On 4/17/06, yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com wrote: > stevemac: > I was going back through chapter 10, Bob Ogden's memory - is this the > one in question? > > While reading it, paying very close attention, DD never mentions > anything about understanding Parseltongue. There is a point where DD > asks Harry if he does understand what Ogden does not - but does not > imply that DD understands it himself. Much of the discussion of the > scene afterwards is, in present time, already known by DD (or at > least it seems that way) Peggy: There are two different memories (maybe more? but I definitely recall two) where Dumbledore is there that involve Parseltongue. IIRC the second one is where Tom Riddle goes back and murders his parents, and sets up Morfin for the blame; he speaks Parseltongue with Morfin in this scene. I believe It is this Morfin memory where Dumbledore and Harry discuss what what Morfin and Tom are saying (can't verify this now since I am away from my books). -- Peggy Wilkins enlil65 at gmail.com From enlil65 at gmail.com Tue Apr 18 13:14:58 2006 From: enlil65 at gmail.com (Peggy Wilkins) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 08:14:58 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Harry Potter: A Horcrux In-Reply-To: References: <1789c2360604171954o59500b3bsaf30facc390c785f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1789c2360604180614i788a4a45j5b179e31e9a7d978@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151069 On 4/18/06, latha279 wrote: Brady: > > On 4/17/06, Leonard Kim wrote: [snip] > > > if Harry is a horcrux, then he has to die in book 7... > > > Peggy worte: > > Not necessarily. Now, I don't believe that Harry is a Horcrux, but if > > he were, I can imagine a scenario where Harry and Voldemort switch > > bodies (that is, Harry possesses Voldemort's body and vice versa). If > > this happened, it's possible that Voldemort and his soul piece could > > become one inside Harry's body, and--presto chango!--no more Harry > > Horcrux. Now that's a bit of magic. > > My question is : why didn't that happen in the MoM Battle at the end > of OotP? It should have happened then. Peggy: Perhaps because Harry was still inside his own body at the MoM. In my proposed scenario, Harry has left his body because he is possessing Voldemort. I have imagined something like this: Harry possesses Voldemort; Voldemort is driven out of his own body because of the pain/agony this causes him, and goes into the nearest convenient receptacle, Harry. This mutual possession/body swap hasn't occurred before, so who knows, it may be a possible way to un-Horcrux Harry. I'm not going to argue the feasibility of it (can Harry possess Voldemort or would he want to), but I expect someone will want to ask that. Brady: > Point also is, if there is a piece of Harry in LV, why did he also > suffer mortal agony? He should have felt more comfortable there. Peggy: Good question; I don't have an answer for that one. -- Peggy Wilkins enlil65 at gmail.com From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 13:35:36 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 13:35:36 -0000 Subject: The House of Gaunt In-Reply-To: <20060418121510.146.qmail@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151070 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, catherine higgins wrote: > Well, if DD could learn parseltoungue, with all the research he was doing on Riddle, he would have learned it, if it were at all possible. If DD happened to already be a parselmouth, we don't know. It does say in the books about Tom and Harry as you said above being the only 2 was it "this century"?. But DD would have "passed through" Hogwarts 139 years ago. That's "many, many years" in my book.... Steven1965aaa: Right, it was the diary Riddle who said that. Good catch re: DD's age. But we don't have any indication that DD is a parselmouth. Maybe parselmouth means one can speak it, i.e make the snakelike sounds, but one who is not born a parselmouth could learn to understand it? I just wonder where/from who you would learn? Mermish would have to be understood by people at the ministry in order to communicate with the merpeople, and merpeople of course are intelligent and one could learn ftom them as well. A snake on the other hand is a snake, and since Parselmouths are rare who would you learn from? From kchuplis at alltel.net Tue Apr 18 13:47:33 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 08:47:33 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: The House of Gaunt In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151071 kchuplis: Just wanted to throw my .02 in about understanding parseltongue in the Pensieve scenes.....I don't think one would have needed to understand it to get what was going on there. It seemed very visually indicative as to what they might have been saying (at least one would have a very good idea). Since everything is Harry P.O.V. I'm not sure it matters that DD would or would not. My inclination was to believe that only Harry and LV speak parseltongue. DD is shrewd enough to get the rest by action alone. Just a thought. From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Tue Apr 18 14:01:31 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 10:01:31 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore the parselmouth? (was:Re: The House of Gaunt) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060418140131.47277.qmail@web37002.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151072 Steven1965aaa: A snake on the other hand is a snake, and since Parselmouths are rare who would you learn from? Catherine again: Well, that's the problem. I think someone on the list (I forget who) mentioned that maybe one of the portraits was a parselmouth and he either learned or somehow had the portrait translate the memory. It would be hard for me to believe that Dumbledore would not do everything possible to know exactly what was said during those pensieve scenes. I'm afraid that this might be one of the un-answered questions in the series. I mean, does it really matter if/how DD understood all that. It doesn't really seem all that important to the plot line. It would be a nice-to-know thing. Catherine By the way, has it been discussed before that the portraits in DD's office seem to be much more "alive" than the other portraits we've seen? They seem to be more than catch-phrase reproductions to me.... --------------------------------- Have a question? Yahoo! Canada Answers. Go to Yahoo! Canada Answers [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From belviso at attglobal.net Tue Apr 18 14:18:36 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (sistermagpie) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 14:18:36 -0000 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! (Long) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151073 > Geoff: >I had never realised before how the two confrontations - Harry's and >Draco's - echo each other.... Magpie: Wow, I hadn't either. The connection I had made was that PoA was the only other book besides HBP I could ever think of where Harry and Draco have an "understanding" (though that might be too strong a word) that sets them apart from Ron and Hermione. In HBP it's that Harry knows that it's very possible Draco is up to something more serious than Ron and Hermione can imagine because of the situation with his family. In PoA Malfoy tells Harry if it were his family (killed as a result of Sirius) he'd want revenge. I remember after that conversation Harry says, "Malfoy knows..." (about Sirius) and Ron tells him it would be stupid to listen to anything Malfoy says, as Malfoy would love for Harry to do something stupid and get in trouble. I'm not suggesting it's a big connection between Harry and Draco in that book, but it did stand out to me as the only time there was a subtle shift of perspective. I now think that shift was significant given that we can now see that scene as indeed foreshadowing, and HBP having Ron and Hermione again unable to understand why Harry would give Malfoy any attention at all. I suspect that for JKR this situation is one she can relate to as one that would make you want to murder--the avenging of your parents. In Harry's case it would be revenge; in Draco's case there's a sense of avenging as well, of making things right for them, putting things back the way they should be. But both reach the same moment of, I think you're right, knowing the "time has come" for this "proper" murder to occur, but not doing it. It is, of course, hard to completely parallel them since we as readers know that Dumbledore is a good man and Lucius belongs in jail, and that killing for Voldemort is killing for evil. But then, Harry was about to kill an innocent man as well, because his feelings made it seemed to demand it. -m From willsonkmom at msn.com Tue Apr 18 14:45:06 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 14:45:06 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: <20060418140131.47277.qmail@web37002.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151074 > Catherine again: > It would be hard for me to believe that Dumbledore would not do everything possible to know exactly what was said during those pensieve scenes. I'm afraid that this might be one of the un-answered questions in the series. I mean, does it really matter if/how DD understood all that. It doesn't really seem all that important to the plot line. It would be a nice-to-know thing. Potioncat: This is very interesting! Why is it so hard for this group to think DD is a Parselmouth? Snipping quotes from chp 11 of CoS: >>>Ron says, "It's not a very common gift. Harry, this is bad." ...both Ron and Hermione "were looking as though someone had died." ...Hermione speaking: "It matters,because being able to talk to snakes was what Salazar Slytherin was famous for. That's wy the symbol of Slytherin House is a serpent."<<< The point is, everyone is looking for the Heir of Slytherin and Harry has just demonstrated a skill that was Slytherin's trademark. As I read the section now, that really seems all there is to it. Not that Parselmouth is for Dark Wizards, but that it marked Harry as an Heir os Slytherin. (In people's minds.) >>>In chp 17 CoS Diary!Riddle says about himself and Harry: "Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself." <<< If you ask me, Riddle is assuming a great deal. He's trying to make his ability seem even more rare. Ron says it's not a common gift, but Riddle makes it out as having been absent for nearly 1000 years! DD, on the other hand, is the type to keep his abilities to himself. He does indicate, from time to time, that he has considerable powers, but he doesn't go into details. >>>Now from HBP, chp13, the quote I mentioned upthread: "He was a Parselmouth," interjected Harry. "Yes indeed; a rare ability, and one supposedly connected with the Dark Arts,although as we know,there are Parselmouths amoung the great and good too."<<< Such as Dumbledore and Harry? Potioncat, who would have commented on the Portrait section too, but can't find the canon. From foxmoth at qnet.com Tue Apr 18 14:56:42 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 14:56:42 -0000 Subject: The Sting: Lucius sent Bella (was:Re: LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank...)! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151075 > Neri: > But we did get Bella out of Azkaban, we did get her torturing Neville, > we did get to see Neville in the hospital with his poor mother, and we > did see him becoming something of a fighter, all suggesting buildup > towards a battle between Bella and Neville in Book 7. And after HBP we > also get these darned horthingies all over the place. Blame it on JKR, > but as we are approaching the last installation of the series, it > looks like big ESEs are Out and Horcruxes are In. Pippin: I very much agree that Neville is being developed as the nemesis for Bella. That's one reason I firmly believe that she didn't kill Sirius. The lack of emotional relationship between Neville and Sirius would make Neville as the nemesis of Sirius's killer unsatisfying. But the nemesis of the ESE! character will surely be Harry, and it would sharpen Harry's sense of betrayal to think that Neville and his parents were betrayed as well. As for horcruxes being in and ESE!'s out, ESE!'s are always out. The whole point of "ever so evil" characters is that they seem to be peripheral right up to the moment in the ending chapters when they are finally revealed. As HBP and HP7 are supposed to be two parts of the same book, I suspect the horcrux hunt will proceed as it did in HBP, with Harry delving into the past every few chapters while otherwise attempting to discover/thwart whatever nefarious plan Voldemort has in motion. Meanwhile, the ESE! character, if there is one, will turn up at crucial moments without actually appearing to be involved. Of course there won't be a lot of space for the ESE! to expound on his motives and purpose, but there never is. Fortunately the ESE!'s motives are always and conveniently generic. We don't need to hear about Quirrell's lust for power, because we've learned all about Harry's. We don't need to know about Ginny's loneliness, or the rift between Scabbers and his friends, or Crouch Jr's desire for a surrogate father because all these things are thoroughly explored through Harry. JKR won't have a lot of time to explain what the ESE! character was thinking, but isn't it interesting that Harry now has such outrage over his losses that many long to see him forsake justice and take revenge? And he has multiple grievances against the Ministry as well. > > > > Neri: > > > I'm not sure what is your theory regarding Bella's involvement with > > > the locket Horcrux, but her words in Spinner's End don't seem to fit. > > > > Carol again: > > That's easily remedied. Here's a link to the post: > > > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/145831 > > > > Skip to the paragraph following the lead-in, "Here's an alternative > > scenario for people to shoot down." > > > > Neri: > In your theory above, Bella plays a small part by putting the locket > in the cave, and maybe killing Regulus later. This is quite possible, > of course, but as I wrote, it would make Bella's slip of tongue in > Spinner's End useless as a clue (or even just as a good red herring) > to the location of a Horcrux. We already know that RAB stole the > locket, and it's probably the locket last seen in 12GP by OotP. So > even if it was Bella who put it in the cave in the first place, this > is pretty much immaterial now. For Bella's slip of tongue to be a real > clue it should be relevant for the current location of the Horcrux > she's talking about. Pippin: We need a way for a minor DE such as Regulus to learn a secret as closely guarded as the location of a horcrux. If not Bella, then JKR would have to invent some other means for him to have found out. Pippin From zgirnius at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 15:05:07 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 15:05:07 -0000 Subject: Harry Potter: A Horcrux In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151076 > Geoff: > Number one. Harry apparently kills Voldemort. > Would that happen here and Voldemort become almost a ghost figure? > Presumably, as per the words of the prophecy, Harry would have > vanquished him, but what of the future? zgirnius: 1a) Harry defeats Voldemort by grappling with him and dragging him through the Veil in the Department of Mysteries. He knows he is a Horcrux. Voldemort, Harry, and the soul piece pass from the mortal world forever. Slightly less grim ending: somehow the Veil senses the presence of two souls in Harry, and spits him back out, sans soul bit. I prefer the latter, obviously, I want Harry and Ginny to live a long happy life in the epilogue, but there is nothing paradoxical or in opposition to what appear to be the themes of the story in the grimmer version. Geoff: > Number two. Voldemort kills Harry. this is the worst case scenario > because it would leave Voldemort as the victor in possession of the > tattered remnants of his soul and with no viable opposition to him. > A > new Dark age would descend upon the Wizarding world. zgirnius: You seem to be assuming that there is no way to deal with the Harry Horcrux problem, that this Horcrux cannot be destroyed. But I believe it can be, either before or after the death of Voldemort, and quite possibly without even destroying Harry in the process. Harry killing Voldemort, then stepping behind the Veil, would again work here. Alternatively, if a Dementor could be convinced to Kiss Harry and consume only the Voldy-bit, this would solve the problem. This would require some way of dealing with/controlling a Dementor other than chasing it away with a Patronus. Interestingly, Snape seems to have told his class about such a method. (Whether of not Harry is a Horcrux, I am convinced we will be seeing Dementors again in Book 7). Or, if the Horcrux is not, strictly speaking, the whole of Harry himself, but the *scar*...perhaps it can be removed and then destroyed. I'm not insisting Harry is a Horcrux. I think he might well be. Or, the 'connection' with Voldemort could simply be some unique other kind of 'connection', and when Dumbledore confirms Voldemort transferred part of himself to Harry, he did not mean a part of his soul. But I definitely think that if Harry IS a Horcrux, this does not pose any particular problems for the resolution of the plot. From iam.kemper at gmail.com Tue Apr 18 15:12:08 2006 From: iam.kemper at gmail.com (Kemper) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 08:12:08 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore's Death In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <700201d40604180812x61799b08t6d34fda3fdb60b3c@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151077 Tonks wrote: As you know I see many symbols in the series that point toward a Christian theme. What is confusing is the way in which JKR stirs these symbols and causes them to come out in rather unexpected way, sometimes in very disguised ways and sometimes hidden in plain site. Everything from the names of each book to the mark on Harry forehead are symbols of something more. And so I think are the deaths of both Sirius and DD. Let us start with Sirius. His closest friends and the ones that he hangs out with most are Peter, James and John (Remus John Lupin). This is also true of Jesus. We hear that he frequently went with Peter, James and John. Jesus also transfigured in their presence, and so does Sirius. All of this points to Sirius being a Christ figure. Also we have the fact, so I am told, that the star Sirius is seen as the `morning star' by some and also as the Messianic star that the magi followed. And the morning star is Christ. But the biggest thing is the way in which Sirius dies. Oddly he goes behind the veil in both body and soul. Has anyone else ever done that in the WW? I would think maybe not. This points to the Ascension of Jesus. .. . Kemper now: I can think of no other non-DE character less like Jesus than Sirius. Sirius is arrogant, angry, self-righteous, self-pitying, and unforgiving. He's like an anti-Jesus, if not an anti-Christ. Jesus was crucified and died willingly. Sirius was shoved unwillingly by Bella, tumbling beyond the veil... with a look of surprise, IIRC. To clarify, the Morning Star is Venus. The Dog Star is Sirius. It is unclear which star or astrological event became the Star of Bethlehem that the Magi followed. Going back to Sirius as Jesus that would suggest Harry as Everyman (with the belief that Jesus died of Us). I find this difficult to accept as I, personally, don't relate to Harry who I see as unique, as a hero. Rather, I relate to Ron, Neville, and Luna. Maybe Harry will be the Christ figure, dying knowingly and willing for Ron, Neville, Luna, the Wizarding World.. for all of us Muggles. That would be a good death and maybe a good ending. -Kemper [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 15:47:00 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 15:47:00 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151078 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" wrote: > "He was a Parselmouth," interjected Harry. > "Yes indeed; a rare ability, and one supposedly connected with the > Dark Arts,although as we know,there are Parselmouths amoung the great and good too." > Such as Dumbledore and Harry? Steven1965aaa: If Dubmledore was a parselmouth, wouldn't he have heard and understood the basilisk in the pipes throughout COS? From Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com Tue Apr 18 12:50:37 2006 From: Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com (coldsliversofglass) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 12:50:37 -0000 Subject: Origination of Snape? In-Reply-To: <49BD09CF-741E-42D9-917C-1452AE281D24@alltel.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151079 kchuplis wrote: > > So I'm re-reading a Georgette Heyer novel that I haven't read for > years, "The Foundling", and our hero Gilly runs across a boy who has > run away from his grueling tutor Mr. Snape ( a largely villified > person by young Tom). Imagine my surprise. I do have to wonder if JKR > is a Heyer fan (as anyone in their right mind should be, for such > delightful stories as she wrote are rare.) Has anyone ever heard any > comments on this? coldsliversofglass: No, I haven't really heard any comments on this, but I did do a search online and found that there seems to be more than one parallel in names. Online, someone mentioned that "...there is a character with the last name of Trelawney. Yet more evidence that JKR loves GH." There's also a person called Mrs. Flitwick I believe, in Heyer's Powder and Patch. Hmmm...a good excuse to go back and re-read some of Heyer's books again (Not that one needs an excuse). I wonder how much the names parallel the characters? I mean, if Snape was a tutor I wonder if any of the characters share characteristics as well as names? From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Tue Apr 18 14:02:50 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 10:02:50 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Christianity in HP? (WAS: Dumbledore's Death) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151080 >Rachel > > It seems to me that JKR wouldn't use witches and wizards (often >associated > > with being in cohorts with the devil, see the Salem Witchcraft Trials, >the > > term "witchhunts" which refer to looking for the bad people, and many >other > > negative associations) to express Christianity. Also, I would assume >that > > JKR would respond to the Pope and insist that she was attempting to >teach > > children Christianity, I don't see her allowing the Pope to suggest such > > things about her series if she was really trying to instill Christian > > morals. Rather I see her encouraging children to learn more about the >world > > in which they live and, also, to live morally. A book doesn't need to >teach > > Christianity to teach morality. > >Geoff: >I speak as a evangelical Christian and my response to your first sentence >would be "Why >not?" >For many years, I allowed myself to be swayed by members of my church into >thinking that >the HP books were bad without looking for myself Rachel: Precisely. I'm not saying that ALL (or even most) Christians will be chased away by JKR's use of witches and wizards, however you clearly demonstrated that there are some Christians who (most likely without even reading the books) disagree with its use of magic and therefore regard the books as some form of evil incarnate. Geoff: >Those who argue along the lines of your first paragraph cannot see - or >refuse to see - a >level playing field. C.S.Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien were both staunch >Christians - Lewis a non- >conformist and Tolkien a Catholic. Both of them use the concept of witches >and wizards in >thier books which are considered perfectly legitimate reading material for >Christians. Lewis >gives us the White Witch who, like Voldemort, seeks the complete domination >of Narnia >and has progressed a good deal further along the road to this than JKR in >her Wizarding >World while Tolkien gives us at least three wizards (Gandalf, Saruman and >Radagast) who >started on the side of good (white?) although Saruman has been seduced to >the side of >evil. Sauron can in in many ways be compared to Voldemort although in >Tolkien's cosmos, >he is probably far more evil, being a fallen angel comparable to Satan. Rachel: I concede on your points that both use witches and wizards to illuminate Christian ideals (especially within Lewis' work), however within Narnia the White Witch is clearly a representation of evil. Within the Lord of the Rings, although the wizards tend to be in the spotlight (especially in the case of Gandalf and Saruman), the hobbits are the characters through which the reader is meant to identify with. Tolkein also expresses a need for accepting various cultures (see Legolas and Gimli and their developing friendship throughout the trilogy). The wizards in both cases are used in supporting roles and are not the characters that the reader is meant to identify with. Within Harry Potter however, the witches and wizards are almost all the reader has to identify with. I agree that connections can be drawn between Sauron and Voldemort, however I do not see Voldemort as being a "fallen angel". Geoff: >So, is our line of demarcation revealing discrimination which is misplaced? Rachel: Quite possibly. I just want everyone to read and enjoy the books :-). ~ Rachel From kchuplis at alltel.net Tue Apr 18 16:18:02 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 11:18:02 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Origination of Snape? References: Message-ID: <000601c66303$aafd0c40$b301010a@ConsolidatedTelephone.local> No: HPFGUIDX 151081 ----- Original Message ----- From: coldsliversofglass To: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 7:50 AM Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Origination of Snape? kchuplis wrote: > > So I'm re-reading a Georgette Heyer novel that I haven't read for > years, "The Foundling", and our hero Gilly runs across a boy who has > run away from his grueling tutor Mr. Snape ( a largely villified > person by young Tom). Imagine my surprise. I do have to wonder if JKR > is a Heyer fan (as anyone in their right mind should be, for such > delightful stories as she wrote are rare.) Has anyone ever heard any > comments on this? coldsliversofglass: No, I haven't really heard any comments on this, but I did do a search online and found that there seems to be more than one parallel in names. Online, someone mentioned that "...there is a character with the last name of Trelawney. Yet more evidence that JKR loves GH." There's also a person called Mrs. Flitwick I believe, in Heyer's Powder and Patch. Hmmm...a good excuse to go back and re-read some of Heyer's books again (Not that one needs an excuse). I wonder how much the names parallel the characters? I mean, if Snape was a tutor I wonder if any of the characters share characteristics as well as names? kchuplis: Oh jeez! I forgot all about those. Yes, indeed, I believe JKR read Heyer. Since I am on a bent, I'll have to keep track. I can't remember for sure on Snape if he turns out to be an OK guy the kid just hated or really was unbearable. I'm pretty sure we actually get to meet him IIRC. I'll let you know. Georgette Heyer is the bomb. Ever read Cotillion? Hey, there is a character in there that reminds me of Neville. I love that book. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 16:26:09 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 16:26:09 -0000 Subject: Was Alice an Auror (Was: Subject: Trevor is a Horcrux ) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151082 DA Jones: > > Another minor point. It seems to me a lot of peole say Alice is an > Auror. Frank is an auror obviously, but isthere canon for Alice? I > don't recall. > > Potioncat: > I think, but would not swear on my books, that Frank was an Auror, > but that we were never told Alice was. > Carol responds: In GoF, Barty Crouch Sr. accuses the Lestranges and his son Barty Jr. of torturing the Auror Frank Longbottom to obtain information on Voldemort's whereabouts, and when he failed to give it to him, of torturing his wife as well. No mention is made in that scene, which occurs in "The Pensieve" (GoF Am. ed. 595), of Alice's being an Auror. A few pages later, Dumbledore tells Harry that Frank was an Auror, but again, no mention is made of Alice's being one as well (602). (Side note to Neri: Here's more canon on the Lestranges' torturing the Longbottoms for information on Voldie.) However, in OoP ("Christmas on the Closed Ward"), Neville's gran tells HRH and Ginny that both Longbottoms were Aurors, "tortured into insanity by You kKnow Who's followers." She adds that both of them were "highly gifted" (OoP Am. ed. 514). If there's another reference to Alice as Auror, I don't remember it, which is not to say that it doesn't exist. And Gran, certainly, is an authoritative source, unlikely to be mistaken on the point. Since the books do contain inconsistencies, it may be that JKR, being human, simply forgot to mention that Alice was an Auror the first time around, but I don't think that's the case. It really reads as if the Lestranges were specifically after Frank, and when he didn't talk, they went after his wife as well as a terror tactic. (And if he didn't talk when they tortured her, it's quite likely that he really didn't know Voldie's whereabouts.) Or she could simply have become confused and thought that she had identified them both as Aurors in GoF and consequently made them both Aurors in OoP, but that seems even more likely. I could be all wet here, but I think what happened is that she reacted to the public outcry (well, grumbling) along the lines of "Why is Frank Longbottom an Auror but Alice isn't? Where's the equality in the WW?" and so, to appease her readers, she made Alice an Auror, too. That's just my take on it. There could be other explanations. Carol, thanking Potioncat for her excellent explanation of why Trevor the Toad probably isn't a Horcrux From willsonkmom at msn.com Tue Apr 18 17:09:40 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 17:09:40 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151083 > Steven1965aaa: > > If Dubmledore was a parselmouth, wouldn't he have heard and understood > the basilisk in the pipes throughout COS? Potioncat: Well, not if he wasn't near the pipe at the moment the Basilisk was there. Harry doesn't hear it every time it strikes. (IIRC) I can't remember if DD knew what the monster was or not. He knew the Chamber had been opened. He must have had some idea. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 17:31:46 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 17:31:46 -0000 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! (Long) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151084 Laurel Lei wrote: > > But, over that last year or so, I have read many posts that have touched a nerve, so to speak. They mention that Harry is NOT a murderer or NOT a killer or that he is not capable of it or that they hope he doesn't have to succumb to the murder of Voldemort via the prophecy or even that they would throw their copies of the entire Harry Potter series away if J.K. turned Harry into a murderer in book 7... i.e. someone in Harry's stead would carry out the murder (via the veil, another person does it for him, or by other freakish events he just dies...) > Geoff responded: > You've brought us back onto an interesting discussion subject because we have had some threads about this in the past. I would personally start with a strict dictionary definition of "murder". > > Mine defines the word as: > "The unlawful premeditated killing of one person by another." > > This, in my opinion hinges on the word "premeditated". > Harry is not contemplating killing Quirrell - he is trying to stop him performing the killing curse by the only way he can visualise. > > This is self-defence. Carol responds: Excellent. I wonder if the word "premeditated" might be used in Snape's defense as well. I've snipped most of Geoff's excellent response regarding Quirrell, andhis exemplary canon support. I would add that Voldemort himself says that Quirrell died when he, LV, left his body, exactly like the many animal hosts that LV left to die when he had used up their life force. (Also, lest we forget, Quirrell was a victim of the DADA curse. He had drunk unicorn blood and he had tried to kill Harry. The curse would, IMO, use both of those things against him.) The idea that Harry killed him is, I believe, movie contamination. Harry was unconscious when DD found him and would have been killed himself had DD not arrived at that instant. But the key point is the one that Geoff made: Harry was trying to prevent himself from being killed, not trying to kill Quirrell (or LV via Quirrell). Geoff (re the soul bit in the diary): > If anyone is likely to fulfil the definition of murder here, it is Tom Riddle. He has already indicated that Ginny is dying and he is quite prepred to let Harry die - either by default or, if necessary, by casting a curse. Harry acts instinctively, probably not knowing precisely why. I certainly would consider this within the parameters of self-defence again. Carol adds: Moreover, Harry is stabbing an object that he knows to be filled with Dark magic, a diary, instinctively acting to destroy the *memory* of Tom Riddle. Diary!Tom is not a real person; he tells Harry that he's a memory and that he is stealing Ginny's soul. By destroying the diary, Harry destroys, not Tom himself, who no longer exists as a teenage boy, not Voldemort, who is presently Voldemort, but a memory preserved in a diary as a means of freeing the Basilisk to Kill Muggleborns. At the same time, he is freeing Ginny's soul to reenter her body. Destroying the diary is the only way to save Ginny's life. That Harry is also destroying a Horcrux doesn't enter his mind. He doesn't know what a Horcrux is, or that Voldie has preserved a bit of his soul (torn off through an act of murder) in the diary along with a memory. And, as I have noted elsewhere, the soul appears to be immortal, indestructible. Rather than "murdering" a soul bit, I would argue that Harry is (inadvertently) freeing it to go beyond the Veil. (Voldie puts his soul bits in objects to chain himself permanently to the earth. He wants earthly immortality; he is afraid of what lies beyond the Veil. But each destroyed Horcrux brings him nearer, not to death, but to the human mortality that all of us naturally face and that he has unnaturally tried to prevent.) Destroying the diary, or any Horcrux, is not an act of murder. It is simply undoing the evil magic that binds Voldemort to earthly existence and making it possible for him to die like everyone else. > > Laurel Lei: > > Wouldn't Harry's soul be torn by his involvement in the death of > Quirrel or the "death" of Voldie's soul bit...??? > > > > This has bothered me for quite some time... > > Geoff: > I think not. > Since the examples you quote are not premeditated killing - murder - I believe that no soul-splitting occurred. Carol note: I agree. Harry has no hand in Quirrell's death. He is only fending off being murdered in the only way possible. And a soul bit is not a person and cannot die. (A soul can be sucked into darkness and oblivion by an Dementor, but even then, I think, it isn't "dead." Death is "the next great adventure," the journey beyond the Veil. And that, IMO, is what happens to the soul bits in the destroyed Horcruxes, very different from killing a person, particularly through an act of premeditated murder for, say, revenge or to acquire a desired object like a locket or a golden cup.) In the case of the diary, no murder occurred. In the case of Quirrell, if there was a murder, it was committed by Voldemort in fleeing Dumbledore and abandoning the body of his mortally weakened host. Laurel Lei: > > I also believe that Harry would have killed Sirius if Lupin hadn't arrived. Harry had stated as much. (Obviously Sirius dying at that time wasn't in J.K.'s plot-line). > Geoff: > Here, I might be willing to agree with you. Although, I wonder if Remus hadn't arrived, Harry might have had a similar epiphany to Draco at the end of HBP and realised that cold bloodedly killing someone was perhaps nto as easy as it first seemed. > Carol responds: I agree that Harry was angry enough to kill, or thought he was. But note how long he stood over Sirius Black, who was lying wandless on the ground, and did nothing. And there's also the small matter or his not knowing the killing curse at that time and quite likely not having the ability to cast it even if he knew the incantation. Note Crouch/Moody's comment in GoF that he doubted if the entire class of Gryffindor fourth years could have given him so much as a nosebleed by pointing their wands at him and shouting the incantation. Bellatrix later says that you have to mean an Unforgiveable Curse to cast it, and though she is speaking specifically of the Cruciatus Curse, which Harry attempts but fails to cast properly, I think it applies to Avada Kedavra and Imperio as well. Note that Harry later *prevents* Black and Lupin from killing Pettigrew, whom he knows to be a traitor and a murderer. I don't think he could have killed Black, even in righteous anger, even knowing the spell. > Laurel Lei: > > And I believe that Harry would have killed Bella in the MOM during/post battle. > Geoff: > In the case of Bellatrix, Harry is beside himself with grief, fear and rage. > > But.... Notice.... > > He does NOT try to cast an Avada Kedavra spell. He has a go at Crucio. That is an attempt to hurt - not murder. Even when canon tells us: 'Hatred rose in Harry such as he had never known before...' Harry does NOT attempt to kill. Carol responds: Exactly. And we see the same thing with Harry and Snape after Snape kills Dumbledore (for whatever reason). Harry is furious and driven by revenge, but he doesn't attempt to kill. (I am, BTW, concerned about this desire for revenge, which I think could be potentially damaging to the soul and which I see as the reason that Harry must forgive Snape, whether or not Snape deserves it. If Love is Harry's weapon against Voldemort, he can't be hampered by hatred and anger and the desire for retribution. His motives must be pure. And I believe that the Unforgiveable Curses are so-called for a reason. Snape is right: Harry must not use them. They are, to use Tolkien's language for a moment, the weapons of the Enemy. Again, I'm concerned about Harry's willingness (which is not the same as ability) to use the Cruciatus Curse as an instrument of revenge, but I don't see him as capable of murder. Carol, who thinks that Harry acquired the power of possession from LV at Godric's Hollow and that his defeat of Voldemort will somehow involve that power From tonks_op at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 17:35:16 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 17:35:16 -0000 Subject: Christianity in HP? (WAS: Dumbledore's Death) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151085 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Rachel Crofut" wrote: > Rachel responding to Tonks: if you take a look at many main-stream religions, their morals are strikingly similar to those of Christianity. Christianity does not need to be the spear-head of JKR's message, regardless of the subtlety in which she does so. --------------- Rachel responding to Geoff: I'm not saying that ALL (or even most) Christians will be chased away by JKR's use of witches and wizards, however you clearly demonstrated that there are some Christians who (most likely without even reading the books) disagree with its use of magic and therefore regard the books as some form of evil incarnate. Geoff: >So, is our line of demarcation revealing discrimination which is misplaced? Rachel: Quite possibly. I just want everyone to read and enjoy the books :- ). ------------- Tonks: Does this mean that if JKR is using Christian symbolism that we should not tell anyone for fear that they will not read the books? Or as some have suggested that by pointing out what seems to be blatant Christian symbolism that we are merely trying to justify the books to other Christians? I expect I will get some flak for pointing this out. And as a former atheist I can understand. There seems to be an elephant in our living room that we are stepping around. It seems to me that many people appear to be very hostile to the idea that JKR might be using Christian ideas and symbols in her work. If she is, what of it? It is not a book FOR Christians. It is a book with symbols from her own religion and she is sharing what she believes. I don't think that she is doing this to `save the world' or the reader's soul as the bible thumpers might do. I think the message as I said before is a universal one, but that does not negate the fact that while she uses many symbols that are part of the collective unconscious, she is also using symbols and ways of putting them together that can not be interpreted in any other way then by the Gospels. She is a genius in the way in which she has done it, but she has done it never the less. --------- Rachel: I would suggest that the traits within DD and Harry (which undoubtedly many Christians possess) are those that JKR admires and believes should be held by all people - that of acceptance, trust, and, most importantly, love. Tonks: So what will happen when the series is over and JKR says that the model for DD was Jesus? Will that make people think that she is pushing her faith? It will not say that to me. I think that she is using many forms for her storytelling and one of them is the Gospel. That IMO does not mean that she is saying that Christianity is the only way. Because she may have a universal message does not mean that she is not using the Gospel as a model for what she is writing. The symbolism is just to obvious for it to be anything else. Tonks_op (heading for cover in an undisclosed location.) ;-) From eggplant107 at hotmail.com Tue Apr 18 18:00:14 2006 From: eggplant107 at hotmail.com (eggplant107) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 18:00:14 -0000 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151086 "Laurel Lei" wrote: > I found it very difficult to explain to > my sons that if he were to harm another > like Harry did to Draco or the others > that they wouldn't "just get detentions". > Or to explain to them that it is not okay > to state that you would like to "kill" someone. I too would find it difficult to explain that to my son, lets see . "Son if somebody attacks you with lethal force, as Draco and Quirrelmort did to Harry don't try to defend yourself, just stand there and die." no that doesn't sound quite right, let me rephrase that, "Son if somebody attacks you with lethal force then get medieval on their ass." Harry is a good man but that doesn't mean he's a wimp. Eggplant From yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com Tue Apr 18 14:54:29 2006 From: yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com (yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 09:54:29 -0500 Subject: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151087 > Potioncat: > This is very interesting! Why is it so hard for this group to think > DD is a Parselmouth? stevemac: I don't think anybody has a problem with whether or not DD is a parselmouth... it is whether there is any basis for it in the canon. From yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com Tue Apr 18 17:22:00 2006 From: yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com (yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 12:22:00 -0500 Subject: Was Alice an Auror (Was: Subject: Trevor is a Horcrux ) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151088 > DA Jones: > > > Another minor point. It seems to me a lot of peole say Alice is an > > Auror. Frank is an auror obviously, but isthere canon for Alice? I > > don't recall. > > > > Potioncat: > > I think, but would not swear on my books, that Frank was an Auror, > > but that we were never told Alice was. > > stevemac: Considering Neville's age at the time, 2yrs old? It's possible that she had left her job as an auror to stay at home and take care of Neville, and so at the TIME of the event, only Mr. Longbottom would have been an auror and would have had information. Considering how dangerous a job being an auror is, I don't think it would be unreasonable to say that she might taken time off. From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Tue Apr 18 18:44:36 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 18:44:36 -0000 Subject: Christianity in HP? (WAS: Dumbledore's Death) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151089 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Rachel Crofut" wrote: Geoff: > Sauron can in in many ways be compared to Voldemort although in > >Tolkien's cosmos, > >he is probably far more evil, being a fallen angel comparable to Satan. Rachel: > I agree that connections can be > drawn between Sauron and Voldemort, however I do not see Voldemort as being > a "fallen angel". Geoff: That was never my intent. I hoped that I had structured the sentence to make that clear. My meaning was that Sauron is far more evil because he is a fallen angel. He is, as I have pointed out in other posts, an immortal, being a Maia - which the wizards were also. Voldemort is quite definitely human despite delusions of grandeur about being immortal. From bboyminn at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 19:15:45 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 19:15:45 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's Death & HP Religious Comparison. In-Reply-To: <700201d40604180812x61799b08t6d34fda3fdb60b3c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151090 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Kemper wrote: > > Tonks wrote: > As you know I see many symbols in the series that point toward > a Christian theme. What is confusing is the way in which JKR > stirs these symbols and causes them to come out in rather > unexpected way, sometimes in very disguised ways and sometimes > hidden in plain site. Everything from the names of each book to > the mark on Harry forehead are symbols of something more. And so > I think are the deaths of both Sirius and DD. > > ...edited... > > Kemper now: > I can think of no other non-DE character less like Jesus than > Sirius. > > Sirius is arrogant, angry, self-righteous, self-pitying, and > unforgiving. He's like an anti-Jesus, if not an anti-Christ. > Jesus was crucified and died willingly. Sirius was shoved > unwillingly by Bella, tumbling beyond the veil... with a look > of surprise, IIRC. > > ...edited... > > > Maybe Harry will be the Christ figure, dying knowingly and > willing for Ron, Neville, Luna, the Wizarding World.. for all > of us Muggles. That would be a good death and maybe a good > ending. > > -Kemper bboyminn: I was going to respond to Tonks but Kemper has created a better opening for my comments. But before I start, let me say that I am running off on a tangent (as usual), and mean no disrespect to either Tonk or Kemper, both of whom I think are very clever and insightful. In a sense, I am responding to the concept in general rather than to any one specific person, so keep that in mind; it's nothing personal. First on the Sirius/Jesus/Christ comparison, which I admit is even more tangental than the real point I'm going to make. Kemper says that Sirius was arrogant and Jesus was not. Well, of course, we don't see our greatest religious Hero as arrogant, but let's ask the Jewish scholars and rabbis at the time what THEY thought of Jesus. Jesus flouted every convention. He milled grain on Sunday. He threw money lenders out of the temple. He defined conventional thinking and the accumulated wisdom of countless generations of religious thinkers. He essentially told them all that they were wrong, and that they could not possible be qualified to speak for God, yet he, himself, seemed to think he was more than qualified to speak for God. In his day and age, he must have seemed the most arrogant man who ever lived from a religious perspective. You say Jesus was forgiving, but while he easily forgave the miserable, poor, and wretched of society, he would not suffer fools easily. He did not easily forgive the religious scholars and their self-proclaimed piousness, or there absolute condemation of anyone who dared defy them. Jesus was a rebel, and that's enough said on a really tangental tangent that is barely on topic. Now to the real topic which again is very much of a side note. When ever the subject of religion comes up in HP discussions, everyone invariably tries to make HP a symbolic retelling of Jesus's story. Admittedly, I'm stretching the concept a bit, but that's roughly what it amounts to. We try to decide who the Jesus character is, we try to find symbolic crucifixions and redemption themes. Yet, is that really necessary? Why does every 'good' and 'moral' story have to be a symbolic retelling of the Christ story? Why can't this simply be a good moral tale of good vs evil that is founded in a person's sense of right and wrong that, since they are a Christian, also founded in Christianity. Certainly with that as a foundation, we are likely to find Christian symbols, but do they have to be such direct and obvious symbols? Maybe there is no character that represents Christ in this story, but rather represents the courage and sense of self-sacrifice we see in all true heroes who make the hero's journey. Hero's Journeys in the ancient epic tales that predate the dominance of Christianity are still founded on that same sense of synbolic death and rebirth, that same sense of courage and self-sacrifice, that same sense that some things are inherently evil and some people, despite their flaws, are inherently good. In the sense of symbolic rebirth, Harry has died and been reborn many times; at least once in each book. This occurs in the way explained by Joseph Campbell in his explanation of the hero's journey. At the end of each book, Harry is a new person. His old sense of self has been reformed by his heroic experience, just as the heroes of epic tales are reborn by their trials. Yet other characters are also reborn from their experiences. Hermione was reborn after the confrontation with the troll in the first book. The old fussy absolute-adherence-to-the-rules Hermione died, and a new Hermione, with a far more accurate and more morally sound sense of when and when not to break the rules was formed. One could say that Ron has died and been reborn. At least twice, Ron has symbolically stood in front of Harry and was willing to sacrifice himself for Harry. That is very Christ-like. Further, Ron has certainly grown and changed in the series. The Ron we see today, is not the Ron of "The Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone". And we can likely find similar symbolic death and rebirth for other characters. So, does that make them all the Christ figure in the book? Well, in a way, Yes, but in a way, No. In some ways, I think the story of Jesus is not unique when view from the perspective of a Hero's Journey. Jesus was symbolically acting out the story of heroes back to the beginning of time, or at least to the beginning of epic hero's journeys. And that brings me to the key point. Harry Potter's story is symbolic of Christ only in the sense that Christ is symbolic of the universal hero's journey. Ask yourself, why do Buddhist, Shinto, Hindu, Muslim, and atheists all relate to this story so strongly? I say it is because these books draw on some universal ancient epic sense of heroism that transends all cultures, a sense of right and wrong, a universal sense of justice, and on the heroic sense of self-sacrifice for the greater good. On the sense that there is something greater in the universe than the individual, but that greater sense is, oddly, symbolicly represented by the everyman individual who goes against all odd and against all wisdom, who defies appearent logic, morals, and rule of law, and transends the mundane, and acts with a sense of higher virtue. A sense of virtue that is itself universal. Any character who plays out the universal themes of epic hero is Christ-like because Christ himself was merely an epic hero playing out those same themes. I think that is the real message of the books, that universal timeless cross-cultural themes of loyalty, courage, true morality, and virtue are found in everyday heroes as well as exceptional heroes. Maybe in seeing the heroism in the flawed struggling everyman of Harry Potter and his friends, we can find a greater sense of virtue and heroism in our own lives, and in that sense, in finding a greater shelf within our selves. In that sense, this is a very Christ-like story. So there you have it. Hummm... Did I actually say anything? Steve/bboyminn From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Tue Apr 18 20:02:17 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 20:02:17 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's Death & HP Religious Comparison. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151091 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" wrote: bboyminn: > Jesus flouted every convention. He milled grain on Sunday. He threw > money lenders out of the temple. Geoff: If I may pick up on one or two snippets from your notes. Jesus did not "mill" grain on the Sabbath (not Sunday to be accurate). His disciples had picked wheat while walking in the fields and rolled it in their hands to extract the grain. This the Pharisees interpreted as "milling" and therefore considered his followers to be Sabbath-breakers. The reason he threw out the money changers was that they converted the ordinary money of the people into temple money which they needed to buy the doves or lambs for sacrifice and were careful to make a more-than-small killing on the side at the expense of the poor. Steve: > Now to the real topic which again is very much of a side note. > > When ever the subject of religion comes up in HP discussions, everyone > invariably tries to make HP a symbolic retelling of Jesus's story. > Admittedly, I'm stretching the concept a bit, but that's roughly what > it amounts to. We try to decide who the Jesus character is, we try to > find symbolic crucifixions and redemption themes. Yet, is that really > necessary? Geoff: I don't. I do not see Harry Potter as a re-telling of the story of Jesus. For me, the story is strongly Christian but, as I have said before, I do not look for a Christ figure because I do not expect or want to see one. I look for a Christ-like figure which is NOT the same thing at all. Steve: > Any character who plays out the universal themes of epic hero is > Christ-like because Christ himself was merely an epic hero playing out > those same themes. I think that is the real message of the books, that > universal timeless cross-cultural themes of loyalty, courage, true > morality, and virtue are found in everyday heroes as well as > exceptional heroes. Geoff: I hope that in the first sentence of the preceding paragraph, you meant that that is /your/ vision of who Christ was. Otherwise, as a practising Christian, I think I would be compelled to take umbrage over your remark... and I am not referring to the dear Professor. From bboyminn at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 20:28:20 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 20:28:20 -0000 Subject: The House of Gaunt -DD & parsletongue In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151092 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Karen wrote: > > kchuplis: > > ... my .02 in about ... parseltongue in the Pensieve scenes.... > I don't think one would have needed to understand it to get what > was going on there. It seemed very visually indicative as to what > they might have been saying ... My inclination was to believe > that only Harry and LV speak parseltongue. DD is shrewd enough > to get the rest by action alone. Just a thought. > bboyminn: I've posted my opinion on this before, but at the extreme posting rate of this group, that could just as well have been a million years ago. First, some preliminary information- Although I am extremely out of practice, I used to be able to distinguish between the various Asian languages when I heard them. It was exciting when I first realized it, I was in an Asian grocery and overheard a conversation that I recognised as Chinese. Having said that, I confess that I don't speak a word of Vietnamese, Lao, Cambodian, Japanese, Korean, or Chinese. But each language has its particular cadence and intonation. My point is that Dumbledore doesn't have to understand Parseltongue to know that he is listening to it. Dumbledore was probably aware that the Gaunts were likely to speak Parseltongue, and when they started speaking in hisses, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Further, as Kchuplis implies, a great deal of content can be surmised by body language, tone of voice, and demeanor. I don't have to speak Chinese to know when I have offended a Chinese person, or when they are angry, or sad, or happy, or whatever; it shows very clearly in their reactions. When Dumbledore asked Harry if he understood what the Gaunts were saying, I think he was just checking to see that Harry was paying attention, that he was comprehending the sounds as language. While Dumbledore explained it later, this was a clue in the moment as to who they were viewing in the memory, and it was important that Harry understand in the moment what this clue meant. So, to the central question, NO, I don't think Dumbledore understands Parseltongue, but I think he recognises it when he hears it. Also, we know that understanding and speaking Parseltongue is a rare gift, and that it is indeed just that, a gift, not a skill that is easily picked up easily. For what it's worth. Steve/bboyminn From puduhepa98 at aol.com Tue Apr 18 21:34:52 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 17:34:52 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] When did the Lestranges attack the Longbottoms? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <8C831470FF0B5DA-1378-94D1@MBLK-D29.sysops.aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151093 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, puduhepa98 at ... wrote: > > > Draeconin: > > I thought the Longbottoms were tortured into catatonia by Voldemort himself? > Beatrice: > >This occurs 1 year after Harry goes to the Dursleys. When Harry and Neville are just over 2 years old. > > Nikkalmati: > Sorry, I missed the source for this date. How do we know the torture occurred at this time? If it is true, I have to give up my theory that the DEs went immediately to the Longbottoms when LV disappeared because they knew his itinerary to be 1. Potters 2. Longbottoms. When he disappeared, they went at once to his next stop. Carol responds: The exact date is unclear. All we know forcertain is that it occurred at some point after Godric's Hollow, when the WW thought it was safe, and that Sirius Black saw his cousin and her crew enter Azkaban some time after he himself was imprisoned. My guess, given the statement that the WW thought it was safe, is that it occurred many months after Godric's Hollow, after the arrests of a number of Death Eaters made the WWfeel much more secure than the mere vaporization of Voldemort. (People coming out from under Imperius Curses, real or feigned, was another sign that Voldie was really gone.) Life, I'm guessing, took a while to return to normal. Another, more definitive clue is the description of Barty Crouch Sr. in each of the Pensieve memories in GoF. He grows progressively grayer and more stressed with each memory (they're presented in chronological order). In the first memory, the Karkaroff hearing, which occurs after some of the DEs have already been killed or arrested, Crouch's hair is dark, his face much less lined than in the other memories, and he looks "trim and fit" (GoF Am. ed. 587). And yet this scene clearly occurs some time after Godric's Hollow; Moody says that he was looking for Karkaroff for six months; Wilkes and Rosier have already been killed by Aurors; Mulciber, Dolohov, Travers, and Mulciber are in Azkaban; Snape has been cleared by the court. The Bagman trial apparently comes next in the chronological sequence. Crouch's son has not yet been arrested, yet Crouch Sr. looks "more tired and somehow fiercer, gaunter" (591). Clearly some time has passed since the Karkaroff hearing, but it's impossible to know how much: enough, perhaps a month or two, to show that he's under more stress than before. Perhaps he's starting to have serious doubts about his son. In the final scene, the sentencing of the Lestranges and Barty Jr., the strain has caught up with Crouch. He looks "gaunter and greyer than ever before," and a nerve is twitching in his temple (594). Such marked changes in his appearance, striking enough to be noticed by Harry, indicate to me that the Lestrange's trial (if it can be called that) occurs at least several months after the Karkaroff hearing, which seems to occur at least six months after GH (assuming that Moody began searching for Karkaroff after Voldemort's fall). That would make Harry and Neville 21 months old at the time of the Karkaroff hearing and more than a few months older when the Lestranges and Barty Jr. are tried. I would say that Beatrice's guess that the Longbottoms were Crucio'd when both boys were two years old as close to the mark as we can get, assuming that the trial took place soon after the actual torture and not nine or ten months later. So I don't think that Bellatrix et al. went immediately to the Longbottoms' after Voldie was vaporized or that they knew Voldie's itinerary. If you've been reading the Lucius Sting/"were sent" thread, you know that they definitely didn't know about the Prophecy, so unless someone told them that the Longbottoms were most likely the next victims on the agenda, they probably didn't know that, either. So putting everything together, I'd say that they "were sent" to the Longbottoms by person or persons unknown (Lucius?) at least eight to ten months after Godric's Hollow, maybe more, depending on how long it took Mr. Crouch's hair to turn from dark (Karkaroff hearing) to grey (Lestrange trial). It's at least clear that the attack didn't occur immediately after Godric's Hollow. One more thing that has nothing to do with the date of the trialbut doesrelate to the Pensieve scenes. One poster (sorry, don't remember who) suggested that Rabastan Lestrange (or whichever brother was staring blankly at Mr. Crouch) had been Imperio'd. I don't think so, given his behavior at the MoM, which is typical DE. (Rabastan was Crabbe's partner and was with him till Crabbe got attacked by a time turner, after which he seems to have joined with Rodolphus and Bella.) So my guess is that the blank stare indicates either Occlumency (note that Snape's eyes look like tunnels the first time Harry stares into them) or the influence of the Dementors, which may already draining his presumably small store of happiness. Carol, oddly intrigued by Rabastan but without the slightest hope for his redemption Beatrice: > >This occurs 1 year after Harry goes to the Dursleys. When Harry and Neville are just over 2 years old. > > Nikkalmati: > Sorry, I missed the source for this date. How do we know the torture occurred at this time? If it is true, I have to give up my theory that the DEs went immediately to the Longbottoms when LV disappeared because they knew his itinerary to be 1. Potters 2. Longbottoms. When he disappeared, they went at once to his next stop. >Carol responds: >The exact date is unclear. All we know forcertain is that it occurred >at some point after Godric's Hollow, when the WW thought it was safe, >and that Sirius Black saw his cousin and her crew enter Azkaban some >time after he himself was imprisoned. >>My guess, given the statement that the WW thought it was safe, is that it occurred many months after Godric's Hollow, after the arrests of a number of Death Eaters made the WWfeel much more secure than the mere vaporization of Voldemort. Another, more definitive clue is the description of Barty Crouch Sr. in each of the Pensieve memories in GoF. He grows progressively grayer and more stressed with each memory (they're presented in chronological order). In the first memory, the Karkaroff hearing, which occurs after some of the DEs have already been killed or arrested The Bagman trial apparently comes next in the chronological sequence. Crouch's son has not yet been arrested, In the final scene, the sentencing of the Lestranges and Barty Jr., the strain has caught up with Crouch. He looks "gaunter and greyer than ever before," and a nerve is twitching in his temple (594). >>Such marked changes in his appearance, striking enough to be noticed by Harry, indicate to me that the Lestrange's trial (if it can be called that) occurs at least several months after the Karkaroff hearing, which seems to occur at least six months after GH (assuming that Moody began searching for Karkaroff after Voldemort's fall). That would make Harry and Neville 21 months old at the time of the Karkaroff hearing and more than a few months older when the Lestranges and Barty Jr. are tried. I would say that Beatrice's guess that the Longbottoms were Crucio'd when both boys were two years old as close to the mark as we can get, assuming that the trial took place soon after the actual torture and not nine or ten months later. Nikkalmati: Good observations and I can't really quarrel with them, but I think my view is still possible. I take "when the wizarding world thought it was safe" to be part of the preceeding clause, not a modifying clause i.e. immediately after LV disappeared. The rejoycing in PS/SS started immediately and I think most people in WW were not worried after LV was gone. A mistake of course. Even if the trials dragged on for a long time, that does not mean Bella and company were not on the loose at this time, being hunted down over that year, or even that they were rotting in some cell having already been arrested a year before at the Longbottoms. I do agree that your scenerio is just as likely to be correct based on what we know. Nikkalmati [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 21:45:52 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 21:45:52 -0000 Subject: The effects of the Dursleys on Harry (Was: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP ) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151094 Carol earlier: > > Opinions on how those first years shaped him, anyone? Is he or is he not better fitted to be the savior of the Wizarding World by having lived with the Dursleys for eleven years? Did he or did he not develop the qualities I specified an/or other strengths and virtues through living with the Dursleys? > > Again, I'm talking about the *character traits* he acquired through sleeping (not living!) in a broom cupboard for eleven years, having to do chores while his pampered cousin watched or played with his toys, wearing hand-me-downs, not getting quite enough to eat, and being frequently yelled at and ordered around. Not an ounce of timidity in sight, and, oddly, perhaps, no inclination to become a bully himself. > > Whatever faults he may have, I think we all agree that he has some noble and heroic qualities, and those qualities must have developed either *because of* or *in spite of* his upbringing by the Dursleys. > > If there's a third option, I'd be indebted to anyone who points it out. > > Alla responded: > > No, I don't think that his living with Dursleys shaped him to > become a better saviour of the WW, I really don't. I think that the > third option is that is who Harry is, the essential part of his > character. > > How he developed his qualities? I suspect that first year and a half > of being LOVED by his parents played a significant role. Is it > possible in JKR's world that Harry was born with such qualities? I > think it is possible. > > I think that JKR's world is largely essential in nature. Just look > at the Dudley,which Minerva describes and Dudley is what couple > months older than Harry? > > And we of course remember Tom Riddle bullying habits of early age. > > I think young Harry already had in himself a lot of his heroic > nature. His sufferings at Dursleys could have strengthen those or > not, or make Harry like Tom Riddle, we don't know. > > So, to answer your question, no, I don't think Harry NEEDED to live > with Dursleys to develop his nature. It is essential of course to > make the hero suffer in literature, but besides blood protection, I > don't see any GOOD things Harry acquired in Dursleys and moreover, > even if we knew that Harry needed it to become a saviour of WW, I > think that he should not have be nade to go through that, because > that was not Dumbledore's decision to make, if he had some shred of > decency in him and I think Albus IS a decent guy. > Carol responds: So you're saying that Harry is who he is because of innate character trait (and perhaps a few powers acquired at Godric's Hollow)? That he is the product of his genes and nothing else, that the years of living with the Dursleys and the subsequent years at school had no effect on him? Why complain about psychological abuse, then, if Harry is some superior being who is not affected by it? Why would the love his parents showed him during his first fifteen months affect him when the treatment by other adults did not? How could those first fifteen months overshadow everything else he went through when he doesn't even remember them? I agree that there are essentialist elements in the HP books (notably the character traits of the young Tom Riddle and DD's statement that our choices *show* who we are rather than make us who we are) that I find rather disturbing. But the books emphasize the theme of choice, and choice would be meaningless if it were predetermined by the underlying "innate" nature of the characters. Second chances would be pointless, as well, since the essential traits of the character would not be changed by the opportunity to forego folly or evil and pursue the cause of good. And yet Dumbledore, JKR's spokesman in many instances, is constantly offering second chances. It would be sad, IMO, if he were wrong to do so because second chances are doomed to failure by the innate character of the individual to whom they are offered. And I am not just talking about Snape here. Or just Draco. If the essence of a child is predetermined, why worry about a child's placement in the Dark-magic-oriented, pureblood-celebrating environment of Slytherin? The child is what he is by your argument, and nothing can change him. But I see Draco, for example, as the product of his environment as well as his pureblood genes. He's been taught the pureblood ethic and the "values" of the DEs since birth. Surely he's at least as much the product of his environment as of his genetic inheritance, surely his parents' words and example influenced his thinking, and if that's true for Draco, it's true for Harry as well, though he rejected rather than accepted that example. So did Sirius Black. (I'll grant you that Tom Riddle seems to have been born evil--his upbringing at the orphanage seems to have been neutral, not pushing him in either direction--but he's the exception, not the rule. And surely even he had choices--should I or shouldn't I hang Billy's rabbit from the rafters--and he chose to do evil. Perhaps, after awhile, the choice became authomatic, but still, it was there. He could have refrained from evil and he chose not to do so.) Harry also has choices, even at the Dursleys. He can choose to retaliate and be punished or to avoid punishment by refraining from offending the Dursleys; he can choose whether to harbor a grudge against them for a particular incident or to let it go; he can choose whether to act like a bully himself at school by picking on smaller children or to refrain from bullying, rejecting the Dursleys as role models. And as for Dudley, do you really think that he was born a spoiled brat and that his mother's indulgence of his temper tantrums had nothing to do with his continuing to throw them? Surely the sixteen-month-old Dudley would not have kicked his mother had she not condoned it. I am not saying that Harry "needed" to live with the Dursleys, as you put it, to develop those traits, but I do think that living with the Dursleys helped him to develop them. I doubt that he would have been the same person (even with the scar and the events at Godric's Hollow in his past) if he had been raised as James was raised. There would be little opportunity to develop humility in such an environment and little chance for learning to endure hardship if he never experienced it. So my first question is whether you (not just Alla but anybody reading this post) agree that Harry has the qualities I listed--humility, resilience, resistance to bullying, the ability to react quickly (either instinctively or by second nature) to the threat of danger--or if not these specific traits then your own list of virtues that uniquely qualify him to be the hero of the story. And my second question is, do you really think that he was born with these traits and did not develop them through interaction with his environment? If they are indeed innate, then no credit can go to Harry for developing them, and fate is determined solely by who we are born to be. If the good guys are innately good, the bad guys are innately bad, and their essence will determine that good triumphs over evil, why are we reading this book? We might as well watch Saturday morning cartoons. Carol, again asking posters in general to consider Harry's character proto-heroic traits at the beginning of SS/PS and what effect, if any, living with the Dursleys had on the development of those traits and to express their views on how he acquired those traits despite/because of living with the Dursleys From miles at martinbraeutigam.de Tue Apr 18 21:52:38 2006 From: miles at martinbraeutigam.de (Miles) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 23:52:38 +0200 Subject: Christianity in HP? (WAS: Dumbledore's Death) References: Message-ID: <013e01c66332$699efea0$14b2a8c0@rechnerchen> No: HPFGUIDX 151095 I don't see any contradiction between "JRK is a Christian, she uses Christian symbols and transports a Christian message" and "Harry Potter is universal and its message is as well". It's possible to find at least two possible synthesises for it. First synthesis: The message of the book is not theological, it is about moral. Assuming Rowling's personal moral is based on her Christian faith, and assuming that she puts her moral into the HP series, the result does not have to be distinctively Christian. If you just look at Christian rules how a good person should behave towards other people (love them, be true, don't bear false witness, etc), you will find very similar rules within most religions, and only few atheist thinkers would object these rules. Tonks wrote: > I was at a HP convention in Canada in 2004 in which someone > presented a paper entitled "What is a Good Jewish Boy Doing in a > Place Like This" (paraphrased). The author made a good case for > Harry from a Jewish point of view using Jewish symbolism. Miles now: Apart from the origin of Jesus' doctrine, it fits into my first synthesis: If you don't know whether a good person is Jewish or Christian (and we know that in the HP series there is not a single word about 'formal' religions up to now) you won't be able to distinguish the good Jew from the good Christian (or good Buddhist, Asatru.....) only because of his doings. Christian writer, universal message - it's all the same in the result. Second synthesis: We do see many Christian symbols and allegories in the books. This wouldn't be a surprise even with JKR being an atheist - she is a well-educated European, and Europe is mainly affected by Christianity. So, if Rowling wanted to use symbols her readers can understand, she had no chance to find many symbols without Christian meaning. But - in two thousand years, Christianity adopted many, many symbols of older religions it displaced. They got new interpretations (Christmas Tree, Easter eggs, Easter fires (known in England/US?).....), but they are older than Christianity is. The basic miracle of Jesus' birth (virgin), death (sacrifice) and resurrection is not an Christian "invention", the principles are very, very old and we know them from ancient religions all over the world. So again, being Christian and being universal, and Christian and universal symbols are the same or better: can appear identical - thesis and antithesis merge. Don't misunderstand me: I do think that Rowling's faith is important for Harry Potter, and for me the truth of Christian faith is not watered-down by its universal qualities, on the contrary the truth is deepened. But I think it's important that Harry Potter is for all people, not only for Christians. > Rachel: > The new Pope is indeed against the Harry Potter books, though I do > know he > does not speak for all Christians, not even all Catholics. Miles: There is no official position of the Roman Catholic Church concerning Harry Potter. If there is any inofficial position, it is mildly positive. See: http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/home.php?page=docs/pope > Tonks: > It seems to me that many > people appear to be very hostile to the idea that JKR might be using > Christian ideas and symbols in her work. If she is, what of it? It > is not a book FOR Christians. It is a book with symbols from her own > religion and she is sharing what she believes. I don't think that > she is doing this to `save the world' or the reader's soul as the > bible thumpers might do. Miles ... agrees so far. > Tonks: > I think the message as I said before is a > universal one, but that does not negate the fact that while she uses > many symbols that are part of the collective unconscious, she is > also using symbols and ways of putting them together that can not be > interpreted in any other way then by the Gospels. Miles ... disagrees here. I'd be happy if you could point out symbols and combinations that are "originally" Christian. I doubt very much you can find very much, if any. As I mentioned, even the core elements of Christianity had been very old two thousand years ago. Another example: the two main Commandments Jesus gave us (love God and your neighbour) are a quote from Thora and not genuine. The elements Christianity consists of aren't genuine but universal, their combination is unique. But symbols in the Potterverse which can only (!) be understood as Christian? I doubt it. > Tonks: > So what will happen when the series is over and JKR says that the > model for DD was Jesus? Miles: I would say this is blasphemic. The Potterverse is not an allegory, Harry and Dumbledore are part of our world as well. Either of them as a second Jesus - get me some holy water, please. Miles, still having problems with finding the Christian message in LoTR, and doubting that Pope Benedict would waste his precious time with reading ANY fiction. From elfundeb at gmail.com Tue Apr 18 22:11:10 2006 From: elfundeb at gmail.com (elfundeb) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 18:11:10 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] When did the Lestranges attack the Longbottoms? In-Reply-To: <8C831470FF0B5DA-1378-94D1@MBLK-D29.sysops.aol.com> References: <8C831470FF0B5DA-1378-94D1@MBLK-D29.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <80f25c3a0604181511k58788156nc7db2bf583b0e1c1@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151096 > Nikkalmati: > Good observations and I can't really quarrel with them, but I think my > view is still possible. > I take "when the wizarding world thought it was safe" to be part of the > preceeding clause, not a > modifying clause i.e. immediately after LV disappeared. The rejoycing in > PS/SS started immediately > and I think most people in WW were not worried after LV was gone. A > mistake of course. Even if the > trials dragged on for a long time, that does not mean Bella and company > were not > on the loose at this time, being hunted down over that year, or even that > they were > rotting in some cell having already been arrested a year before at the > Longbottoms. I do > agree that your scenerio is just as likely to be correct based on what we > know. Debbie: The rejoicing may have begun immediately and gone on throughout the day, but by evening an event had occurred -- Pettigrew's killing of 14 Muggles disguised to appear as if he had been killed by presumed traitor Sirius -- that should have reminded them of the possibility that very dangerous DEs remained at large. As a result, I think it's much more likely that enough time had elapsed so that most of the DEs were in custody before the Longbottom attacks. The Karkaroff hearing in the Pensieve clearly took place some time later, but the fact that Crouch Sr. was willing to make a deal with him indicates that concern remained about those at large. Also, the Lestranges, according to Sirius, had "talked their way out of Azkaban." It makes much more sense for this to have happened after LV's downfall, during the DE roundup. This, combined with Carol's excellent evidence (although she left out Mad-Eye's progressive disfigurement which parallels the premature aging of Crouch), seems to place the attacks up to six months later. What continues to amaze me is *how* the defiant Bellatrix ever managed to talk her way out of Azkaban, as Sirius claims she did. I assume Lucius paid someone off to accept his Imperius plea, but that doesn't seem to be Bella's style. Ideas, anyone? Debbie [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From kchuplis at alltel.net Tue Apr 18 22:34:22 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 17:34:22 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] When did the Lestranges attack the Longbottoms? In-Reply-To: <80f25c3a0604181511k58788156nc7db2bf583b0e1c1@mail.gmail.com> References: <8C831470FF0B5DA-1378-94D1@MBLK-D29.sysops.aol.com> <80f25c3a0604181511k58788156nc7db2bf583b0e1c1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151097 On Apr 18, 2006, at 5:11 PM, elfundeb wrote: > Debbie: > The rejoicing may have begun immediately and gone on throughout the > day, but > by evening an event had occurred -- Pettigrew's killing of 14 Muggles > disguised to appear as if he had been killed by presumed traitor > Sirius -- > that should have reminded them of the possibility that very > dangerous DEs > remained at large. kchuplis: I may missed this and if so, sorry but...do we know it happened later that same day? It may have taken Sirius a day or two to track Peter down. I don't remember cannon stating it was within24 hours. From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Tue Apr 18 22:53:12 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 18:53:12 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] The effects of the Dursleys on Harry (Was: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP ) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060418225312.65201.qmail@web37008.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151098 justcarol67 wrote: And my second question is, do you really think that he was born with these traits and did not develop them through interaction with his environment? Catherine now: I can't believe that the old nature vs nurture debate is still raging along. Drove me crazy in my sociology class :-) Anywho... It's both nature AND nurture, in every case. But rather like genetics, it will depend on how dominant and recessive parts of the personality interact with the environment. Take Harry for example, he has every virtue that Carol mentioned up thread partly because it was in his nature (e.g his bravery and wanting to save people) and his environment (eg: humility, learned from his being bullied and tormented). I would add empathy as well if you didn't already Carol. Tom was raised in a neutral environment, not full of love, but at least appeared clean and safe. His personality was a stronger pull than his environment. Had he lived with the Dursley's he might have been even meaner as a child. It's never a consistant thing between nature/nurture, never 50-50. Too many things interchange that it would be impossible to really predict any outcome. Just look at identical twins, same genetics, same parents, different personalities. However, studies have been done that twins who were seperated at birth, as adults when they met, had many things in common, despite the fact that they were raised seperately. Harry had strong enough character traits that kept him grounded, despite his upbringing. He has a sense of self, and thankfully never believed what the Dursley's thought of him was really who he was. Had it been Neville who went to live with the Dursley's, who knows what would have happened. They might just have managed to squash the magic out of him. James' over-confidence turned up as good and normal self-confidence in Harry. Catherine --------------------------------- Enrich your life at Yahoo! Canada Finance [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 18 23:21:39 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 23:21:39 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: <009001c66295$059aad70$62b4400c@Spot> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151099 > >>Alla: > > > > I get that DD had a horrible choice to make and as I said > > earlier I do think he tried, but even though I in general > > refrain from criticising JKR's writing,because I think it is > > very good, about this speech I completely agree with Lupinlore - > > I think this speech was badly written, I really do. > > Why? Because again as I said earlier I don't think JKR meant to > > show Puppetmaster!Dumbledore AT ALL and the fact that after said > > speech so many people DID think that DD comes off as > > Puppetmaster shows that JKR did not wrote what she wanted her > > audience to get from it. > > > >>>Magpie: > Add me to the list who thought that speech was just awful and > hated DD at the end of it. I think the first time I read it I > especially hated where DD refers to Harry showing up "a little > less well-fed" than he'd have liked. > I just thought, um, it's not really up to you to decide that > Harry's childhood wasn't all that bad, or to dismiss it as him > being just "a bit underfed." But it wasn't just that, it was that > the whole speech just seemed like crazy DD to me. > Betsy Hp: Hmm. I really didn't hate the speech at all. (I mean, other than the usual, "Oh my lord, get *on* with it!" that I tend to have when Dumbledore launches into full pontification mode. ) I think there a couple of different reasons why this speech didn't bother me. One is that of *course* Dumbledore was a bit crazy in this scene. He'd just had his grand plan blow up in his face. And Sirius was dead because of it. He's exhausted and grieving and trying very hard to give Harry as much comfort as he can while at the same time keep Harry from descending into toxic rage. (Hence his admittedly bizarre segue into House elf rights when Kreacher is brought up.) And I think that first reason hinges on my second: Dumbledore just isn't all that, IMO. Both Magpie and Alla mention the fairytale motif: Harry as Cinderella; Dumbledore as fairy god-mother or Merlin. But neither of them are really in that role. Harry's life at the Dursleys, while not good, doesn't sink to the level of fairytake abuse. And Dumbledore, while a relatively wise character, doesn't rise to the level of a fairytale wiseman. For me, the moment of decision on Dumbledore's character came at the end of PS/SS, when Harry is discussing going after the Stone with Ron and Hermione: "D'you think he meant you to do it?" said Ron. "Sending you your father's cloak and everything?" "*Well*" Hermione exploded, "if he did -- I mean to say -- that's terrible -- you could have been killed." "No it isn't," said Harry thoughtfully. "He's a funny man, Dumbledore. I think he sort of wanted to give me a chance. [...] It's almost like he thought I had a right to face Voldemort if I could...." (SS scholastic paperback p.302) There are two roads offered to the reader here. You can take Harry's path and consider Dumbledore a man who willingly put three children's lives at risk merely to ascertain Harry's character, to give Harry a "chance". (A chance that nearly ended with both Ron and Harry dead.) Or you can take Hermione's path and consider Dumbledore a man who would *never* risk a child's life in such a reckless way. But since he's not perfect, his plans can screw up royally, and only his quick thinking and quick response to change keeps complete disaster from occuring. The first path is the classic fairytale one, with all the blood- letting and cruelty and ruthlessness (and yes, puppetmastery) that fairytales are known for. The second is a bit more realistic, and gives you a Dumbledore with considerable less power, but a much more human heart. I prefer Hermione's path. It's the one I chose before even moving on to CoS. Consequently I really do see Dumbledore as a man hanging on by the skin of his teeth. He comes up with these plans, but since they involve human beings with minds and issues of their own, the plans often go awry. And Dumbledore is often forced to deal with the changes mid-battle. So, rather than seeing a Puppetmaster in the OotP speech, I see a man admitting that his power is not all that large. He can keep Harry alive; he can't keep Harry in comfort. And that's in contradiction to the more powerful fairytale!Dumbledore, who should have been able to do both. Is this how JKR sees Dumbledore? I've no idea. The speech in OotP fits in with my flawed!Dumbledore. As does the venting in HPB. She may well do an interview in which she states that "oh yes, Dumbledore meant for Harry to go after the Stone in PS/SS" and throw my understanding of the character into shambles. But until that interview happens, the way I see Dumbledore is shaped by my understanding of what happened in PS/SS. And that Dumbledore is no Merlin. Not by a long shot. (Though he does have his moments of grace.) Betsy Hp From kchuplis at alltel.net Wed Apr 19 01:13:24 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 20:13:24 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <01461AC9-3A62-425F-B695-BF1AA4F18996@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151100 On Apr 18, 2006, at 6:21 PM, horridporrid03 wrote: > > So, rather than seeing a Puppetmaster in the OotP speech, I see a > man admitting that his power is not all that large. He can keep > Harry alive; he can't keep Harry in comfort. And that's in > contradiction to the more powerful fairytale!Dumbledore, who should > have been able to do both. > > Is this how JKR sees Dumbledore? I've no idea. The speech in OotP > fits in with my flawed!Dumbledore. As does the venting in HPB. She > may well do an interview in which she states that "oh yes, > Dumbledore meant for Harry to go after the Stone in PS/SS" and throw > my understanding of the character into shambles. But until that > interview happens, the way I see Dumbledore is shaped by my > understanding of what happened in PS/SS. And that Dumbledore is no > Merlin. Not by a long shot. (Though he does have his moments of > grace.) kchuplis: It's interesting because ( I know, crossover, but bear with me, elves), this is apparently why Mike Newell had DD so on edge in GoF. I either saw or read (I think I saw an interview, no idea if it's on the DVD or elsewhere) with Michael Gambon stating that Newell saw DD as being on the edge, of having for the first time [he said] not enough power or knowledge, or basically, control of the situation. I always wonder how much the director gets to talk to JKR about ideas like this. You've been picking that up since PS/SS from the books and I really agree, DD is not an "all knowing" Yoda like figure. He's a mentor, a guide, generally wise, definitely tends to take the path of "let them see how they get on with it". I figure it is that he sees it as experience being the best teacher, which, in this case is a rather dangerous position to take for Harry, but then again, the WW is NOT like the muggle world as far as how much danger is TOO much danger for kids, otherwise, they would not play quidditch or ever get practical magic lessons. From jsfigiel at aol.com Wed Apr 19 00:52:05 2006 From: jsfigiel at aol.com (jsfigiel at aol.com) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 20:52:05 EDT Subject: Christianity in HP Message-ID: <32a.26d71d7.3176e3b5@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151101 Tonks_op: I have hoped that people of other religions might look closely at the books and show us other symbols from their own religions. I am sure that JKR is writing for everyone, young and old, from every race and tongue, etc. And the message is a universal one of God's Love. Jamie: I have not responded to the posts on HP being a Christian-based text for a few reasons; the first being that I really do not want to say anything that would offend anyone. The second being that because I am Jewish and I come to most things in my life, including literature, from a Jewish perspective and I truly do not see the HP books from a Christian standpoint. I do agree with you Tonks (finally) that there is a universal message in the books and I think JKR does present the texts with a variety of different religions and "cultures" in mind. Her characters include people whose names are obviously related to specific cultures (Parvati comes to mind as well as the Goldstein boy). And I think everyone regardless of religious background can relate to the essence of each character, just like someone from the USA can relate to a book that is truly rooted in Great Britain. Since I do not have a real understanding of the New Testament (never read it) and I have very limited Christian background (being married to one doesn't count) I have to say that a lot of the parallels being made here get lost on me (The Lord of the Rings thread got lost on me too since I haven't read those books in a LOOOOONG time). I do find the discussion interesting, even if I don't believe much of it. I have a number of Jewish friends who have also read the Harry Potter books, loved them and they do not make the Christian parallels either, so it may not just be me here. Anyway, I digressed into this long thread just to make the point that each and every religion, culture and group can find parallels in the books that "speak" to them. And each of us can take our own meaning/interpretation from it. It is this and the fact that everyone here on this board comes from a different perspective that makes these discussions so great. From nkafkafi at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 01:39:45 2006 From: nkafkafi at yahoo.com (Neri) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 01:39:45 -0000 Subject: When did the Lestranges attack the Longbottoms? (Was: Old, old problem) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151102 > > Carol responds: > > Such marked changes in his appearance, striking enough to be noticed > by Harry, indicate to me that the Lestrange's trial (if it can be > called that) occurs at least several months after the Karkaroff > hearing, which seems to occur at least six months after GH (assuming > that Moody began searching for Karkaroff after Voldemort's fall). Neri: One comment here. Karkaroff was captured by Moody some time *before* GH (although his hering took place after it). How do we know that? Because in the hearing Karkaroff doesn't know about Rosier's fate, and Crouch Sr. has to tell him that Rosier "was caught shortly after you were too. He preferred to fight rather than come quietly and was killed in the struggle". Yet according to Sirius (GoF, Ch. 27, the famous "Slytherin gang" recount): "Rosier and Wilkes - they were both killed by Aurors the year before Voldemort fell". Therefore Karkaroff was caught the year before GH, and the six months it took Moody to track him should not be counted in figuring the time of the attack on the Longbottoms after GH. Neri From kking0731 at gmail.com Wed Apr 19 01:44:23 2006 From: kking0731 at gmail.com (Kathy King) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 21:44:23 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] The Sting: Lucius sent Bella (was:Re: LV: Where'd He Go and How did Frank...) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151103 After everything I have read about this subject, all I have to question is why no one has considered the fact that the Potters and the Longbottoms had defied Voldemort three times before Voldemort was even aware of the prophecy? The prophecy states that the child's parents had defied the Dark Lord three times, this was before Voldemort was ever aware that this was a child with a power to defeat him. What the hell was Voldemort after from these two sets of parents that each defied him from what he was after? My conclusion, has always been, that both women worked for the MOM and that they found some significant information of defeating death in some manner (The locked door anybody?) or resurrecting it. It's so hard that it is easy but then again Voldemort always looked at that power as a weakness. Snow [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From puduhepa98 at aol.com Wed Apr 19 01:53:22 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 21:53:22 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Christianity in HP? (WAS: Dumbledore's Death) Message-ID: <32d.31f0a06.3176f212@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151104 Rachel > It seems to me that JKR wouldn't use witches and wizards (often associated > with being in cohorts with the devil, see the Salem Witchcraft Trials, the > term "witchhunts" which refer to looking for the bad people, and many other > negative associations) to express Christianity. Nikkalmati: As we who have read the book know, the witches and wizards in PV are a far cry from the witches and wizards in European folklore or who were hunted and hated and killed in earlier days. Those witches and wizards were seen as solitary power hungry beings who used their powers to hurt others. They also were thought to be in league with the Devil. In PV the witches and wizards are very much like anyone else - just with magic. Some are good, some are bad, most are trying to get along. There is no Devil, no black Mass, no calling up of spirits in PV. There is no real reference to religion or religious worship either. I see no problem with using witches and wizards to demonstrate Christian themes and I don't believe anyone who read the books would either. There may be a different POV, however, from someone who comes from a culture where witches and wizards are still part of their traditional culture. Nikkalmati [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 02:32:55 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 02:32:55 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: <01461AC9-3A62-425F-B695-BF1AA4F18996@alltel.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151105 > >>kchuplis: > It's interesting because ( I know, crossover, but bear with me, > elves), this is apparently why Mike Newell had DD so on edge in > GoF. > Betsy Hp: That performance really worked for me (which is not the popular stance, I think) because yes, yes, yes! Dumbledore got totally *played* in that book. And he *knew* he was missing something, hence all that pensieve musing. How many years has he worked with Moody? And he didn't realize that this man was not good, old Mad- Eye. (Did Dumbledore even hear about the attack on Draco?) Harry lived through the end of that particular adventure because of his own luck. Dumbledore was unable to do anything for him: magic pensieve or no magic pensieve. But that's the thing -- Dumbledore gets played in just about every single book. He knows Quirrell is the weak link; but not that Voldemort is hitching a ride on the back of Quirrell's head. He knows that Tom Riddle is the "Heir of Slytherin"; he has no idea *how* Tom is releasing the Slytherin monster. He's sure Sirius is the traitor. Fake!Moody speaks for himself. Dumbledore totally misreads and mishandles Harry. And finally, Dumbledore underestimates Draco's intelligence and creativity (and possibly makes a lethal mistake while destoying the ring horcrux). Dumbledore's greatness, I think, is his ability to realize that he really isn't as fabulous as his fan club thinks he is. (I'm thinking about characters like McGonagall here.) That's why he's able to pull a victory out of some rather hopeless looking situations. He's able to entertain the option that casts him as deeply and horribly wrong. ("Holy crap! That's not good, old Mad- Eye!" "Holy crap! I should be at Hogwarts!") > >>kchuplis: > He's a mentor, a guide, generally wise, definitely tends to take > the path of "let them see how they get on with it". I figure it is > that he sees it as experience being the best teacher, which, in > this case is a rather dangerous position to take for Harry, but > then again, the WW is NOT like the muggle world as far as how much > danger is TOO much danger for kids, otherwise, they would not play > quidditch or ever get practical magic lessons. Betsy Hp: If Dumbledore realizes that he's not the voice of God on high, I think he would see the sense in not micro-managing too much. When he does interfere things don't always work out that well. For example, in OotP: "Let's keep Harry in the dark on this one, mm- kay?" What a difference giving Harry his own head would have made. And Dumbledore realizes it. Which adds to his feelings of guilt, I think. Betsy Hp From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Wed Apr 19 02:29:57 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 22:29:57 -0400 Subject: Christianity in HP? (WAS: Dumbledore's Death) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151106 >Tonks: >Does this mean that if JKR is using Christian symbolism that we >should not tell anyone for fear that they will not read the books? >Or as some have suggested that by pointing out what seems to be >blatant Christian symbolism that we are merely trying to justify the >books to other Christians? Rachel: I agree, JKR is a genius. I think that my past posts may have come across as being anti-Christianity-within-HP which I guess I can see why that would happen. Anyway, what I've been meaning to say is that JKR involves many different religions and cultures and allows the readers to see parallels between the HP world and their own world. Due to the recent rush of Snape=Judas posts, I was simply suggesting a different viewpoint :-). I do believe Christian references can be found in HP. >Tonks: >So what will happen when the series is over and JKR says that the >model for DD was Jesus? Will that make people think that she is >pushing her faith? Rachel: I, for one, do not believe that DD is modeled off of Jesus, nor do many readers. If it happens that JKR does come out and say this then I suppose I shall have to eat my words, but until then I hold my opinion that Dumbledore is not modeled off of Jesus. >Nikkalmati: >I see no problem with using witches and wizards to demonstrate >Christian themes and I don't believe anyone who read the books would >either. Rachel: Yes, except the people that would have a problem with this won't be reading the books. ~ Rachel (Who sees no need for Tonks to go into hiding and appreciates her opinion very much :-) ) From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 02:45:38 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 02:45:38 -0000 Subject: When did the Lestranges attack the Longbottoms? (Was: Old, old problem) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151107 > >>Neri: > > Therefore Karkaroff was caught the year before GH, and the six > months it took Moody to track him should not be counted in > figuring the time of the attack on the Longbottoms after GH. Betsy Hp: Ooh! Which means that Snape was spying for Dumbledore for over a year before Godrics Hollow, right? (Desperately thinking of something to make this more than just one line...) Hmm, this does make the Peter vs. Snape vibe that much more interesting, doesn't it? How hard must Snape have searched for the Order spy everyone knew was there, and how frustrating that he never did find him. (Was Peter similarly stymied, or did Voldemort ever realize he even *had* a spy?) Betsy Hp From somedayalive at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 01:48:48 2006 From: somedayalive at yahoo.com (Jennifer Carlson) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 01:48:48 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's Drunken Dream In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151108 Tonks: If DD is seen as a Christ figure then in this scene he is taking on the sins of mankind. 12 is the 12 tribes of Israel, which symbolize the whole of humanity. And JKR has said that Harry is "everyboy", which can also mean "everyman". It is very telling, I think, when DD ask for water, because when Jesus hung on the cross he said "I thirst". I think there is an intended parallel there. Jen: I disagree. Why would Dumbledore even be paralled to Christ? It simply makes no sense. If *anybody* were meant to be a representation of Jesus (which I also seriously doubt, as last I heard JKR is an athiest), I imagine it would be Harry. Like you said, he is described as "everyboy" and Christ was supposedly 100% man and 100% god. He was also supposedly sent to save humanity from evil, which *could* be paralleled in that Harry will have to defeat Voldemort or be killed himself...does that make sense? I am interested to see just *why* you would think Dumbledore would represent Christ? BTW...new member here :) My name is Jen...I'm married, have 2 little boys, live in CO, and am a complete HP fanatic! Really looking forward to conversing with other HP lovers! ;) Blessings, Jen From zgirnius at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 02:59:33 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 02:59:33 -0000 Subject: Snape spying pre GH (WAS: Re: When did the Lestranges attack the Longbottoms? ) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151109 > Betsy Hp: > Ooh! Which means that Snape was spying for Dumbledore for over a > year before Godrics Hollow, right? > > (Desperately thinking of something to make this more than just one > line...) > > Hmm, this does make the Peter vs. Snape vibe that much more > interesting, doesn't it? How hard must Snape have searched for the > Order spy everyone knew was there, and how frustrating that he never > did find him. (Was Peter similarly stymied, or did Voldemort ever > realize he even *had* a spy?) > zgirnius: I imagine Voldemort did suspect he had a spy, and perhaps even who it was. There had to be soem reason he thougth Snape had left him forever, in GoF. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 03:00:30 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 03:00:30 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP /some Star Wars. In-Reply-To: <00a601c66296$49897740$62b4400c@Spot> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151110 > Magpie: > I sometimes think that one of the problematic things about Dumbledore is > when we start out with this fairy tale situation Dumbledore is put in the > odd role of being both fairy godmother and the sort of Merlin-like character > who places Harry far from his kingdom. > > Only in those kinds of stories, like with King Arthur, the idea is usually > that the hero is raised in the country on a farm. Even if he's treated as a > sort of servant or his greatness isn't recognized, he's not abused like > Cinderella is and like Harry is. So it's just very hard to reconcile the > two. When Harry gets to Hogwarts we get that we're supposed to see > Dumbledore as this wonderful protector and a wise man, but if you think > about it you can't not ask, "Hey, Mr. Really Nice and Wise Guy...could you > not have done something about the years of abuse there?" For me it really > seems like you just have to let it go or not, because you can't really > reconcile it. The blood protection is the best thing we've got, I think, > because it suggests that Dumbledore did have to give Harry to this family > (though still only interfering only when his plan is threatened, not Harry's > well-being). Alla: I think you nailed it, actually. I saw the reference to the not very succesful meshing of Dumbledore's prototypes or whatever the better word for it is earlier, but I think I only fully realised it now. I saw the comment in another post (Betsy?) that Dumbledore is not Yoda like, all knowing, etc, but I don't think that one of his "ancestors" so to speak is Yoda. It is Obivan Kenobi, no? I mean I am speaking loosely of course and I usually don't find too many parallels between Star wars and Potterverse, I am just trying to grasp why Dumbledore's multiple personalities don't always work for me. Obivan Kenobi indeed hides Luc and he does not know who he is and about his father's greateness, etc, etc, and it WORKS for me, because Luc is not abused as Harry is, so I am not angry at Obivan at all for saving Luc life, even if it means hiding his past. But I wonder, I am not sure if Cinderella's godmother could be analogised with DD at all. I mean she did not put Cinderella there in the first place, right? I mean, I see where Dumbledore wavers from those stories where as you said Hero is raised on the farm, etc. These mentors are indeed easier to grasp, because they truly hide the hero for his own good, but as I said for all the talk about Cinderella, I realised while typing that post that I don't see any a-la Dumbledore "types" in there. Fairy Godmother saves her from the worlf which she did not put Cinderella in, like DD did. Am I making sense? Was I simply introduced to different version of Cinderella? Alla. From zgirnius at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 03:13:40 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 03:13:40 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's Drunken Dream In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151111 > Jen: > I disagree. Why would Dumbledore even be paralled to Christ? It > simply makes no sense. If *anybody* were meant to be a > representation of Jesus (which I also seriously doubt, as last I > heard JKR is an athiest), I imagine it would be Harry. Like you > said, he is described as "everyboy" and Christ was supposedly 100% > man and 100% god. He was also supposedly sent to save humanity from > evil, which *could* be paralleled in that Harry will have to defeat > Voldemort or be killed himself...does that make sense? I am > interested to see just *why* you would think Dumbledore would > represent Christ? zgirnius: Hi Jen, welcome to the group! I also don't see the Dumbledore/Jesus parallel. (Well, I do see that his death may have been a sacrifice, but that does not even make him unique, in the series. There's Lily...) But Rowling is not an atheist, she has stated in an interview that she is a Christian. I am including a link to the page where I found it, and her comment on her faith and her writing. >From: http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2000/1000- >vancouversun-wyman.htm >Is she a Christian? >''Yes, I am,'' she says. ''Which seems to offend the religious right > far worse than if I said I thought there was no God. Every time > I've been asked if I believe in God, I've said yes, because I do, > but no one ever really has gone any more deeply into it than that, > and I have to say that does suit me, because if I talk too freely > about that I think the intelligent reader, whether 10 or 60, will > be able to guess what's coming in the books.'' From jazmyn at pacificpuma.com Wed Apr 19 03:25:42 2006 From: jazmyn at pacificpuma.com (Jazmyn Concolor) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 20:25:42 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4445ADB6.30705@pacificpuma.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151112 Has anyone in this thread EVER considered that there are likely magical items, spells or potions that allow a person to understand any language? JKR might even be a fan of Hitchhiker's Guide and the WW might have something very much like a babelfish even.. Babelworm? Eww. Why does it matter if Dumbledore speaks to snakes anyways? Jazmyn > > From stevejjen at earthlink.net Wed Apr 19 03:30:21 2006 From: stevejjen at earthlink.net (Jen Reese) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 03:30:21 -0000 Subject: The effects of the Dursleys on Harry In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151113 Carol: > I agree that there are essentialist elements in the HP books > (notably the character traits of the young Tom Riddle and DD's > statement that our choices *show* who we are rather than make us > who we are) that I find rather disturbing. But the books emphasize > the theme of choice, and choice would be meaningless if it were > predetermined by the underlying "innate" nature of the characters. Jen: I'm going off on a couple of tangents in this post, but they are relevant to the thread in general. Several times now I've seen Dumbledore's quote referred to as 'our choices show who we are' which does sound essentialist, but that's not quite what he said. He said: "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." To me this quote is saying that everyone has innate abilities or talents, certain features a person is born with, but what you choose to do with yourself is far more important. That is, *what* you are--the things you stand for and believe in, the actions you take--are far more important than *who* you are--who a person is born. That seems to be an interpretation consistent with Dumbledore's quote in GOF when he is railing on Fudge and tells him, "you fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!" (p. 708, Scholastic, chap. 36) Carol: > (I'll grant you that Tom Riddle seems to have been born > evil--his upbringing at the orphanage seems to have been neutral, > not pushing him in either direction--but he's the exception, not > the rule. And surely even he had choices--should I or shouldn't I > hang Billy's rabbit from the rafters--and he chose to do evil. > Perhaps, after awhile, the choice became authomatic, but still, it > was there. He could have refrained from evil and he chose not to > do so.) Jen: JKR clearly said Riddle was not born evil, but that he has never known love. In Potterverse that is the greatest evil of all from what I can tell. She emphasizes this by saying in some ways Snape is more culpable [for his actions?] than Voldemort because he has been loved. That was a wallop of a statement to me--Snape *more culpable* even if just in certain ways, after everything Riddle/Voldemort has done. Whew. I often wonder why JKR presented boy Riddle the way she did, as not only unloved but unlovable from the start. Even as a baby he didn't ask for or likely receive much attention because he was 'odd'. Merope abandoning him may have started the process of Tom being unloved, but it didn't end there. The fault for being unloved as a baby cannot lie with a baby any more than Petunia finding Harry unlovable lies with him as a 15-month old. I'm not sure where JKR is headed, if anywhere, but it seems significant to me in the universe she's created where we expect love (magic) to triumph over Voldemort's kind of magic. Carol: > And my second question is, do you really think that he was born > with these traits [upthread] and did not develop them through > interaction with his environment? If they are indeed innate, then > no credit can go to Harry for developing them, and fate is > determined solely by who we are born to be. Jen: From your original post on the subject, my best guess is JKR is going for the idea that Harry became who he is in spite of the Dursleys rather than because of them. That was one of the options you mentioned. I think saying otherwise would actually be more of an essentialist statement because it would make Harry seem almost genetically superior to endure years of deprivation and be able to 'grow' in that environment. So JKR gave him a trait of resiliency, and to follow her theme of love that resiliency likely came from the experience of bonding with and being loved by his parents as Alla said, but JKR also showed the negative effects of living with the Durlseys: Not asking questions, not trusting adults readily, low estimation of his own capabilites, feeling burdened by guilt and shame at times. It's hard for me to think she's going for the idea that Harry's traits grew out of living with the Dursleys so much as the coping skills Harry developed to survive there. Maybe that's what you are saying in the end Carol, although it sounded more like you were arguing Harry developed his character traits *because* of the Dursley's treatment. Jen From nkafkafi at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 03:32:32 2006 From: nkafkafi at yahoo.com (Neri) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 03:32:32 -0000 Subject: When did the Lestranges attack the Longbottoms? (Was: Old, old problem) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151114 > > > >>Neri: > > > > Therefore Karkaroff was caught the year before GH, and the six > > months it took Moody to track him should not be counted in > > figuring the time of the attack on the Longbottoms after GH. > > Betsy Hp: > Ooh! Which means that Snape was spying for Dumbledore for over a > year before Godrics Hollow, right? > Neri again: Not that I think he wasn't, necessarily, but I don't see how you conclude that from the above. Let me explain this timeline more clearly. Karkaroff was caught about a year before GH. He apparently spent that year in Azkaban, not informed about who else was caught and who got killed, and probably hoping Voldy will win the war and come get him out. Then he heard Voldy lost and the Ministry was rounding the last of the DEs, and understood that his only way out is to make some fast deals on the expense of his comrades. His hearing that we witness in the Pensieve certainly takes place *after* GH, although we can't be sure how much time after (rounding the last of the DEs perhaps took some time. Or not). So even when Dumbledore says in this hearing that Snape was spying for him before Voldemort's fall, I don't see how you can conclude that it was more than a year before. Neri From belviso at attglobal.net Wed Apr 19 03:34:31 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 23:34:31 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP /some Star Wars. References: Message-ID: <007a01c66362$2ca762f0$52b4400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 151115 > Alla: > But I wonder, I am not sure if Cinderella's godmother could be > analogised with DD at all. I mean she did not put Cinderella there > in the first place, right? > > I mean, I see where Dumbledore wavers from those stories where as > you said Hero is raised on the farm, etc. These mentors are indeed > easier to grasp, because they truly hide the hero for his own good, > but as I said for all the talk about Cinderella, I realised while > typing that post that I don't see any a-la Dumbledore "types" in > there. Magpie: You're absolutely right, I think--that's where I think the problem is. Because in this world Dumbledore is "waiting" for Harry in the magical place when he leaves the house with the evil stepfamily. As the head of Hogwarts he sort of seems like the guy that's making stuff happen--he gives Harry the invisibility cloak and Harry identifies him as the wise old protector. Only, like you said, the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella's story has nothing to do with her abuse. In fact, she's sometimes the spirit of the tree that has grown on Cinderella's mother's grave, watered by her tears. She isn't a social worker who placed Cinderella with her stepmother and stepsisters and is just taking her out for a visit! That, I think, is where Puppetmaster!Dumbledore is born, because he seems to want to have it both ways. He engineers the very situation that makes him seem like such a great savior when he arrives. In OotP he seems to identify his real mistake as loving Harry too much, which is why he didn't want to tell him the prophecy...yet the guy who's flaw is loving Harry too much is still, like it or not, the same guy basically overseeing his first 11 years at the Dursleys. The Fairy Godmother doesn't work that way. Obi-Wan is a good analogy in some ways because there's similarities there but they're really very different. Obi-Wan isn't even the greatest Jedi in his world. He's made mistakes, has people wiser than he is, was tied up with Vader when he was even younger. He really never comes across as all-knowing as Dumbledore does and Luke's home is much more like the other kind of story. It's only flaw is that it's too boring, too far away from the action--which was always the idea. Cinderella sort of finds herself in her position, she's not placed there by a specific person. (Maybe you could blame her father, but he's dead or gone in some way.) -m From enlil65 at gmail.com Wed Apr 19 03:35:36 2006 From: enlil65 at gmail.com (Peggy Wilkins) Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 22:35:36 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1789c2360604182035sdb3541eg72b56dd11da04399@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151116 On 4/18/06, yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com wrote: > > Potioncat: > > This is very interesting! Why is it so hard for this group to think > > DD is a Parselmouth? > > stevemac: > I don't think anybody has a problem with whether or not DD is a > parselmouth... it is whether there is any basis for it in the canon. Peggy: Alright, let's see what the most convincing evidence can tell us, if anything. In HBP chapter 17, "A Sluggish Memory," Harry and Dumbledore are discussing Morfin's memory of being visited by the young Tom Riddle, which they have just witnessed in the Pensieve. In this scene nearly all the dialogue between Morfin and Riddle occurs in Parseltongue (as signified by italics in the text); and then the discussion between Harry and Dumbledore follows directly: [HBP pp. 367-8:] "And Morfin never realized he hadn't done it?" [killed the Riddle family] "Never," said Dumbledore. "He gave, as I say, a full and boastful confession." "But he had this real memory in him all the time!" "Yes, but it took a great deal of skilled Legilimency to coax it out of him," said Dumbledore ... "I was able to secure a visit to Morfin in the last weeks of his life, by which time I was attempting to discover as much as I could about Voldemort's past. I extracted this memory with difficulty. When I saw what it contained, I attempted to use it to secure Morfin's release from Azkaban...." [end excerpt] What do we know? * Dumbledore secured the memory himself, directly from Morfin. * Morfin's memory involves an extensive exchange between him and Tom Riddle that took place entirely in Parseltongue. * After securing the memory, but before Morfin's death, Dumbledore tried to use the memory to get Morfin out of prison. While there is no direct evidence that Dumbledore understood or spoke Parseltongue, I find it sufficiently convincing from this sequence of events that he must have understood it at least; otherwise he would not have understood the significance of Morfin's memory. I suppose there is the possibility that this (being able to understand a language one couldn't understand otherwise) could be interpreted as a property of the Pensieve, and if that is the case, this evidence is inconclusive. However, I personally prefer not to invoke an unknown property of Pensieves just for the sake of preserving Dumbledore from the burden of somehow coming to know Parseltongue. My final conclusion is that if it suits you (referring to the general "you", that is, to each person as an individual) to believe Dumbledore could speak and/or understand Parseltongue, then why not simply believe so; if it does not suit you to believe it, then don't. It doesn't seem to matter either way, and short of other evidence or a direct statement from JKR, there isn't enough evidence to be 100% sure. My personal position is, I believe he knew it, because that's the simplest explanation of the above scene. But that is just me; YMMV. :) -- Peggy Wilkins enlil65 at gmail.com From brahadambal at indiatimes.com Wed Apr 19 03:51:33 2006 From: brahadambal at indiatimes.com (latha279) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 03:51:33 -0000 Subject: Snape spying pre GH (WAS: Re: When did the Lestranges attack the Longbottoms? ) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151117 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "zgirnius" wrote: > > > Betsy Hp: > > Ooh! Which means that Snape was spying for Dumbledore for over a > > year before Godrics Hollow, right? > > > > (Desperately thinking of something to make this more than just one > > line...) > > > > Hmm, this does make the Peter vs. Snape vibe that much more > > interesting, doesn't it? How hard must Snape have searched for the > > Order spy everyone knew was there, and how frustrating that he never > > did find him. (Was Peter similarly stymied, or did Voldemort ever > > realize he even *had* a spy?) > > > zgirnius: > I imagine Voldemort did suspect he had a spy, and perhaps even who it > was. There had to be soem reason he thougth Snape had left him forever, > in GoF. > Brady: This is really interesting now. Point is that nobody in the older Order even *knew* that they had a spy working for them in the other camp! Otherwise, people would have more respect for Snape, than just- trust-him-because-DD-trusts-him. They would have known how difficult it must have been for Snape to do the job he did. But I feel, that in the pre-GH period, Snape reported only to DD, and therefore ONLY DD could keep him out of Azkaban. Again, how come LV chose someone like PP for his spy? LV himself acknowledges that he is not of much use. Except for getting Bertha Jorkins, he hasn't ever shown any kind of brilliance that LV would associate with his DEs. So, why was PP his pawn? It does show one thing here - LV knew about Snape working for DD. Snape had convinced him about his double agent role. Otherwise, how is it that Snape - a really brilliant and accomplished wizard - could not find out about the spy in LV's camp? It is just that he did not reveal it to the Order. If he had, he would have been personally murdered by LV. So that's where the great personal risk factor comes in. Oooooooh! there is so much I can say on this, but seriously, have to get back to work. May be I will come back later and continue. :) JMO, Brady. From tonks_op at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 03:54:31 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 03:54:31 -0000 Subject: Christianity in HP? (WAS: Dumbledore's Death) In-Reply-To: <013e01c66332$699efea0$14b2a8c0@rechnerchen> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151118 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Miles" wrote: > > I don't see any contradiction between "JRK is a Christian, she uses > Christian symbols and transports a Christian message" and "Harry Potter is universal and its message is as well". (Snip) Don't misunderstand me: I do think that Rowling's faith is important >for Harry Potter, and for me the truth of Christian faith is not >watered-down by its universal qualities, on the contrary the truth >is deepened. But I think it's important that Harry Potter is for >all people, not only for Christians. Tonks: I completely agree with this. I have never disagreed with this. The point that I have been trying to make is that it seems that when I point out certain Christian symbols and themes (and I am not talking about morals or moral theology at all), it does not seem to be taken well on this list and I do not totally understand why. It is as if people fear that if it can be proven that she has deliberately used symbols and themes from Christianity in the ways of Lewis and Tolkien that it will no longer be the same series of books that we have all come to love. I find this puzzling. Yes, many of the symbols are ones that have been adapted by Christianity and are older than Christianity. But that is not exactly what I am trying to point out. Obviously I have not been expressing this well. There is a way in which she has written the books and certain scenes in the books that can not possible be interpreted in any other way than to say that she took it straight from the Gospel accounts of Jesus' last days. She has disguised it just enough so that someone not familiar with the Christian faith would not see it. And even those who do know the story would be so involved with the characters and story that she is telling that they would not step back and look at the framework to see what it is that she has done. > Tonks: > I think the message as I said before is a > universal one, but that does not negate the fact that while she uses many symbols that are part of the collective unconscious, she is > also using symbols and ways of putting them together that can not be interpreted in any other way then by the Gospels. Miles ... disagrees here. >I'd be happy if you could point out symbols and combinations that >are "originally" Christian. I doubt very much you can find very >much, if any. (Snip) Tonks: It is the totality of all of the symbols. Taken one by one they can be something else, something from here and there. But as a whole, certain parts of the story can only be seen in one way, IMHO. I will prepare a post to prove my point within canon (both of them). Let me just say that it means nothing to me if the HP books have been written as Christian literature or not. I do not read fiction normally. I did not pick up these books looking for anything. But it just jumped out at me. OK, I guess I could just be crazy, but I am 58 years old and never been on psychotropic meds yet, so I think I can past that test too. ;-) I will take some time and present a case for the jury and you can judge for yourselves. As I have said there may be other things from other religions too that are not clear to me. IF anyone sees them please tell us. Tonks_op From belviso at attglobal.net Wed Apr 19 04:24:26 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 00:24:26 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) References: Message-ID: <009b01c66369$25a05be0$52b4400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 151119 > Betsy Hp: > > I think there a couple of different reasons why this speech didn't > bother me. One is that of *course* Dumbledore was a bit crazy in > this scene. He'd just had his grand plan blow up in his face. And > Sirius was dead because of it. He's exhausted and grieving and > trying very hard to give Harry as much comfort as he can while at > the same time keep Harry from descending into toxic rage. (Hence his > admittedly bizarre segue into House elf rights when Kreacher is > brought up.) Magpie: I think to me he sounds all too in control--he manages to come out sympathetic and smelling like a rose while other peoples' problems are flaws or not that important. Betsy: > And I think that first reason hinges on my second: Dumbledore just > isn't all that, IMO. Both Magpie and Alla mention the fairytale > motif: Harry as Cinderella; Dumbledore as fairy god-mother or > Merlin. But neither of them are really in that role. Harry's life > at the Dursleys, while not good, doesn't sink to the level of > fairytake abuse. And Dumbledore, while a relatively wise character, > doesn't rise to the level of a fairytale wiseman. Magpie: But the early books do both of this. Harry's life does indeed reach fairy tale abuse level. He sleeps in a cupboard as Cinderella sits in the ashes. He has to do all the housework. He's constantly berated, told he's a burden. He's isolated, with no friends. Sometimes he's not fed. He wears awful clothes. He's beaten by his cousin. Cinderella isn't physically abused, she's treated like dirt, ordered around and not allowed to go to the ball with the other girls. Dumbledore, imo, starts out the series very much in the wise man mode. I was going to quote just the bit you did about Dumbledore letting Harry face Voldemort on his own. > For me, the moment of decision on Dumbledore's character came at the > end of PS/SS, when Harry is discussing going after the Stone with > Ron and Hermione: > > "D'you think he meant you to do it?" said Ron. "Sending you your > father's cloak and everything?" > "*Well*" Hermione exploded, "if he did -- I mean to say -- that's > terrible -- you could have been killed." > "No it isn't," said Harry thoughtfully. "He's a funny man, > Dumbledore. I think he sort of wanted to give me a chance. [...] > It's almost like he thought I had a right to face Voldemort if I > could...." (SS scholastic paperback p.302) > > There are two roads offered to the reader here. You can take > Harry's path and consider Dumbledore a man who willingly put three > children's lives at risk merely to ascertain Harry's character, to > give Harry a "chance". (A chance that nearly ended with both Ron > and Harry dead.) Or you can take Hermione's path and consider > Dumbledore a man who would *never* risk a child's life in such a > reckless way. Magpie: But I'd say obviously we're supposed to take Harry's line of reasoning here and get that Dumbledore knew what was going on and let Harry have his chance, and this is a good thing, not a terrible thing as Hermione thinks. And it works because in PS, imo, Dumbledore is still in wise man mode. He *isn't* risking a child's life recklessly because Harry is the hero of a young adventure story and we can trust Dumbledore's watching over the whole thing. That's why Harry's thoughtful while Hermione is exploding and cut off. Plus, given what we later know about Dumbledore, it's not like Harry's explanation of how he's "funny" isn't consistent. Dumbledore *does* put people at risk to give chances to face one's own demons. (Or in OotP to keep from telling Harry something that might make him look bad.) It's later in the series, imo, that Dumbledore and the Dursleys start to change a bit. Dumbledore starts making mistakes, isn't fully in control. The Dursleys become more like a dysfunctional family and less Dahl-esque. We know by now that Dumbledore can make mistakes, but I still don't feel there's any danger that, for instance, Dumbledore's allowing Harry the chance to face Voldemort on his own would wind up going pear-shaped the way his allowing Draco to work himself out in HBP did. PS/SS was a different style. It also might have been the only book in the series. If it had been I think it would generally be seen as Cinderella/wise man-ish. It's Harry's words that, imo, would be taken as a clue to us readers what Dumbledore was about. Betsy: > So, rather than seeing a Puppetmaster in the OotP speech, I see a > man admitting that his power is not all that large. Magpie: Actually, I wasn't talking about him being a Puppetmaster when I said I hated his speech in OotP. I didn't see him admitting his power was not that large so much as giving an incredibly self-serving reading of everything that had gone before in the book. -m From belviso at attglobal.net Wed Apr 19 04:24:29 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 00:24:29 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Christianity in HP? (WAS: Dumbledore's Death) References: Message-ID: <009c01c66369$277ac130$52b4400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 151120 Tonks: I completely agree with this. I have never disagreed with this. The point that I have been trying to make is that it seems that when I point out certain Christian symbols and themes (and I am not talking about morals or moral theology at all), it does not seem to be taken well on this list and I do not totally understand why. It is as if people fear that if it can be proven that she has deliberately used symbols and themes from Christianity in the ways of Lewis and Tolkien that it will no longer be the same series of books that we have all come to love. I find this puzzling. Magpie: Could you give an example of this not being taken well? Because I haven't noticed it and it seems like you've already hinted at the reason you believe this is happening, which did not seem to lead to a good area. To me it seems like people disagree that JKR's telling an allegory as Lewis did with Narnia. They don't yet feel there's anything they can point to where they know, probably because the author has said so, that is based on a specific religious concept such as Tolkien feeling the destruction of the ring was an example of earned Grace. (A concept that does not work for me personally in the story, but I am still aware that in the author's view of the world this is what he has illustrated.) Tonks: There is a way in which she has written the books and certain scenes in the books that can not possible be interpreted in any other way than to say that she took it straight from the Gospel accounts of Jesus' last days. She has disguised it just enough so that someone not familiar with the Christian faith would not see it. And even those who do know the story would be so involved with the characters and story that she is telling that they would not step back and look at the framework to see what it is that she has done. Magpie: And you're actually wondering why people seem to not be happy with what you're saying? Because you seem to be claiming that everybody has to just say this interpretation is right whether they see it or not, that the story is really a secret code to a different story. Of course people aren't going to do that unless you actually convince them with good canon evidence and not just references to how they must read it. I'm familiar with the gospels and I haven't read any scenes in HP that made me think the only possible interpretation was that it was taken out of an account of Jesus' last days--I've read things in Narnia and thought specifically of the Bible, but not HP. And I would definitely argue with Dumbledore being based on Jesus because I just don't see it--the only quote I can think of from the author was at some point she said something about her faith informing her writing but "Dumbledore's not Jesus." I don't think this has to do with whatever you were suggesting when you referred to formerly being an atheist. If I thought Biblical allusions worked in a scene, I think I'd say so. If I thought "God loves us" seemed to be in the books so far, I'd say so. Would I dislike the books if it ultimately said that? It would depend on how it was done, just like anything else. -m From ellecain at yahoo.com.au Wed Apr 19 07:15:05 2006 From: ellecain at yahoo.com.au (ellecain) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 07:15:05 -0000 Subject: Snape's defection: the timeline question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151121 > > Betsy Hp: > > Ooh! Which means that Snape was spying for Dumbledore for over a > > year before Godrics Hollow, right? > > > > Neri again: > Not that I think he wasn't, necessarily, but I don't see how you > conclude that from the above. > > Let me explain this timeline more clearly. Karkaroff was caught about > a year before GH. He apparently spent that year in Azkaban, not > informed about who else was caught and who got killed, and probably > hoping Voldy will win the war and come get him out. Then he heard > Voldy lost and the Ministry was rounding the last of the DEs, and > understood that his only way out is to make some fast deals on the > expense of his comrades. His hearing that we witness in the Pensieve > certainly takes place *after* GH, although we can't be sure how much > time after (rounding the last of the DEs perhaps took some time. Or > not). So even when Dumbledore says in this hearing that Snape was > spying for him before Voldemort's fall, I don't see how you can > conclude that it was more than a year before. > > Elyse: (Delurking) I was on Mugglenet and read an editorial that cited Snape's words in Spinners End as proof he was on DD's side a year before Godrics Hollow. It basically draws on the dialogue in OOtP, where Umbridge asks Snape how long he has been teaching at Hogwarts. He clearly states fourteen years as the time period. Assuming he joined on the first of September as all new teachers usually do, at the end of OOtP he would have completed fifteen years' worth of teaching. However in Spinners End, he tells Bellatrix that he has *sixteen* years' worth of information on Dumbledore. Now I have a slightly perverse mind, and I like to imagine that this was one of those Freudian slips, you know, where Snape screwed up and said sixteen instead of fifteen because that was when he switched sides. Sadly, Bella was still stinging from the "fine gesture" remark of Snape's (which I found quite funny BTW) and failed to notice it. Well, either that or we're back to JKR did not notice it , her math is notoriously bad..etc. But I'm crossing my fingers and hoping she left that as a clue to the more astute readers. Elyse (who thinks Snape did indeed change sides a year before GH, but bases this more on the prophecy) From the4bodingdawn at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 07:10:27 2006 From: the4bodingdawn at yahoo.com (the4bodingdawn) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 07:10:27 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's Drunken Dream Part 2 Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151122 Thank you Tonks , Zgirnius and Somedaylive (I am new too) I was thrilled to have replies. I considered the aurguments all day and have my own theory of what Dumbledore was being forced to endure by drinking the potion in the cave. In the climax of Order of the Phonix, Voldemort fuses himself with Harry causing Harry unendurable pain. Harry ends up hoping Dumbledore will kill them both to end the pain In The Half Blood Prince ,Under the influence of the potion Dumbledore also seems to be experiencing unendurable pain . He also cries out for death to end the pain. Voldemort has a history of infiltrating a victims entire being. I think the potion was his way of pouring himself into his victim. Voldemort has designed the whole horcrux protection so that only a "Very, great wizard" could have any chance of succeding. I think Voldemort had Dumbledore in mind when he created the potion in the first place. What would make Dumbledore say " It's all my fault. I know I did wrong..." and the most telling of all "Don't hurt them don't hurt them, please, please, it's my fault, hurt me instead..." Could it be that Voldemort knew Dumbledore felt a sense of responsiblity for all the evil things innocent people suffered at his hands? It was Dumbledore that sought out Tom Riddle and brought him into the wizarding world. He taught Tom at Hogwarts effectivly giving him all the tools he would need to become the most powerful Dark Wizard. Dumbeldore never warned anyone as to what he knew Tom's true dark and sadistic nature to be. Voldemort may have enjoyed the idea of Dumbledore willfully choosing to drink cup after cup -allowing himself to be held hostage all for the hope of destroying his horcrux. He probably felt sure Dumbledore would never know he had six of them. I think the potion gave Voldemort full access to Dumbledore's mind and worst fears and perhaps made Dumbledore witness all the tourchers and murders of the men women and children who are now the inferi gaurding the horcrux. The 12 golblets full of potion were designed to allow Voldemort to mentally tourcher Dumbledore until he cried out for his own death. Voldemort had planned that he must drink a thirteenth goblet full of the of the icy water which would call forth the wrath of the army of the dead and his own physical death . the4bodingdawn From somedayalive at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 06:01:05 2006 From: somedayalive at yahoo.com (Jennifer Carlson) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 06:01:05 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: <4445ADB6.30705@pacificpuma.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151123 >Jazmyn: > Has anyone in this thread EVER considered that there are likely magical > items, spells or potions that allow a person to understand any > language? JKR might even be a fan of Hitchhiker's Guide and the WW > might have something very much like a babelfish even.. Babelworm? Eww. > > Why does it matter if Dumbledore speaks to snakes anyways? Jen: Considered it, yes, but I somehow doubt it, considering how dark JK has made it out to be. That is also why it matters if DD is able to talk to snakes. It is what Voldemort is famous for, and is quite often throughout the books referred to as the mark of a dark wizard. From laurel_lei at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 04:39:58 2006 From: laurel_lei at yahoo.com (Laurel Lei) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 04:39:58 -0000 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151129 > Laurel Lei: > > I found it very difficult to explain to my sons that if he were > > to harm another like Harry did to Draco or the others that they > > wouldn't "just get detentions". > Eggplant: > I too would find it difficult to explain that to my son, let's see . > "Son if somebody attacks you with lethal force, as Draco and > Quirrelmort did to Harry don't try to defend yourself, just stand > there and die." > > Harry is a good man but that doesn't mean he's a wimp. Laurel Lei here... Actually, I don't remember stating that I thought "Gryffindor" Harry is a wimp or that he wasn't a good "man" boy... let me rephrase... my sons questioned why Harry was only given detentions for harming Draco in such a manner? Or why he wasn't sent to Azkaban for "using" an unforgivable curse. Again, just gaining others perspectives on how they rationalize the death or harm of another. From somedayalive at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 05:39:05 2006 From: somedayalive at yahoo.com (Jennifer Carlson) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 05:39:05 -0000 Subject: Christianity in HP? (WAS: Dumbledore's Death) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151133 > Tonks: > Yes, many of the symbols are ones that have been adapted by > Christianity and are older than Christianity. But that is not > exactly what I am trying to point out. Obviously I have not been > expressing this well. There is a way in which she has written the > books and certain scenes in the books that can not possible be > interpreted in any other way than to say that she took it straight > from the Gospel accounts of Jesus' last days. Jen: Not true at all. The themes, symbols, and stories in HP can all also be traced back to different pantheons of Paganism far older than the Bible. I don't have time right now to look everything up, and it may be a few days before I do, but I will as soon as I get the chance! (I am a stay-at-home mom of 2 boys, ages 21 months and 6 months, so my days are pretty busy!) Having been both Christian and now Pagan, I have to say that there are MANY parrallels b/w the Bible and older Pagan stories and traditions. I think people (like myself) get upset at people saying "they're Christian books" when in all truth, they ARE universal. Period. Blessings, Jen From PenapartElf at aol.com Wed Apr 19 15:06:50 2006 From: PenapartElf at aol.com (PenapartElf at aol.com) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 11:06:50 EDT Subject: ADMIN: WOMBAT Grade 1 at HPfGU Message-ID: <307.3732626.3177ac0a@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151137 Greetings and Salutations! As many of you know, Grade 1 of the Wizards' Ordinary Magic and Basic Aptitude Test (WOMBAT) was recently administered at JKR's website and those who sat the test can access their scores. If you haven't already, go to http://www.jkrowling.com/wombat/en/?lang=en or click on the WOMBAT student ID card at http://www.jkrowling.com and input your student ID. Though the List Elves are still going to continue to ask that all non-canon-related questions and comments about this JKR site event be posted to Off Topic Chatter (OTC) [ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPfGU-OTChatter ], we would like to explore the *text* of the 25 questions of WOMBAT here at the Main list: ~ Does the WOMBAT Grade 1 add to or muck up our current understanding and interpretations of canon? ~ What can we infer from the text of the questions and answers? What are the implications? ~ Could such extrapolations be considered canon? Since the Wizarding Examinations Authority hasn't made the answer key to WOMBAT public, there's much fodder here for canon exploration in discussing the merits of the answers. After all, this is not just another straightforward Harry Potter trivia test with canon- obvious answers. So bring along your inspired intuition as well as your copies of canon as we apply what we currently know/understand of the wizarding world, deduce the correct answers, and/or make intelligent guesses. Normally, courtesy would have us use spoiler space, but seeing as the test is no longer being administered, no one is able to experience the test as intended by JKR any more. There is no longer anything to spoil. However, if reading the questions secondhand is not your cup of tea, please stop reading this post and be sure to avoid the 4 upcoming discussion posts with the WOMBAT prefix. Still here? Please vote in the following 11 polls: * WOMBAT Grade 1 (April 2006): What classification were you awarded? http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205704 * WOMBAT Grade 1: Magical Law http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205720 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205728 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205734 * WOMBAT Grade 1: Magical Transport http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205745 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205755 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205760 * WOMBAT Grade 1: Everyday Magic http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205767 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205788 * WOMBAT Grade 1: The Natural World http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205791 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205799 If you are looking for a quick way to chime in, you need to look no further than our polls. If you are a staunch lurker, here's a chance to join in without really leaving Lurkdom: go to the polls and let your votes do the talking. In addition to letting us know which answers you thought to be the most likely by casting your votes, you can let us know *why* you chose said answers by replying to the onlist discussion posts. Look for the WOMBAT prefix. Thanks and enjoy! :) Penapart Elf for the HPfGU List Elves From PenapartElf at aol.com Wed Apr 19 15:09:34 2006 From: PenapartElf at aol.com (PenapartElf at aol.com) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 11:09:34 EDT Subject: WOMBAT Grade 1: Magical Law Message-ID: <331.327d23b.3177acae@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151138 This is the 1st of 4 discussion posts on the Wizards' Ordinary Magic and Basic Aptitude Test (WOMBAT), GRADE 1, and corresponds to polls set up here at the Main list. Instead of holding 25 separate polls, we've consolidated the questions and the choices for them into just 10 polls. Look for the URLs inserted in these discussion posts. The commentary by Steve Vander Ark and Belinda Hobbs at http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizworld/wombat.html is a handy guide that even includes links to specific sections of interest in the HP Lexicon. If you can't pick just one of the choices, perhaps refreshing your memory of canon details at the Lexicon will help so go check it out if you haven't already! Magical Law Which Ministry of Magic department(s) and/or committee(s) would you contact to resolve each of the following dilemmas? 1. Your neighbour is concealing a stash of flying carpets, some of which he is allowing to fly loose around his back garden. a. Wizengamot b. Department of International Magical Cooperation c. Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office d. Obliviators e. All of the Above f. None of the Above 2. Your friend C possesses a Muggle Penny Farthing (old bicycle) that has been enchanted to skim an inch above the ground, achieving speeds of over 100mph. C did not personally enchant the Penny Farthing, never rides it and merely wishes to keep it ?for sentimental reasons? as it was her grandmother?s. a. Department of Magical Transport b. Improper Use of Magic Office c. Obliviators d. Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office e. Committee on Experimental Charms f. None of the above 3. Your sixteen year old nephew, D, has hexed his seventeen- year-old sister, E. E has retaliated with a Stunning Spell that missed D and hit a Muggle motorist, who smashed into a lamppost. a. Department of Magical Accidents & Catastrophes b. Department of Magical Accidents & Catastrophes and Obliviator Squad c. Department of Magical Accidents & Catastrophes, Obliviator Squad and Improper Use of Magic Office d. Department of Magical Accidents & Catastrophes, Obliviator Squad, Improper Use of Magic Office and Wizengamot Enter your vote today on Questions 1 - 3 by going to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205720 You can also hit 'reply' to join in the discussion. 4. Your Friends wizard A and wizard B are in dispute over which of them owns a field in which Mooncalfs dance periodically. A accuses B of using nightly a Summoning Charm to collect the precious Mooncalf dung which is rightfully A's. a. Improper use of Magic Office b. Wizengamot c. Pest Advisory Board d. Improper Use of Magic Office and Wizengamot e. Improper Use of Magic Office and Pest Advisory Board f. Wizengamot and Pest Advisory Board 5. Witch F fed love potion to a Muggle man, who has married her. When you went around with a wedding gift you discovered that she is using him as an occasional table. a. Auror office b. Misuse of Magic Office c. Obliviators d. Wizengamot e. All of the above f. None of the above 6. Which of the following should be most SEVERELY punished by the Wizengamot? a. The injury of three Muggles due to a poorly performed Forgetfulness Charm b. The death of a chicken due to a poorly aimed Bat- Bogey Hex c. The use of the Cruciatus curse on a shark about to attack a Muggle d. The use of the Imperious curse on a Muggle mugger Enter your vote today on Questions 4 - 6 by going to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205728 You can also hit 'reply' to join in the discussion. 7. Which of the following should receive the LIGHTEST punishment from the Wizengamot? a. Horns created accidentally on a culprit's mother, caused by broken wand b. Jellylegs Jinx performed on threatening Muggle c. Breeding fanged Puffskeins d. Underage witch performs Cleaning Charms in privacy of own home 8. Which of the following does NOT require a Ministry of Magic license? a. Crup ownership b. Sale of magical artefacts c. House-elf ownership d. Apparition 9. Which of the following wizarding laws, in your view, stands in most urgent need of change? a. The detection of underage magic in all-magic households (currently impossible) b. The ban on goblin possession of wands (ought to be lifted) c. The re-classification of centaurs and merpeople (ought to take their views into account) d. The guidelines on house-elf welfare (need to be enforced) e. Definitions of ?Muggle-baiting? (needs to be made less stringent) Enter your vote today on Questions 7 - 9 by going to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205734 You can also hit 'reply' to join in the discussion. From somedayalive at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 05:49:54 2006 From: somedayalive at yahoo.com (Jennifer Carlson) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 05:49:54 -0000 Subject: The effects of the Dursleys on Harry In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151139 > Jen (Reese, in #151113): > He [Dumbledore] said: "It is our choices, Harry, that show > what we truly are, far more than our abilities." To me this quote > is saying that everyone has innate abilities or talents, certain > features a person is born with, but what you choose to do with > yourself is far more important. That is, *what* you are--the things > you stand for and believe in, the actions you take--are far more > important than *who* you are--who a person is born. > > That seems to be an interpretation consistent with Dumbledore's > quote in GOF when he is railing on Fudge and tells him, "you fail > to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what > they grow to be!" (p. 708, Scholastic, chap. 36) > > JKR clearly said Riddle was not born evil, but that he has > never known love. In Potterverse that is the greatest evil of all > from what I can tell. > > From your original post on the subject, my best guess is JKR is > going for the idea that Harry became who he is in spite of the > Dursleys rather than because of them. Jen (me, lol!): Jen, I COMPLETELY agree with everything you have put forth here and would like to put forth my own personal story and opinions to back up why I believe this! I have a very severe mental illness, and I was raised in a very abusive household, in every way. But here I am, 21 years old, married, with 2 beautiful boys, and a GOOD PERSON. Why? Because *I* made the choice to overcome my hardships. *I* made the choice to seek medical help to get over my past, and to learn how to cope with my disorder both through medicine and therapy. *I* chose not to become like my parents! Therein lies the meat of what DD keeps saying. Do our inherent traits and abilities have an effect on us? Absolutely, but we *still* have the CHOICE not to let those things control our lives! Voldemort and Harry's lives closely parallel each other obviously...the difference is merely in the choices they make. Voldemort was abandoned and unloved...so was Harry (though not by his parents' choice). I would venture to say that Harry's childhood was actually worse than Voldemort's. But Harry's anger towards Voldemort at the loss of his parents drives him to overcome his abuses, to *choose* to be a stronger, better person in order to accomplish what he feels needs to be done. Voldemort, despite being unloved, could certainly have chosen to use his talents for good, but he did not. He let his anger overcome him, BECOME him. Does Harry have that liability? Yes, and I wonder where JK will go with it. Blessings, Jen From PenapartElf at aol.com Wed Apr 19 15:15:48 2006 From: PenapartElf at aol.com (PenapartElf at aol.com) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 11:15:48 EDT Subject: WOMBAT Grade 1: Everyday Magic Message-ID: <3a5.e393c2.3177ae24@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151140 This is the 3rd of 4 discussion posts on the Wizards' Ordinary Magic and Basic Aptitude Test (WOMBAT), GRADE 1, and corresponds to polls set up here at the Main list. Instead of holding 25 separate polls, we've consolidated the questions and the choices for them into just 10 polls. Look for the URLs inserted in these discussion posts. The commentary by Steve Vander Ark and Belinda Hobbs at http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizworld/wombat.html is a handy guide that even includes links to specific sections of interest in the HP Lexicon. If you can't pick just one of the choices, perhaps refreshing your memory of canon details at the Lexicon will help so go check it out if you haven't already! Everyday Magic 17. Which of the following would, in your opinion, provide the best security for a convention of broomstick salesmen in a large, Firebolt-shaped marquee? a. Fidelius Charm b. Muggle-repelling Charm c. Confundus Charm d. Disillusionment Charm e. Unplottable marquee f. Forgetfulness Charm g. Giant three-headed dog 18. Which of the following should not be used in cooking? a. Alihotsy leaves b. Bubotuber pus c. Daisy roots d. Dragon Blood e. Mandrake Leaves f. Murtlap tentacles g. Shrake Enter your vote today on Questions 17 - 18 by going to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205767 You can also hit 'reply' to join in the discussion. 19. Which of the following would most effectively clean up a spillage of wart cap powder? a. Deletrius b. Diffindo c. Episkey d. Evanesco e. Scourgify f. Tergeo g. Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover 20. A Doxy bite can be healed most quickly and safely using a. Bubotuber pus b. Bundimun secretion c. Dittany d. Dr. Ubbly's Oblivious Unction e. Murtlap essence f. Reparo g. Skele-Gro h. Spellotape 21. Which of the following commonly held wizarding beliefs is actually true? a. If an inanimate object appears to think for itself, Dark Magic has been involved in its creation b. The use of magic in front of a Muggle is prohibited unless the witch or wizard is under threat of personal injury c. Releasing a Portkey before it has arrived will result in death or serious injury d. 'Finite Incantatem' should be used as a precaution when a Muggle rings the doorbell. e. Bad luck can be prevented by turning three times on the spot and deliberately Splinching one's thumbs. Enter your vote today on Questions 19 - 21 by going to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205788 You can also hit 'reply' to join in the discussion. From PenapartElf at aol.com Wed Apr 19 15:17:44 2006 From: PenapartElf at aol.com (PenapartElf at aol.com) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 11:17:44 EDT Subject: WOMBAT Grade 1: The Natural World Message-ID: <30d.36a3d8b.3177ae98@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151141 This is the 4th of 4 discussion posts on the Wizards' Ordinary Magic and Basic Aptitude Test (WOMBAT), GRADE 1, and corresponds to polls set up here at the Main list. Instead of holding 25 separate polls, we've consolidated the questions and the choices for them into just 10 polls. Look for the URLs inserted in these discussion posts. The commentary by Steve Vander Ark and Belinda Hobbs at http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizworld/wombat.html is a handy guide that even includes links to specific sections of interest in the HP Lexicon. If you can't pick just one of the choices, perhaps refreshing your memory of canon details at the Lexicon will help so go check it out if you haven't already! The Natural World 22. Which of the following small creatures would you CHOOSE to accompany you on a perilous journey? a. Augurey b. Crup c. Jarvey d. Kneazle e. Murtlap f. Niffler g. Runespoor 23. Which of the following is NOT listed as a pest by the Pest Advisory Board? a. Bundimun b. Chizpurfle c. Doxy d. Gnome e. Horklump f. Knarl g. Pixie Enter your vote today on Questions 22 - 23 by going to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205791 You can also hit 'reply' to join in the discussion. 24. A dog acting in a suspiciously un-canine manner is most likely to be a. An Animagus b. A Boggart c. A Crup (or part Crup) d. A Grim e. Imperius-ed f. Magically Trained g. A Patronus 25. Which of the following plants has NO curative, restorative or protective properties? a. Alihotsy shrub b. Belladonna c. Bubotuber d. Snargaluff tree e. Venomous Tentacula f. Wolfsbane g. Whomping Willow Enter your vote today on Questions 24 - 25 by going to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205799 You can also hit 'reply' to join in the discussion. From PenapartElf at aol.com Wed Apr 19 15:13:30 2006 From: PenapartElf at aol.com (PenapartElf at aol.com) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 11:13:30 EDT Subject: WOMBAT Grade 1: Magical Transport Message-ID: <3b7.bdaaba.3177ad9a@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151142 This is the 2nd of 4 discussion posts on the Wizards' Ordinary Magic and Basic Aptitude Test (WOMBAT), GRADE 1, and corresponds to polls set up here at the Main list. Instead of holding 25 separate polls, we've consolidated the questions and the choices for them into just 10 polls. Look for the URLs inserted in these discussion posts. The commentary by Steve Vander Ark and Belinda Hobbs at http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizworld/wombat.html is a handy guide that even includes links to specific sections of interest in the HP Lexicon. If you can't pick just one of the choices, perhaps refreshing your memory of canon details at the Lexicon will help so go check it out if you haven't already! Magical Transport 10. Which mode of transportation would you advise for a young mother traveling with one-year-old twins with a low boredom threshold, her grandmother, who suffers from severe motion sickness, and her husband, who has never mastered the three ?D?s? a. Apparition b. Broomsticks c. Floo Powder d. Knight Bus e. Portkey 11. Which of the following unorthodox means of transportation is considered the most serious breach of the International Statue [sic]* of Secrecy? a. Thestrals b. Abraxan horse-drawn giant carriage c. Hippogriff d. Flying Muggle vehicle (eg. car, motorcycle) e. Underwater ship * To quote Belinda of the Lexicon: "...this is a typo on the exam, not by us. We assume that it should read Statute. (and that it is not a trick question, or referring to a replacement for the demolished Fountain of Magical Brethren.)" Enter your vote today on Questions 10 - 11 by going to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205745 You can also hit 'reply' to join in the discussion. Which mode(s) of transportation could you use to reach/ enter each of the following wizarding institutions? 12. Azkaban a. Brooms b. Brooms/Floo Powder c. Brooms/Knight Bus d. Brooms/Floo powder/Knight Bus e. Brooms/Floo powder/Knight Bus/Apparition 13. Gringotts a. Brooms b. Brooms/Floo Powder c. Brooms/Knight Bus d. Brooms/Floo powder/Knight Bus e. Brooms/Floo powder/Knight Bus/Apparition 14. Hogwarts a. Brooms b. Brooms/Floo Powder c. Brooms/Knight Bus d. Brooms/Floo powder/Knight Bus e. Brooms/Floo powder/Knight Bus/Apparition Enter your vote today on Questions 12 - 14 by going to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205755 You can also hit 'reply' to join in the discussion. 15. Ministry of Magic a. Brooms b. Brooms/Floo Powder c. Brooms/Knight Bus d. Brooms/Floo powder/Knight Bus e. Brooms/Floo powder/Knight Bus/Apparition 16. St. Mungo's a. Brooms b. Brooms/Floo Powder c. Brooms/Knight Bus d. Brooms/Floo powder/Knight Bus e. Brooms/Floo powder/Knight Bus/Apparition Enter your vote today on Questions 15 - 16 by going to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/surveys?id=2205760 You can also hit 'reply' to join in the discussion. From enlil65 at gmail.com Wed Apr 19 16:36:30 2006 From: enlil65 at gmail.com (Peggy Wilkins) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 11:36:30 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: References: <4445ADB6.30705@pacificpuma.com> Message-ID: <1789c2360604190936l14610465t2788230c6c12864f@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151143 On 4/19/06, Jennifer Carlson wrote: > >Jazmyn: > > Why does it matter if Dumbledore speaks to snakes anyways? > > Jen: > Considered it, yes, but I somehow doubt it, considering how dark JK > has made it out to be. That is also why it matters if DD is able to > talk to snakes. It is what Voldemort is famous for, and is quite > often throughout the books referred to as the mark of a dark wizard. The reason this topic interests me so much is that it has an impact on the characterization of Dumbledore. I find it difficult to imagine a "squeaky clean" Dumbledore who would never, under any circumstances, do anything that is considered "dark" or that has "dark" associations. I don't believe that everything can be categorized into lists of good vs. bad; it should depend on a context for interpretation. On the one hand, we have McGonagall in SS/PS calling Dumbledore "too noble" to use Dark Magic. On the other hand, we have Professor Binns in COS referring indirerectly to Dumbledore (in the context of all Hogwarts headmasters) saying "just because a wizard *doesn't* use Dark Magic doesn't mean he *can't*". (Sounds contradictory, but I believe the point is that one can use it when it is necessary or useful without being a bad/evil wizard.) I think that anyone with above a certain amount of intelligence and power (and I mean Dumbledore) doesn't get to a position of power without a direct acquaintance with "dark" things. It simply can't be avoided. At some point, in order to accomplish something important (defeat of Grindelwald could be considered a case in point; as could working against Voldemort) one can and *should* choose to do something that would under ordinary circumstances be considered improper or undesireable. However, one does such a thing with full understanding of why it is being done. This takes it out of the realm of being strictly "bad"; there are prices that must be paid in order to accomplish what must be done. War is not a pretty, clean business. Considering Voldemort as Dumbledore's foe, it would be to Dumbledore's advantage to understand as much as Voldemort's world as possible, and that can and should include understanding Parseltongue regardless of its association with all that is "dark". It would be shortsighted of Dumbledore to collect and review memories involving Parseltongue without attempting to understand them directly. I think that when people say it isn't necessary to understand Parseltongue to understand the Pensieve memories, the gist is enough, they may be forgetting that there are multiple Pensieve memories where Parseltongue is involved. True, the gist may be enough in the first one; but it is not enough in the second (scene between Morfin and the teenaged Tom Riddle). For some reason the second scene is really easy to forget, in fact I forgot it myself at first. I don't think it's really that important a point, except in the impact on one's characterization of Dumbedore; and I really don't like the squeaky-clean version of Dumbledore, I find it too unrealistic to accept. -- Peggy Wilkins enlil65 at gmail.com From sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 15:53:00 2006 From: sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com (sugaranddixie1) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 15:53:00 -0000 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151144 > Laurel Lei here... > > Actually, I don't remember stating that I thought "Gryffindor" Harry > is a wimp or that he wasn't a good "man" boy... let me rephrase... > my sons questioned why Harry was only given detentions for harming > Draco in such a manner? Or why he wasn't sent to Azkaban > for "using" an unforgivable curse. Again, just gaining others > perspectives on how they rationalize the death or harm of another. ET with a thought on this: Well there is always the perspective & life experiences of the person meting out the punishments to consider. For example, when Harry performed the "cutting" curse on Draco, he was caught by Snape who strongly suspected (actually "knew" by occlumency) where Harry had learned that spell. If Snape had given Harry a stricter punishment, it might have got the eye of DD & others in a way not favorable to himself. Plus, Snape had used (as well as created) that spell himself in the past and perhaps that might have had a bearing on how he handled things. He may also have picked up on Harry's bewilderment at the results of the curse & realized that Harry had not meant to cause Draco that amount of harm. In other words, he might have made allowances for Harry's youth & inexperience. Or to use a real-life analogy , it sometimes depends on what judge you go up in front of...... ET- who thinks it's great that your sons ask those kind of questions! :) From belviso at attglobal.net Wed Apr 19 17:06:16 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (sistermagpie) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 17:06:16 -0000 Subject: The effects of the Dursleys on Harry/Dumbledore the Parselmouth In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151145 > Jen (me, lol!): > Therein lies the meat of what DD keeps saying. Do our inherent > traits and abilities have an effect on us? Absolutely, but we > *still* have the CHOICE not to let those things control our lives! > > Voldemort and Harry's lives closely parallel each other > obviously...the difference is merely in the choices they make. > > Voldemort was abandoned and unloved...so was Harry (though not by > his parents' choice). I would venture to say that Harry's childhood > was actually worse than Voldemort's. > > But Harry's anger towards Voldemort at the loss of his parents > drives him to overcome his abuses, to *choose* to be a stronger, > better person in order to accomplish what he feels needs to be > done. Voldemort, despite being unloved, could certainly have chosen > to use his talents for good, but he did not. He let his anger > overcome him, BECOME him. Does Harry have that liability? Yes, and > I wonder where JK will go with it. Magpie: But while I agree, I think it's also important to note that different people are usually making different choices because each person has his/her own personality and situation. I say this because I think sometimes people get simplistic--for instance, I notice this with Sirius, where the fact that he was from a bad wizard family and chose to be good is used as proof that a bad wizard family can't excuse a bad wizard. Which no, it doesn't, since in the end we're all responsible for our own actions. But sometimes I think it avoids looking at the real decisions being made and the unique characters involved. When talking about Sirius JKR always describes him as a rebel, which is significant. She doesn't just make him a kid who happened to not go the way of his family, she made him a rebel by nature, which is going to influence the way he responded to his family. Regulus had a different personality, and may have come to similar decision as Sirius did in a different way under different circumstances for different reasons. Ultimately the two characters are different and it's not just a case of Sirius choosing right (to join the Order) and Regulus choosing wrong (to join the DEs). Choosing evil is probably rarely if ever choosing evil. It's choosing something different for each person, in response to a unique set of circumstances. If Tom Riddle is a sociopath, for instance, that immediately makes him very different from Harry (and probably also means he might have been Lord Voldemort even if his mother had lived and raised him). He's never been loved, but can love change a person who can't understand or feel love himself? Can he really make decisions based on love, like Harry can? It's not like Tom wouldn't ever be offered love, I'd think, given his beauty etc. He seems loved by Bellatrix now. But still he reminds me a bit of Cathy in East of Eden (usually it's Sirius and Regulus that remind me of that book!) who I believe is described as a monster for whom people are just as strange to her as she is to them. He's making his choices based on things that he can feel and understand. Harry's background is different again. It's funny when people say he could have been like the Dursleys because yeah, he could have, but at the same time he was also in a situation where he was liable to define himself against the Dursleys just as he did, holding on to the idea of perfect parents who did love him. The Dursleys aren't really his family and he has no love for them that we see. He'd probably be far more conflicted if James and Lily had treated him the way the Dursleys do. What seems to be the worst combination in canon and in life are the parents who are inconsistent, or for whom "love" is mixed up with anything negative. The only really happy families in HP, ones without real pain within them, are dead. Not that I think you're arguing for a simplistic reading, it just makes me go off on this tangent.:-) Peggy: I don't think it's really that important a point, except in the impact on one's characterization of Dumbedore; and I really don't like the squeaky-clean version of Dumbledore, I find it too unrealistic to accept. Magpie: For me I tend to think he's not a Parselmouth because of the emphasis put on it in CoS. It loses something for me if Harry isn't marked as "like Voldemort" by being a Parselmouth. It doesn't seem like an evil or dark thing to me, despite its history, but it seems like if Dumbledore was one what's the big deal that Harry is? There's too many of them, and Harry doesn't have to be the Heir of Slytherin. He could be equally the Heir of Dumbledore and Gryffindor. I've got no problem with Dumbledore studying it or anything, but it seems like a Parselmouth is supposed to be something you are rather than something you do, in which case it seems like this is something I'd think Harry shares with Voldemort and his family and not with Dumbledore. It's not a squeaky-clean issue for me, it just seems to mess with the Harry/Voldemort connection, of which Parselmouth seems to be a symbol. It's not, for me, like, say, Occlumency where Dumbledore does it, as does Snape, Draco, Bellatrix and Voldemort. -m From dad at pratthobbies.com Wed Apr 19 15:57:16 2006 From: dad at pratthobbies.com (Doug Pratt) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 15:57:16 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP /some Star Wars. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151146 > Magpie: > I sometimes think that one of the problematic things about > Dumbledore is when we start out with this fairy tale situation > Dumbledore is put in the odd role of being both fairy godmother > and the sort of Merlin-like character who places Harry far from > his kingdom. > > Only in those kinds of stories, like with King Arthur, the idea > is usually that the hero is raised in the country on a farm. Well, Merlin is not a 100% Good Guy in the Arthur legends; he is problematic. Not to say a little crazy. Let me recommend a wonderful short story called "The Last Defender of Camelot," which shows Merlin to be quite unlike Dumbledore, and seems to me to be faithful to the Merlin we see in the Arthurian legends. It was written by Roger Zelazny, and is part of a collection of short stories called "Unicorn Variations," which anyone who appreciates stories or chess should own. Regards, Doug Pratt From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 17:13:29 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 17:13:29 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: <1789c2360604190936l14610465t2788230c6c12864f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151147 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Peggy Wilkins" wrote: The reason this topic interests me so much is that it has an impact on the characterization of Dumbledore. I find it difficult to imagine a "squeaky clean" Dumbledore who would never, under any circumstances, do anything that is considered "dark" or that has "dark" associations. Steven1965aaa: Interesting to see how far this has gone from the simple inquiry I made yesterday morning re: did DD understand it and, if so, how. I still think its an interesting question because IMO from what the books say about it, it doesn't seem that you could learn it by studying, its characterized an an ability or power that one is born with (and even if you could learn it who would teach you, a snake?). However, I don't think this has anything at all to do with DD's character or with good vs. evil. Remember, it was just Ron who said that speaking Parselmouth is associated with dark wizards; DD on the other hand says there have been great and good wizards who can do it (not to diminish Ron but he's just speaking from what he knows at his age/experience which is the general feeling about PM's in the WW). I also don't think that there is any question that DD has used what some would consider "dark" magic, for example when DD "persuaded" Kreacher to give him the information in OOP I don't think that means he gave him some milk and cookies and asked him nicely. DD in many cases has done what's necessary for the greater good, notwithstanding that in doing so he is breaking the law, as has Harry (for example DD refusing to "come quietly" in OOP, DD creating an unauthoized portkey right in front of Fudge in OOP, Harry/Ron/Hermione (and also DD) aiding and abbetting a fugitive wanted for a mass murder, Harry aparating without a licence) and Harry may have to do more of that before the end. The lines are somewhat blurred, its not black and white, but it does not make DD evil. From eggplant107 at hotmail.com Wed Apr 19 17:28:56 2006 From: eggplant107 at hotmail.com (eggplant107) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 17:28:56 -0000 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151148 "Laurel Lei" wrote: > my sons questioned why Harry was only > given detentions for harming Draco > in such a manner? Tell your sons that even detention was unjustly severe. Harry was the victim of an unprovoked attack by Draco with an Unforgivable Curse, Harry would have been entirely justified if he'd killed Draco when he was defending himself. In fact I wish Harry had killed Draco, then Dumbledore would still be alive. > Or why he wasn't sent to Azkaban for > "using" an unforgivable curse. Because the ministry never knew about it, and even if they had they probably would have done nothing because soon after Harry cast that curse at the end of book 5 Harry was back in the ministry's favor. If the Ministry doesn't like you they'll try to put you in Azkaban for spitting on the sidewalk, if they do like you then you can literally get away with murder. By the way, do your sons ask why Draco was not sent to Azkaban for using an Unforgivable Curse and for at least 3 counts of attempted murder? Eggplant From tonks_op at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 18:41:26 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 18:41:26 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: <1789c2360604190936l14610465t2788230c6c12864f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151149 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Peggy Wilkins" wrote: > > The reason this topic interests me so much is that it has an impact on the characterization of Dumbledore. I find it difficult to imagine a "squeaky clean" Dumbledore who would never, under any circumstances, do anything that is considered "dark" or that has "dark" associations. (Snip> On the one hand, we have McGonagall in SS/PS calling Dumbledore "too noble" to use Dark Magic. On the other hand, we have Professor Binns in COS referring indirerectly to Dumbledore (in the context of all Hogwarts headmasters) saying "just because a wizard *doesn't* use Dark Magic doesn't mean he *can't*". Tonks: I agree that DD knows the Dark Arts and probably knows them better than LV. I don't have any problem with the idea of DD understanding or even being able to speak Parseltongue. (This ability does not make the wizard dark.) Remember it not our abilities, it is our CHOICES that matter in Potterverse. DD would never USE the dark arts. He is capable of doing so. By this I mean that in addition to the knowledge, he also has the ability and power to use them. But he does not. He has clearly made that choice. I also think that in the fight against the forces of Darkness DD has never, would never, and would never train his OP to, use the Dark Arts. DD does not return evil for evil, nor does he use the weapons of Darkness against the Darkness. DD's weapons are the weapons of Light, never the weapons of the enemy. A word about DD's methods with Kreacher; I am sure that, while milk and cookies would never work with Kreacher, DD did not use an unforgivable on him. DD probably only had to threaten to burn Mrs. Black's portrait to get anything he wanted from Kreacher. No unforgivable there. I also think that DD was probably, at some point in his life, tempted just as Tom Riddle was tempted, as Snape was tempted, as Draco was tempted, and as Harry was, to use the Dark Arts. 'Oh, just once', you can hear a voice saying.. 'no one will know... You will be honored above all others...' And DD turned away. That is what makes DD the greatest wizard of the ages. That is what causes LV to fear him. DD can use the Dark Arts and has come up against the temptation within himself to do so, and has not. Imagine the power that gives. Imagine the POWER. Tonks_op From elfundeb at gmail.com Wed Apr 19 19:06:54 2006 From: elfundeb at gmail.com (elfundeb) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 15:06:54 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Snape spying pre GH (WAS: Re: When did the Lestranges attack the Longbottoms? ) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <80f25c3a0604191206l4314c6cct596c5e0310bd9ed2@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151150 Betsy Hp: > Hmm, this does make the Peter vs. Snape vibe that much more > interesting, doesn't it? How hard must Snape have searched for the > Order spy everyone knew was there, and how frustrating that he never > did find him. (Was Peter similarly stymied, or did Voldemort ever > realize he even *had* a spy?) Debbie: Hehehe. How hard Snape searched undoubtedly depended on just whose side Snape was *really* on. If I were an ESE!Snape proponent, I would propose that it was Snape who first suggested to Voldemort that Wormtail was the easiest mark and therefore he should start there. And even if Snape is DDM!, this could've occurred before he overheard the prophecy, i.e., before he felt remorse over it and before he switched sides. OTOH, if he'd really switched sides he would've clued Dumbledore in on Pettigrew's extracurricular activities. So, I think it's more likely that DDM!Snape did not know, and Voldemort made damn sure to keep him away from Snape. zgirnius: I imagine Voldemort did suspect he had a spy, and perhaps even who it was. There had to be soem reason he thougth Snape had left him forever, in GoF. Debbie: I agree with this 100%, and further believe that if Snape did indeed accompany Voldemort to Godric's Hollow, the rationale for bringing him along was that he did not trust him enough *not* to. But evidently Voldemort didn't tell Snape where he got the information, or else Sirius wouldn't have spent 12 years in Azkaban. That is, unless he hated Sirius even more than I thought (though I admit that it's possible to read Snape's actions in PoA as actively trying to cover up a truth he knows, instead of merely not wanting to hear anything inconsistent with his belief in Sirius' guilt). Brady: This is really interesting now. Point is that nobody in the older Order even *knew* that they had a spy working for them in the other camp! Otherwise, people would have more respect for Snape, than just- trust-him-because-DD-trusts-him. Debbie: Though I can't cite chapter and verse, I think that many, if not most, members of the old Order were aware that Snape was a spy. And if they weren't aware before, they should have known in OOP, since I assume that Snape presented his spying reports at the Order meetings. The issue is whether he is a *double* agent, which, of course, is the question that keeps this list humming every day. Brady: They would have known how difficult it must have been for Snape to do the job he did. But I feel, that in the pre-GH period, Snape reported only to DD, and therefore ONLY DD could keep him out of Azkaban. Debbie: Actually, I think a big issue with Snape is that no one appreciates just how hard and how dangerous his acting job is. Brady: Again, how come LV chose someone like PP for his spy? LV himself acknowledges that he is not of much use. Except for getting Bertha Jorkins, he hasn't ever shown any kind of brilliance that LV would associate with his DEs. So, why was PP his pawn? Debbie: It doesn't take any brilliance to repeat information you have heard and the only thing we know Pettigrew did was to pass information to Voldemort. I doubt Pettigrew had an important role in the Order, but if the Order operated back in the old days the same way it operated in OOP, there were meetings at which things were discussed, and Pettigrew only had to listen in order to learn useful things to pass on. I know Pippin things Pettigrew wasn't a good enough actor to *really* be the spy, but between his timid demeanor and everyone's low estimation of him, I think he wouldn't have any trouble to pull it off. As for why he was chosen, he was the weakest link in the chain. He could be had, and he could be made to obey through manipulating his fear, which was Voldemort's chief modus operandi. Thus, he was a *better* candidate than your average Order member. Debbie who probably has said absolutely nothing new [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 20:01:52 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 20:01:52 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151151 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tonks" wrote: A word about DD's methods with Kreacher; I am sure that, while milk and cookies would never work with Kreacher, DD did not use an unforgivable on him. DD probably only had to threaten to burn Mrs. Black's portrait to get anything he wanted from Kreacher. No unforgivable there. Steven 1965aaa: Maybe, maybe not. (by the way, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I think what Moody said in the classroom in GOF that its an automatic sentence in Azkaban to use an unforgivable on another Human). He also wouldn't have had to use crucio, there would be other spells of less severity which might be considered less than "saintly" to use. The only point I'm trying to make is that I don't think DD has to be a saint in order to be good. From nkafkafi at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 21:16:04 2006 From: nkafkafi at yahoo.com (Neri) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 21:16:04 -0000 Subject: Snape's defection: the timeline question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151152 > > Elyse: (Delurking) > > I was on Mugglenet and read an editorial that cited Snape's words in > Spinners End as proof he was on DD's side a year before Godrics > Hollow. > It basically draws on the dialogue in OOtP, where Umbridge asks > Snape how long he has been teaching at Hogwarts. He clearly states > fourteen years as the time period. > Assuming he joined on the first of September as all new teachers > usually do, at the end of OOtP he would have completed fifteen > years' worth of teaching. > > However in Spinners End, he tells Bellatrix that he has *sixteen* > years' worth of information on Dumbledore. > Now I have a slightly perverse mind, and I like to imagine that this > was one of those Freudian slips, you know, > where Snape screwed up and said sixteen instead of fifteen because > that was when he switched sides. > Sadly, Bella was still stinging from the "fine gesture" remark of > Snape's (which I found quite funny BTW) > and failed to notice it. > > Well, either that or we're back to JKR did not notice it , her math > is notoriously bad..etc. > But I'm crossing my fingers and hoping she left that as a clue to > the more astute readers. > Neri: I haven't read the mugglenet editorial but I think that JKR's numbers, in this case at least, work quite well together. Trelawney said to Umbridge during the school year of OotP that she has been a teacher for "almost sixteen years", and it appears she started working shortly after making the prophecy. At that time Snape was apparently already gathering information on Dumbledore for Voldemort, as he told him the first half of the prophecy. So in Spinner's End, less than a year after Trelawney's "almost sixteen years" statement, Snape is quite justified in saying that he has sixteen years worth of information on Dumbledore. It is true that, strictly speaking, Snape had to include only the years since GH, since he was supposed to report immediately to his master any information he gathered about Dumbledore before that. Snape should have also, perhaps, taken the OotP year out of this count, because he went to Voldy in the end of the school year of GoF, only thirteen and a half years after GH. But in Spinner's End Snape is engaged in a fierce debate with Bella, and "sixteen years worth of information on Dumbledore" sounds better than "thirteen and a half years worth of information on Dumbledore", so it should not come as a surprise that he prefers to speak loosely and use the more inclusive count. Regarding Snape "switching sides", this was a big discussion before HBP, involving great philosophical theories, one of which still runs a popular bar in Theory Bay these days . I'm not sure that all the Snape fans quite realize yet how the revelations of HBP put this discussion in a whole new light. It's now clear that Snape was sent by Voldemort himself to gather information on Dumbledore, and probably to serve as a double agent. Snape wouldn't have been able to take a post at Hogwarts before GH without Voldemort's blessing. So it appears the whole "changing sides" thing started as an intentional ruse on Snape's and Voldemort's behalf. Voldemort probably told Snape to feed Dumbledore some useless information in order to maintain an illusion that he changed sides. Later (and we don't know how much time before GH) Snape also passed to Dumbledore at least one item of true information that Voldemort certainly wouldn't want him to pass ? that Voldy knew the first part of the prophecy and was targeting the Potters. But Snape had just discovered that he had personal interest in this specific item. We can't be sure how genuine was the other information he was passing to Dumbledore at that same time. So rather than this dramatic decision of Snape to "change sides", the whole story now appears more like Snape settling into a convenient arrangement of a double-agent, passing false or genuine information to both sides according to his own personal interests, and practically insuring his own survival whatever side wins the war. A convenient arrangement that Snape was probably maintaining for some time before GH (perhaps a year, perhaps almost two years) and seemed eager to renew just several hours after Voldemort came back to power. The whole "Snape was working for us before Voldemort's fall at considerable risk to himself" and that heroic "you know what I must ask you to do" scene in the end of GoF now appear, well, somewhat less heroic. If Snape indeed "changed sides", one wonders how come he didn't turn in Lucius, Bella, Rodolfus, Rabastan, Avery, McNair, Nott, Crabbe, Goyle, Rookwood, or in fact any other DE that we know of, even after GH. He could have prevented the attack on the Longbottoms and the Lucius' Diary scheme in CoS had he done so. Of course, there is the possibility Snape didn't know that any of them were DEs at the time. I searched Spinner's End and couldn't find any clear proof that he and Bella knew each other to be DEs before GH, although I somehow get the impression that they did. In any case it would seem extremely strange if Snape didn't know that any of the above, some of them members to his "gang of Slytherins", were DEs at the time. Especially considering that Karkaroff, who appears to be a much less able agent than Snape, knew both Snape and Rookwood as well as a bunch of others that didn't go free. It's not a conclusive evidence against DDM! Snape, but I think it's certainly another thing that JKR will have to explain if she goes that way. Neri From yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com Wed Apr 19 20:05:25 2006 From: yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com (stevemac) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 15:05:25 -0500 Subject: legalities, dark magic, and dark wizards Message-ID: <8FB5FA11-39EE-4703-A5DC-F84E5FD4BC55@stevenmcintosh.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151153 stevemac: From reading some of the recent posts about DD and Parseltongue, I thought it was interesting that I did not have a clear distinction between these categories... Although it is easy to get the general 'dark magic = bad' connotations, I'm really curious about what others have to say on where the definitions and dividing lines are. They seem very gray, and by some definitions I have read, HP has definitely used full- blown Dark Arts/Magic in the final scene with Snape in HBP - he knew that the purpose of the sectumsempra was to cause harm, and used it. I'm just wondering where the boundries lie between illegal magic, dark magic, and dark wizard. stevemac From OctobersChild48 at aol.com Wed Apr 19 19:55:59 2006 From: OctobersChild48 at aol.com (OctobersChild48 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 15:55:59 EDT Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). Message-ID: <305.37ab656.3177efcf@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151154 In a message dated 4/17/06 11:09:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time, belviso at attglobal.net writes: > Then he pulls out that, "I really wanted to make you, > Prefect, you know!" (Hey Ron, you were right to feel inadequate! And thank > goodness Harry has that awful hardship fixed!) with his single tear. Since this has been brought up I would like to introduce a new thread, or at least new since I joined this list. In fact, IMO, Ron WAS inadequate as Prefect material and as a Prefect. I think this is one of the worst contrivances JKR has foisted on us. I was totally incredulous when Ron received his notice that he was made Prefect. It didn't surprise me at all that Hermione was made a Prefect because she was so right for it. I, of course, expected Harry to be made a Prefect, and Dumbledore's speech at least explained why he wasn't, not that I agree with his decision, but Ron of all people? Puhleeze! There was absolutely nothing to recommend Ron as a viable candidate for it. He is not a good student, doesn't show signs of being particularly magically gifted, is guilty of much rule breaking, yes, I know, so is Harry, and has never shown any kind of leadership qualities. Nor does he seem to be driven to succeed in any way. And he isn't particularly overloaded with self confidence. All of this plays out in his performance as a Prefect, which is dismal at best. By the end of OoP we are made to understand why Harry wasn't made Prefect, but I still have to ask what was JKR's intention by making Ron one? I do understand that part of it was meant to create yet more angst for Harry, but why do that to Ron? Why put him in a position that he was so inadequate for? Sandy, who thinks making Harry a Prefect would have been a contrivance too, but would have made better sense than Ron. From OctobersChild48 at aol.com Wed Apr 19 20:28:57 2006 From: OctobersChild48 at aol.com (OctobersChild48 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 16:28:57 EDT Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old prob... Message-ID: <38b.108dfa8.3177f789@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151155 In a message dated 4/17/06 11:20:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time, belviso at attglobal.net writes: > Only in those kinds of stories, like with King Arthur, the idea is usually > that the hero is raised in the country on a farm. Even if he's treated as a > > sort of servant or his greatness isn't recognized, he's not abused like > Cinderella is and like Harry is. So it's just very hard to reconcile the > two. When Harry gets to Hogwarts we get that we're supposed to see > Dumbledore as this wonderful protector and a wise man, but if you think > about it you can't not ask, "Hey, Mr. Really Nice and Wise Guy...could you > not have done something about the years of abuse there?" For me it really > seems like you just have to let it go or not, because you can't really > reconcile it. The blood protection is the best thing we've got, I think, > because it suggests that Dumbledore did have to give Harry to this family > (though still only interfering only when his plan is threatened, not Harry's > > well-being). > > I guess this all comes down to what you interpret as Harry's well being. Dumbledore did interfere at the beginning of OoP, when Vernon was hell bent to throw Harry out, by sending Petunia the howler, which resulted in Harry staying put. This situation indicated to me that Dumbledore had some kind of clout when it came to Petunia, which has baffled me since. Exactly what was the clout he had with Petunia, and if sending her a howler kept Harry from being thrown out then why weren't others sent to her protesting the Dursleys overall mistreatment of Harry? I think this can again come down to how one interprets Harry's well being. Throwing Harry out would have literally put his life in danger whereas the other mistreatment did not. But, looking at it from that POV does not put Dumbledore in a very good light, making it seem that his only interest was in keeping Harry alive, which I just don't see as being the case. I believe that Dumbledore truly cared about Harry but had a lot to weigh and balance when it came to Harry's overall treatment at the Dursleys. As others have mentioned, too much interference from DD could have caused Petunia to wash her hands of the whole situation, and then where would Harry and all of his protection been? For what it's worth, I was very touched by DD's speech to Harry in OoP, and I feel it did an excellent job of explaining a very unpleasant situation. BTW, Carol, I totally agree with you and your assessment of how the Dursleys treatment of Harry helped his character developement and formed him into the character he needs to be to fulfill his most important mission. Sandy From orgone9 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 17:40:32 2006 From: orgone9 at yahoo.com (Len Jaffe) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 10:40:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060419174032.99396.qmail@web80607.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151156 Laurel Lei wrote: > > my sons questioned why Harry was only given > > detentions for harming Draco in such a manner? See below for my disjointed thoughts on this. Laurel Lei: > > Or why he wasn't sent to Azkaban > > for "using" an unforgivable curse. It was Harry's word against Draco's, and Harry didn't mantion it to Snape. he was too gobstruck by what he'd just done. he didn't defend his actions. he ran right off and got his books (hid the HBP first :-) ), and took his punishment without comment. Sending Draco off to Azkaban would have messed up the plot arc. Laurel Lei: > > Again, just gaining others > > perspectives on how they rationalize the death or > > harm of another. ET Wrote: > Well there is always the perspective & life > experiences of the person > meting out the punishments to consider. For > example, when Harry > performed the "cutting" curse on Draco, he was > caught by Snape who > strongly suspected (actually "knew" by occlumency) > where Harry had > learned that spell. If Snape had given Harry a > stricter punishment, it > might have got the eye of DD & others in a way not > favorable to himself. Len: There is also a laissez faire attitude about kids jinxing each other in the halls. Against the rules? yes. But it happens, and for the most part, it is an accepted part of life a Hogwarts. So now here you have the two big dogs at Hogwarts, the immovable object and the irresistable force, the Scilla and Caribdes (the Tom and Jerry, if you will), who periodically lock horns, and up until now have been treated with a "boys will be boys" attitude. They have a go at each other in the school bathroom. Enter Snape, he knows where the cuts come from, but he also knows that Potter doesn't use that kind of magic, (and taunts him about it as Snape like to bust Harry's chops whenever possible), and either deals with the situation as you describe above (CYA), or infers that Potter had to defend himself in a drastic way against Draco. Draco resents Potter being top dog, and would like nothing better than to see Potter out of the picture. Remember that Draco set a dangerous snake on Harry during their duel in second year. Why Harry thought to try the "for enemies" spell for the first time in the middle of REAL duel with his nemesis, is beyond me, but he describes fighting (the dark arts) as a combination of intellect and instinct, so it may just have been instinctive: enemy! must get enemy! As for rationalizing the harm of Draco by Harry, it is clear from Harry's reaction that he had not meant to cause that kind of harm. Harry typically looks for disarming and blocking spells, before going on the offensive. So we have a case where Harry used excessive force in his own defense. Defending yourself from an agressor who means you harm is not a sin. I guess we're looking for the point where the nature of the defense moves beyond reasonable and violates societal norms. I'd say that knowing what that spell does, Harry would be wrong to use it again unless somebody's life (not just his own) were in jeopardy. Len. This is way more fun than Joyces "Dubliners", though I like that book too :-) From mama_loba_gris at yahoo.com.ar Wed Apr 19 18:50:12 2006 From: mama_loba_gris at yahoo.com.ar (Lobagris) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 18:50:12 -0000 Subject: Help please... In-Reply-To: <20060417014821.22614.qmail@web37007.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151157 Catherine wrote: > I need a little help finding some canon references. My husband is > convinced that at some point in the books, Harry says "abra cadabra" > and people freak out and tell him not to say that because it's a > derivative of the AK curse. I have absolutely no recollection of > that happening in any of the books. Anyone else? I agree with everyone who said that there is no time when Harry says "abra cadabra" unless you are reading the books translated to Spanish, in which case you will find out that they mistranslated this paragraph from COS's first chapter: -"Jiggery pokery!" said Harry in a fierce voice. "Hocus pocus squiggly wiggly -" Into this: ??Abracadabra! ?dijo Harry con voz en?rgica?. ?Pata de cabra! ?Patatum, patatam! Could that be that you own the books in Spanish? I know I do :) Lobagris, not sure if she's been of any help. From jdwilkes45 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 20:24:42 2006 From: jdwilkes45 at yahoo.com (JULIA WILKES) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 13:24:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Dumbledore & Kreacher (was Re: Dumbledore the parselmouth?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060419202442.68353.qmail@web37912.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151158 Tonks wrote: A word about DD's methods with Kreacher; I am sure that, while milk and cookies would never work with Kreacher, DD did not use an unforgivable on him. DD probably only had to threaten to burn Mrs. Black's portrait to get anything he wanted from Kreacher. Steven 1965aaa wrote: He also wouldn't have had to use crucio, there would be other spells of less severity which might be considered less than "saintly" to use. The only point I'm trying to make is that I don't think DD has to be a saint in order to be good. Julia: Didn't DD use occulmency on him? I remember something regarding a statement in the book that went something like this: " Professor Snape is not the only accomplished occlumens at Hogwarts".... Didn't he say that in his office when he was trying to explain to HP how he found out what was going on when he arrived at #12 Grimmald Place and he was talking to Kreacher... Julia From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Wed Apr 19 22:58:10 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 18:58:10 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re:Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <305.37ab656.3177efcf@aol.com> Message-ID: <20060419225810.78398.qmail@web37005.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151159 OctobersChild48 at aol.com wrote: Sandy: In fact, IMO, Ron WAS inadequate as Prefect material and as a Prefect.(snip) By the end of OoP we are made to understand why Harry wasn't made Prefect, but I still have to ask what was JKR's intention by making Ron one? Catherine: I agree that Ron as Prefect was a little strange. But besides Harry, there's Dean, Seamus and Neville as Gryffindor 5th years. Dean and Seamus are a little too minor to be made Prefects. That leaves Neville, which would have been an interesting choice, post OotP and HBP. But up through the 4 years they've had to make an impression, Ron was in fact the next logical choice after Harry. He was there for the Troll, in fact it was his spell that levitated the troll's club. He was the one who got them through the Chess set, and sacrificed himself for the good of the team. He went with Harry through the forest to meet Aragog, despite his phobia of spiders. Ron has proven himself to be loyal and trustworthy, brave and self-sacrificing. DD trusted him enough to have Harry tell him about the Prophecy and even the Horcrux's. The only time we really see him as a prefect was with Fred and George, and it is very hard to stand up to an older sibling, let alone 2 of them. And to look at Mad-Eye's point of view, Ron can probably deal with most jinxes and hexes better than Neville, Dean or Seamus..... Catherine --------------------------------- Make Yahoo! Canada your Homepage Yahoo! Canada Homepage [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com Wed Apr 19 22:59:20 2006 From: irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com (IreneMikhlin) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 23:59:20 +0100 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re:Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <305.37ab656.3177efcf@aol.com> References: <305.37ab656.3177efcf@aol.com> Message-ID: <4446C0C8.6090403@btopenworld.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151160 OctobersChild48 at aol.com wrote: > In fact, IMO, Ron WAS inadequate as Prefect material and as a Prefect. I > think this is one of the worst contrivances JKR has foisted on us. You are right, of course. I think JKR loves Ron so much it makes her blind to his faults. > There was absolutely nothing to recommend Ron as a > viable candidate for it. He is not a good student, doesn't show signs of being > particularly magically gifted, is guilty of much rule breaking, yes, I know, > so is Harry, and has never shown any kind of leadership qualities. Nor does he > seem to be driven to succeed in any way. And he isn't particularly overloaded > with self confidence. And Rowling seems hell-bent on the idea of him being a perfect soul-mate for Hermione. Grrrr. Not to restart the shipping wars, as I'm not a fan of Harry/Hermione either. > By the end of OoP we are made to understand why Harry > wasn't made Prefect, but I still have to ask what was JKR's intention by > making Ron one? I do understand that part of it was meant to create yet more angst > for Harry, but why do that to Ron? Why put him in a position that he was so > inadequate for? Unless she plans an "evil" role for one of the twins, there was absolutely no point. The whole "Ron - the inadequate prefect" story angle was interesting only in exposing further the twins role in the less-than-healthy dynamics of the Weasley family. Irene From kateydidnt2002 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 23:00:39 2006 From: kateydidnt2002 at yahoo.com (kateydidnt2002) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 23:00:39 -0000 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151161 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Laurel Lei" wrote: > I may be mistaken in my interpretation of murder within those poster's > meanings but... it would seem to me that, Harry is very capable of > murder... What about Quirrelmort????.... > What about Voldemort's soul bit in the diary horcrux??? ... Technically, none of those were murder: murder by definition is "killing intentionally and with premeditation" none of those circumstances had Harry intentionally going into the situation with a plan for killing anyone. Yes he has *killed* but he has not *murdered.* The two terms are not synonymous. > > Wouldn't Harry's soul be torn by his involvement in the death of > Quirrel or the "death" of Voldie's soul bit...??? Not necessarily, I think here is where the difference between killing and murder comes in--murder is a calculated, planned assault designed to kill someone. Killing in self-defense (which is all Harry has ever done) does not require the same intent. As we know in magic, intent means *alot*. SO far we have evidence that murder by Avada Kedavra is the only way to make a horcrux. According to OotP: "Never used an Unforgivable Curse before, have you, boy?" she [Bellatrix] yelled. She had abandoned her baby voice now. "You need to mean them, Potter! You need to really want to cause pain -to enjoy it - righteous anger won't hurt me for long - I'll show you how it is done, shall I? I'll give you a lesson" Yes this is talking for the most part about the Cruciatus curse, but given her statement about the Unforgivables in general (You have to mean them Potter!) I think the same general principle can be applied to the Killing Curse. You have to really want to kill and you have to enjoy killing, self-defense wouldn't really work as impetus for the Killing curse just like righteous anger doesn't really work for the Cruciatus Curse. > I also believe that Harry would have killed Sirius if Lupin hadn't > arrived. Harry had stated as much. (Obviously Sirius dying at that > time wasn't in J.K.'s plot-line). I don't think he would have. If you look back at book three Harry doesn't think he failed because Lupin arrived, it says specifically, "Harry stood there, feeling suddenly empty. He hadn't done it. His nerve had failed him." He couldn't do it. He stood there for a long time before Lupin came in not quite able to accomplish it. While he may have thought he wanted to kill Sirius, he couldn't bring himself to do it. > > And I believe that Harry would have killed Bella in the MOM > during/post battle. I think he might have tried, but I don't think he would have been successful. > > And what about Draco in the bathroom and the sectasempra spell...? The > spell for enemies... the spell that Snape "reversed"... had Snape not > arrived and known what to do (because he was the "Prince" and possible > author)...???? Would Harry then have become a murderer if Draco had > died? Isn't what he did attempted murder? Again, no. It is not murder. It was self-defense. Draco was attempting to use the cruciatus curse on him. Admittedly, it is a *stupid* idea to use a spell he does not know the result of, but Harry's intent here was to not be victim to the cruciatus curse, not kill Draco. Had Draco died I still do not think it could have been classified as murder. Killing, yes; murder, no. > > Is it believed that he is not a murderer/killer because he was > protecting the Sorcerer's Stone, himself or Ginny? Avenging Sirius? > Does his anger at his victims somehow make him temporarily insane and > not responsible for his actions? Harry is a killer in that he has killed, but not a murderer. > but I found it very difficult to > explain to my sons that if he were to harm another like Harry did to > Draco or the others that they wouldn't "just get detentions". Two points here: 1) Harry's actions were in self-defense. Draco was attempting to use a very dangerous curse. Had it been another teacher around rather than Snape I think he would have had more than a detention, but he also would have had a chance to explain that Draco had tried an unforgivable and his actions, though not the best choice, were in self-defense. 2) I think this was also a product of Snape covering his own behind. More serious punishment would have to be doled out by Dumbledore himself--Snape only has the ability to give detentions and take points. Snape *should* have reported something so severe to a higher authority but he didn't. It is my theory that he didn't because it was a spell of his own making and wanted to find out how Harry learned it and not reveal how deeply he himself had been into Dark Magic (deep enough to creat a dark magic spel) at the age of 16. > But, how could "we" believe that Harry is NOT capable of murder or > bringing about another's death (per the prophecy or my understanding > of it that one (Voldie or Harry) must "die"). Again, semantics. I acknowledge that Harry is perfectly capable of bringing about another's death--he has done so before. But murder is different. In OotP: "[Harry] felt as distant from them as though he belonged to a different race, it was still very hard to believe as he sat here that his life must include, or end in, murder " Harry has trouble with the idea that he will have to systematically plan and carry out the killing of Voldemort. How it will end up, if Harry actually succeeding in murdering Voldemort, I don't know. But for me, Harry having to murder (intentionally plan to kill) Voldemort will change him. I think that is why we try to rationalize or try to find a way around Harry killing Voldemort. Or are "we" > rationalizing? Is it something that we as humans choose to define > as "NOT murder or a killing" like we often do, because we are in times > of war? Semantics again: we still define killing in war as killing, but not murder. Nutshell: Murder and killing are not synonymous, there are different distinctions. Harry has killed, but we question his ability to outright murder. From kchuplis at alltel.net Wed Apr 19 23:09:34 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 18:09:34 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re:Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <305.37ab656.3177efcf@aol.com> References: <305.37ab656.3177efcf@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151162 On Apr 19, 2006, at 2:55 PM, OctobersChild48 at aol.com wrote: > > Ron of all people? Puhleeze! There was absolutely nothing to > recommend Ron as a > viable candidate for it. He is not a good student, doesn't show > signs of being > particularly magically gifted, is guilty of much rule breaking, > yes, I know, > so is Harry, and has never shown any kind of leadership qualities. > Nor does he > seem to be driven to succeed in any way. And he isn't particularly > overloaded > with self confidence. All of this plays out in his performance as a > Prefect, > which is dismal at best. By the end of OoP we are made to > understand why Harry > wasn't made Prefect, but I still have to ask what was JKR's > intention by > making Ron one? I do understand that part of it was meant to create > yet more angst > for Harry, but why do that to Ron? Why put him in a position that > he was so > inadequate for? > kchuplis: But sometimes, that is a reason as well, to teach self confidence. I think Ron has show more self confidence since becoming Prefect. What makes him more inadequate than Dean Thomas, Neville, or Seamus? That's the whole list for that year and the prefect job is awarded to one of them. > From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 23:37:04 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 23:37:04 -0000 Subject: Harry and the Law (was:Re: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah??) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151163 > >>Eggplant: > > Harry was the victim of an unprovoked attack by Draco with an > Unforgivable Curse, Harry would have been entirely justified if > he'd killed Draco when he was defending himself. Betsy Hp: Oh, I don't know. Draco could make a reasonable argument that he was trying to protect himself from an aggressive stalker. Especially if the map came out. I'd also point out that this particular argument would mean Bellatrix was perfectly in her right to kill Harry at the MoM, and Snape had a right to kill Harry at the end of HBP. > >>Eggplant: > In fact I wish Harry had killed Draco, then Dumbledore would still > be alive. Betsy Hp: Because Voldemort would have just slinked away at that point? > >>Eggplant: > By the way, do your sons ask why Draco was not sent to Azkaban for > using an Unforgivable Curse and for at least 3 counts of attempted > murder? Betsy Hp: Probably for the same reason Harry was never charged with reckless endangerment, attempted murder, stealing, dealing in illegal goods, improper use of potions, or the casting of an Unforgivable. It would have made the the series rather unwieldy. Betsy Hp From bboyminn at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 23:55:51 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 23:55:51 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <305.37ab656.3177efcf@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151164 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, OctobersChild48 at ... wrote: > > belviso: > > > > Then he pulls out that, "I really wanted to make you, Prefect, > > you know!" (Hey Ron, you were right to feel inadequate! And > > thank goodness Harry has that awful hardship fixed!) with > > his single tear. > OctobersChild48/Sandy: > > ... > > In fact, IMO, Ron WAS inadequate as Prefect material and as a > Prefect. I think this is one of the worst contrivances JKR has > foisted on us. ... I, of course, expected Harry to be made a > Prefect, and Dumbledore's speech at least explained why he > wasn't, ..., but Ron of all people? Puhleeze! There was > absolutely nothing to recommend Ron as a viable candidate for > it. ...editd... > > Sandy, bboyminn: I'm going to repeat some of what others have said, though from a slightly different angle. If you /only/ look at Ron and his qualifications as Prefect, then you are distorting the picture. You have to look at Ron along side the other possible candidates. First, there /will be/ a male Prefect selected from Gryffindor from amoung the fifth year students. The possible candidates are Harry, Ron, Dean, Seamus, and Neville. Now, it seems that Dumbledore decided Harry had enough problems to deal with so he eliminated him from the running. That leaves Ron, Dean, Seamus, and Neville. Now let us ask where were Seamus and Dean when ever there was trouble, when ever there was a battle to be fought? They were tucked away nice and snug in their beds sleeping soundly. Only Ron, Harry, and Neville bravely fought every battle that can their way. Ron may not be the perfect student, but he has proven himself in battle. He has proven that he is capable of operating under extreme pressure. He has faced fears the few men could face. So, now ask yourself, if Hogwarts is attacked, who do you want defending the First Years, battle proven Ron, or always safe in his bed Seamus? Further, while Ron certainly doesn't compare to Hermione as a Prefect, neither does any other Prefect. Prefects are selected in fifth year, and they remain Prefects until they leave school. That means there are SIX Prefects in Gryffindor House. Where were all these other Prefects when Ron was suppose to be doing such a bad job of it? Doing an equally bad job apparently. The turth is not that Ron is bad, because he seems very much like all the Prefects with the exception of Percy, but that Hermione is an overzealous Prefect which makes Ron look bad along side her. Ron seems to fulfill his duties duties nicely. He patrols the corridors. He monitors study hall. He does what all the other Prefects do, and seem to do it at the same level as the others with the exception of Hermione. Certainly, he won't win any awards for his Prefect skills, but he doesn't seem any better or worse than anyone else. So, the choices are Ron, Dean, Seamus, and Neville. Who has proven themselves better? Who amoung them has shown himself more capable and responsible in real-life situations? It seems that Ron has. That's why he's Prefect. Ron is second to Harry amoung the boys that Dumbledore knows he can count on, with Harry eliminated, that makes Ron number one. That make Ron Prefect. Just a thought. Steve/bboyminn From foxmoth at qnet.com Thu Apr 20 00:09:51 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 00:09:51 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: <009b01c66369$25a05be0$52b4400c@Spot> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151165 > Magpie: > But I'd say obviously we're supposed to take Harry's line of reasoning here > and get that Dumbledore knew what was going on and let Harry have his > chance, and this is a good thing, not a terrible thing as Hermione thinks. > And it works because in PS, imo, Dumbledore is still in wise man mode. He *isn't* risking a child's life recklessly because Harry is the hero of a > young adventure story and we can trust Dumbledore's watching over the whole > thing. That's why Harry's thoughtful while Hermione is exploding and cut > off. Plus, given what we later know about Dumbledore, it's not like Harry's > explanation of how he's "funny" isn't consistent. Dumbledore *does* put > people at risk to give chances to face one's own demons. (Or in OotP to > keep from telling Harry something that might make him look bad.) Pippin: But what makes it obvious that we're supposed to take Harry's line? Canon doesn't show that Harry has any great insight into Dumbledore's thought processes, in fact trying to understand them makes Harry's head ache. What makes it seem obvious is literary convention, in which the mentor arranges confrontations with evil as learning experiences for the young hero, as Yoda does for Luke. But JKR has a disconcerting way of invoking literary conventions and then standing them on their heads. Seeing the challenges in PS/SS as something which Dumbledore arranged sets Harry up for his reaction to Dumbledore's seeming abandonment in OOP. Harry thinks his mentor must have lost faith in him because of his failures. Harry's experience shows a weakness in his philosophy -- it worked very well to regard his encounters with evil as Dumbledore's tests as long as he was successful in meeting them, but it provided for no comfort when he failed. But by the end of OOP Harry is ready to abandon this vision of Dumbledore's role and so he is only briefly angry at Dumbledore's revelation of weakness. I was never angry that Dumbledore couldn't find a better choice than leaving Harry alone at the Dursleys. Personally, I compare the threat of disembodied Voldemort to a dormant virus or cancer that could flare up at any time, and the Dursleys to the only medicine that could prevent it. As with most lifesaving medicines, there are undesirable side-effects, often quite serious. I think "Remember my last" (indicating, according to JKR, that there had been earlier letters) in combination with Dumbledore's description of how reluctant Petunia might have been to take Harry in, could show that Dumbledore felt he had just barely managed to persuade Petunia to offer her home. It would make sense that he would fear to put any additional pressure on her. One of the things OOP shows us is that people respond to pressure in unpredictable ways. I didn't see Dumbledore's explanations as self-serving. I agree that it would have been arrogant for him to take full responsibility for Sirius's actions. Sirius was a grown man, neither a youngster under Dumbledore's guidance nor an employee like Snape. He was damaged, but surely not so impaired that he couldn't be responsible for his own decisions. Dumbledore cuts off Harry when he starts to rant about Petunia not because he can't stand to hear his choice of guardians criticized but, IMO, because he recognizes that this is a diversion. Harry has indeed suffered from lack of love, but it has never mattered to him that *she* didn't love him. As for DD's apparent digression into Elf rights, IMO, it's vital that Harry understand that Voldemort's non-human allies see him as the lesser evil, though Iike much else he was told in that interview, Harry does not yet fully understand this. On first reading I was sorry for both of them -- sorry that Harry had to hear all this at such a difficult time, and sorry that Dumbledore could not afford to wait any longer. There was never going to be a time when it felt right to tell Harry these things, and Dumbledore had brought the wizarding world almost to disaster by waiting in hopes that there would be. Pippin From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 00:54:39 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 00:54:39 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore & Kreacher (was Re: Dumbledore the parselmouth?) In-Reply-To: <20060419202442.68353.qmail@web37912.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151166 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, JULIA WILKES wrote: > Didn't DD use occulmency on him? I remember something regarding a statement in the book that went something like this: " Professor Snape is not the only accomplished occlumens at Hogwarts".... Didn't he say that in his office when he was trying to explain to HP how he found out what was going on when he arrived at #12 Grimmald Place and he was talking to Kreacher... > Steven1965aaa: Here's the quote: "He did not wish to tell me," said Dumbledore. "But I am a sufficiently accomplished Legilimens myself to know when I am being lied to and I - persuaded him - to tell me the full story ...." OOP p.832. From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 01:03:27 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 01:03:27 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <305.37ab656.3177efcf@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151167 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, OctobersChild48 at ... wrote: > In fact, IMO, Ron WAS inadequate as Prefect material and as a Prefect. I think this is one of the worst contrivances JKR has foisted on us. I was totally incredulous when Ron received his notice that he was made Prefect .... Steven1965aaa: Poor Ron, always overshadowed. Come on, the guy knocked out a Troll, had the guts to go down the hatch after the sorcerer's stone, won the greatest chess game in Hogwarts history sacrificing himself in the process, hijacked a bewitched flying car, went into the forbidden forest following the spiders he so feared, escaped Agrog, went down the tunnel to the chamber of secrets, told someone he thought was a mass murderer that he'd have to go through him to get to Harry (on a broken leg to boot), flew to London on an an invisible flying horse-like creature, and went into the ministry of magic and stood against the Death Eaters (although admittedly he did not aquit himself well in that one). What does the poor guy have to do to get some respect? From tonks_op at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 01:33:56 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 01:33:56 -0000 Subject: legalities, dark magic, and dark wizards In-Reply-To: <8FB5FA11-39EE-4703-A5DC-F84E5FD4BC55@stevenmcintosh.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151168 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, stevemac wrote: > > stevemac: > > From reading some of the recent posts about DD and Parseltongue, I thought it was interesting that I did not have a clear distinction between these categories... > > Although it is easy to get the general 'dark magic = bad' > connotations, I'm really curious about what others have to say on > where the definitions and dividing lines are. They seem very gray, and by some definitions I have read, HP has definitely used full- > blown Dark Arts/Magic in the final scene with Snape in HBP - he knew that the purpose of the sectumsempra was to cause harm, and used it. > > I'm just wondering where the boundries lie between illegal magic, > dark magic, and dark wizard. Tonks: In the books there are 3 unforgivable curses, as you know. These are unforgivable because they 1. Takes away another person right to choice or free will. 2. Causes pain for the pleasure of causing pain or to gain something for oneself as a result. 3. Deprives the other person of the right to live a full natural life. The underlying precept behind all of these is a lack of respect for the other and selfishness on ones own part. I do not think that JKR has made it explicitly clear what the difference is between Dark Magic and Non-Dark Magic. To some extent LV is right when he says that there is no good or evil, only power. It has been said in RL that magic is magic and dark or light is a matter of how it is used. In RL there are some forms of magic that are considered dark because of the evil intent of the wizard. One of these that is considered very dark is Necromancy. This invokes the souls of the departed (or another entity) to do ones bidding in the realm between this world and the other. A wizard does it when inside a protective circle within another circle. There are protective symbols between the two circles. That is about all I know about it. It is very dark magic. The closest thing to this in the books would be the inferni in the lake in the cave. In the HP books, I think that the main difference between Dark Magic or Magic used for evil is the basic intent of the Magic. For example the AK is meant to kill. If we believe that there is never any good reason to kill then that spell in and of itself is evil and therefore Dark. Some one who is evil like a DE or LV can use normal magic spells for an evil purpose. This would not make the spell evil or dark, but in the hands of a person who has less than pure intent it can be used for dark purposes. Some spells, and some potions as well as other types of magic, because of their main purpose, would only be considered Dark and therefore we get the collective form of them as "the Dark Arts". So all in all, I guess what I am saying it that it is the "intent" behind the act that fuels it that makes it Dark and if there can never be a good intent behind it to make it work, then it is always Dark. As to Harry and his use or attempted use of an unforgivable curse. This concerns me a great deal. When he went after Bella and attempted to use the crucio, I just screamed out-loud NO!! Harry, NO!! It was wrong of him, both then and later. He did not get in trouble for it because he used it against a DE both times and they are not likely to bring charges against him. But it is wrong never the less. I am worried about Harry, yes I am. Tonks_op From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 01:36:30 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 01:36:30 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151169 Pippin: > Dumbledore cuts off Harry when he starts to rant about Petunia not > because he can't stand to hear his choice of guardians criticized but, > IMO, because he recognizes that this is a diversion. Harry has indeed > suffered from lack of love, but it has never mattered to him that *she* > didn't love him. Alla: How do we know that? Harry IS distressed when he says it, so whether it is a diversion or not, which again I am not sure how you made such conclusion, I would say it was Dumbledore's obligation ( if he indeed loves Harry as much as he claims) to listen to him. IMO of course. Pippin: > As for DD's apparent digression into Elf rights, IMO, it's vital that Harry > understand that Voldemort's non-human allies see him as the lesser evil, > though Iike much else he was told in that interview, Harry does not > yet fully understand this. Alla: Oh, don't get me started. Please, please, Pippin it is by no means directed at you, you know I really like you and respect you, but every time I remember Dumbledore's "let's blame the dead man" act (IMO of course), I just get so angry. So, it is directed at Dumbledore. :) I know, it is emotional reaction again, which I never make a secret of ( yep, yep am emotionally attached to many characters in Potterverse, guilty as charged :)), but I found DD conduct in this part of his speech to be not just self serving, but so very despicable. I truly think that Magpie nailed it. JKR was just trying to put in DD speech as much information as possible - how we supposed to look at Kreacher's conduct, Sirius attitudes to Kreacher, etc, so to speak exposition at the end, but in my book there could not have been a worse place to put it in. I would have much more respect for Dumbledore if he just did not say anything about Sirius. I would expect him to award THAT much respect to Harry's grief. He did not do so and I still find his conduct to be horrible. Harry did not need the recap of Sirius misgivings when only couple of hours passed after his death, IMO. When would be a good time to do so? I woul say never. I understand that JKR felt a need to tell the readers how we are supposed to look at the characters behaviour in OOP, but I just don't find it to be a good writing at all. Pippin: > On first reading I was sorry for both of them -- sorry that Harry had to > hear all this at such a difficult time, and sorry that Dumbledore could > not afford to wait any longer. There was never going to be a time when > it felt right to tell Harry these things, and Dumbledore had brought the > wizarding world almost to disaster by waiting in hopes that there would > be. Alla: Oh, no, no sorry for Dumbledore from me at the end of OOP, and his single tear did not move me either, but I think it is very telling that JKR tried so hard to rehabilitate him in HBP. She convinced me, but I am not surprised that she did not convince all the readers that Dumbledore is an epithome of goodness, because Dumbledore at the end of OOP did not looked like one to me. :) JMO of course, Alla From somedayalive at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 23:36:18 2006 From: somedayalive at yahoo.com (Jennifer Carlson) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 23:36:18 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <305.37ab656.3177efcf@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151170 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, OctobersChild48 at ... wrote: > In fact, IMO, Ron WAS inadequate as Prefect material and as a Prefect. I was totally > incredulous when Ron received his notice that he was made Prefect. It didn't > surprise me at all that Hermione was made a Prefect because she was so right for > it. Jen: I fully agree with you...I was shocked when Ron made Prefect. He has never exhibited any signs of being a strong leader, nor is he an exceptional student. The only reasoning I have been able to come up with is *perhaps* Dumbledore realized how Ron felt always in Harry's shadow, and since he (DD) couldn't make Harry prefect, that he could at least try and give Ron something to set him apart? OctobersChild48: I, of course, expected Harry to be made a Prefect, and Dumbledore's > speech at least explained why he wasn't, not that I agree with his decision Jen: I agree with DD's decision...it made perfect sense to me NOT to put Harry anymore in the spotlight than he already was. Can you elaborate on why you disagree with DD's decision not to make Harry prefect? Blessings, Jen From cass_da_sweet at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 01:49:12 2006 From: cass_da_sweet at yahoo.com (cass_da_sweet) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 01:49:12 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151171 >>Steven1965aaa: >Poor Ron, always overshadowed. Come on, the guy knocked out a >Troll, had the guts to go down the hatch after the sorcerer's stone, >won the greatest chess game in Hogwarts history sacrificing himself >in the process, hijacked a bewitched flying car, went into the >forbidden forest following the spiders he so feared, escaped Agrog, >went down the tunnel to the chamber of secrets, told someone he >thought was a mass murderer that he'd have to go through him to get >to Harry (on a broken leg to boot), flew to London on an an >invisible flying horse-like creature, and went into the ministry of >magic and stood against the Death Eaters (although admittedly he did >not aquit himself well in that one). What does the poor guy have to >do to get some respect? I thought that giving Prefect to Ron was a logical choice.(Once I knew why Harry didn't get it) Compared to his fellow Griffindors Ron is the better choice. No he's not as intelligent as Hermione but neither are the others. As Steven1965 has said Ron has accomplished a lot and none of the other Griffindors,with the exception of Harry, have Special Awards for Services to the School. Sorry if it's short. It's my first post and I'm not a person of many words. cass_da_sweeet From kjones at telus.net Thu Apr 20 01:57:49 2006 From: kjones at telus.net (Kathryn Jones) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 18:57:49 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4446EA9D.7050102@telus.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151172 > Alla: > > Oh, no, no sorry for Dumbledore from me at the end of OOP, and his > single tear did not move me either, but I think it is very telling > that JKR tried so hard to rehabilitate him in HBP. She convinced me, > but I am not surprised that she did not convince all the readers > that Dumbledore is an epithome of goodness, because Dumbledore at > the end of OOP did not looked like one to me. :) KJ writes: I would have to agree with Alla, particularly since I am one of the unconvinced. I sometimes wonder if JKR wasn't a bit tongue in cheek when she referred to DD as "the epitome of goodness". There is that expression that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. I don't even find Dumbledore all that rehabilitated in HBP. He was pressuring Harry to perform, leading him by the nose, letting him know that he was choosing to go after Voldemorte, which to my way of thinking was pure manipulation. Basically, he was saying that Harry did not *have* to go after Voldy, he could *choose* to do so. Like that makes a difference? I think DD was betting he could pull off the tower incident and got caught in a situation that he allowed to take place. It wasn't as though he wasn't being warned by Harry and Snape. KJ From stevejjen at earthlink.net Thu Apr 20 02:12:02 2006 From: stevejjen at earthlink.net (Jen Reese) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 02:12:02 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's Drunken Dream Part 2 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151173 the4bodingdawn: > In the climax of Order of the Phonix, Voldemort fuses himself with > Harry causing Harry unendurable pain. Harry ends up hoping > Dumbledore will kill them both to end the pain. In The Half Blood > Prince, under the influence of the potion Dumbledore also seems to > be experiencing unendurable pain . He also cries out for death to > end the pain. Voldemort has a history of infiltrating a victims > entire being. I think the potion was his way of pouring himself > into his victim. Jen: Yes! I like this interpretation. I had some thoughts on the possession angle for the potion, too (post #140915): "I noticed a thought on another forum how Riddle was attempting an early form of possession with the two Muggle children in the cave and that's why they couldn't remember what happened. This made sense to me, Voldemort continually uses possession as a weapon and survival skill throughout the series. So I started wondering--could the potion in the cave have the ability to weaken and then possess the person drinking it? Possession would explain how Voldemort was able to keep the potion- drinker "alive long enough to find out how they managed to penetrate so far through his defenses, and most importantly of all, why they were so intent upon emptying the basin." (chap. 26, p. 569, Scholastic) This might also explain some of the things Dumbledore said that night. For instance: "I want to die! I want to die! Make it stop, make it stop...KILL ME!" These statements echo Harry at the DOM when possessed by Voldemort: "Let the pain stop, thought Harry. Let him kill us...End it, Dumbledore..." (chap. 36, p. 816) Now a potion being able to possess someone seems farfatched except we have a precendent for it with the liquid-like substance of memories found in a Pensieve and the memory in the diary possessing Ginny. To get to the point--could there be a possession protection on all the Horcruxes?" (end of previous post) Just for the record, one objection made to me was that the potion would then be the horcrux since that would be the only way Voldemort could possess someone like he did Ginny. I don't think that's a major barrier though, JKR just needs to supply the magical device to make it so . the4bodingdawn: > Could it be that Voldemort knew Dumbledore felt a sense of > responsiblity for all the evil things innocent people suffered at > his hands? It was Dumbledore that sought out Tom Riddle and > brought him into the wizarding world. He taught Tom at Hogwarts > effectivly giving him all the tools he would need to become the > most powerful Dark Wizard. Dumbeldore never warned anyone as to > what he knew Tom's true dark and sadistic nature to be. Jen: I didn't get the feeling Dumbledore really blamed himself when he talked with Harry about Riddle's Hogwarts years. Despite his reservations about Riddle and the feeling he needed to watch him, nothing could ever be definitively tied to Riddle and his gang, or not enough for Dumbledore to convince all the people Riddle had charmed along the way. DD seemed to consider it similar to what he told Harry in POA about Pettigrew escaping: "the consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse that predicting the future is very difficult business indeed." (chap. 22, p. 426, Scholastic) He didn't know then who Riddle would become. the4bodingdawn: > Voldemort may have enjoyed the idea of Dumbledore willfully > choosing to drink cup after cup -allowing himself to be held > hostage all or the hope of destroying his horcrux. He probably > felt sure Dumbledore would never know he had six of them. Jen: Voldemort was risking his diary by using it as a weapon--I wonder if he would risk two that way? Luring Dumbledore would definitely appeal to Voldemort, no disagreement there, I'm just wondering if that was too high a price even for LV to lose another horcrux when he doesn't want anyone to know about his horcruxes to begin with? the4bodingdawn: > I think the potion gave Voldemort full access to Dumbledore's mind > and worst fears and perhaps made Dumbledore witness all the > tourchers and murders of the men women and children who are now > the inferi gaurding the horcrux. The 12 golblets full of potion > were designed to allow Voldemort to mentally tourcher Dumbledore > until he cried out for his own death. Voldemort had planned that > he must drink a thirteenth goblet full of the of the icy water > which would call forth the wrath of the army of the dead and his > own physical death. Jen: I think the Inferi water was a back-up plan if the potion did not incapacitate the drinker to the point of passing out and dying before being able to leave the cave. If Harry had not accompanied DD and used Ennervate, it didn't look like Dumbledore was going to recover on his own. Just speculation there based on DD's comment that 'one alone could not have done it'. Back to what the potion was doing, though. Much as I love a possession potion, I'm leaning now toward the idea Dumbledore was remembering a time in his own life when he made a mistake that cost him people he loved. That's what it sounded like he was saying when pleading, 'it's my fault, hurt me instead!' More food for thought. Jen R. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 02:29:51 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 02:29:51 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP/ Dumbledore and Harry in OOP and HBP In-Reply-To: <4446EA9D.7050102@telus.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151174 > > Alla: > > > > Oh, no, no sorry for Dumbledore from me at the end of OOP, and his > > single tear did not move me either, but I think it is very telling > > that JKR tried so hard to rehabilitate him in HBP. She convinced me, > > but I am not surprised that she did not convince all the readers > > that Dumbledore is an epithome of goodness, because Dumbledore at > > the end of OOP did not looked like one to me. :) > > > KJ writes: > > I would have to agree with Alla, particularly since I am one of the > unconvinced. I sometimes wonder if JKR wasn't a bit tongue in cheek > when she referred to DD as "the epitome of goodness". There is that > expression that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. I don't > even find Dumbledore all that rehabilitated in HBP. He was pressuring > Harry to perform, leading him by the nose, letting him know that he was > choosing to go after Voldemorte, which to my way of thinking was pure > manipulation. Basically, he was saying that Harry did not *have* to go > after Voldy, he could *choose* to do so. Like that makes a difference? I > think DD was betting he could pull off the tower incident and got caught > in a situation that he allowed to take place. It wasn't as though he > wasn't being warned by Harry and Snape. Alla: Hehe. I think you would feel that I am doing 180 degree switch here, or whatever is the correct idiom to use, but I think you understand what I mean. I WAS convinced in HBP. I did appreciate that Dumbledore got mad at Dursleys ( does not get him completely of the hook), but at least Dumbledore who truly believed that Dursleys would treat Harry well comes off as naive to me, but totally IC, like the one who gives people second chances and believes in their better nature, etc. I believe that Dumbledore was touched when Harry proclaimed his loyalty. I saw a man, who probably never had children, but for the first time truly loved a remarkable child and is doing his best to help this child survive the war. Does it matter that Harry chooses to go after Voldemort? Well, IMO it does matter to JKR. Does it matter to me? Probably it does, since that puts the choice to Harry and backs away from the predetermination of the Prophecy. And of course "I am not worried, I am with you" was such a sad line to me. So, what am I trying to say? I did not see a man who struggles with his feelings for Harry and with his other burdens in that annoying speech in OOP. I saw a self-serving jerk, who was sort of apologising, but not REALLY, since even though he blames himself, but makes it not really his fault. I wanted DD to be many times more humble than he was in that speech. But again, I bought his transformation in HBP, but I do not find his speech and his behaviour in HBP to be very consistent. I do think that some day JKR may choose to edit that speech. JMO, Alla From zgirnius at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 02:56:01 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 02:56:01 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151175 > Steven1965aaa: > > Poor Ron, always overshadowed. Come on, the guy knocked out a > Troll, had the guts to go down the hatch after the sorcerer's stone, > won the greatest chess game in Hogwarts history sacrificing himself > in the process, hijacked a bewitched flying car, went into the > forbidden forest following the spiders he so feared, escaped Agrog, > went down the tunnel to the chamber of secrets, told someone he > thought was a mass murderer that he'd have to go through him to get > to Harry (on a broken leg to boot), flew to London on an an > invisible flying horse-like creature, and went into the ministry of > magic and stood against the Death Eaters (although admittedly he did > not aquit himself well in that one). What does the poor guy have to > do to get some respect? zgirnius: I couldn't agree more! If we exclude Harry, Ron is a natural choice. In addition to all the reasons above, Ron is not really a lousy student, as some suggest, either. He seems to have developed the ambition to become an Auror, and managed sufficiently high OWL grades on the five core subjects to continue at the NEWT level. He's no scholar like Hermione, but she did not write his OWL papers for him. Other than Harry's O in DADA, I think he and Ron did about the same. From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 03:34:15 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 03:34:15 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: <009b01c66369$25a05be0$52b4400c@Spot> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151176 > >>Betsy Hp: > > I think there a couple of different reasons why this speech > > didn't bother me. One is that of *course* Dumbledore was a bit > > crazy in this scene. > > > > He's exhausted and grieving and trying very hard to give Harry > > as much comfort as he can while at the same time keep Harry from > > descending into toxic rage. (Hence his admittedly bizarre segue > > into House elf rights when Kreacher is brought up.) > >>Magpie: > I think to me he sounds all too in control--he manages to come out > sympathetic and smelling like a rose while other peoples' problems > are flaws or not that important. Betsy Hp: Ah, but see it's the control -- the iron control, the multi-times mentioned calm -- that tells me Dumbledore is operating on fumes here. Especially with the little moments JKR throws in. The stiff denial of Sirius's death by Phineas; the sunlight cutting into Dumbledore's skin, making him look old; his pedantic way of speaking (even for him); the moment where he drops his head into his hands; and finally the tear. It's incredibly British. Possibly old-fashioned, but very, very, typical of the type of man Dumbledore is supposed to be. I'm reading "The Charioteer" by Mary Renault, which takes place in England during WWII. There's a scene where the protagonist, Laurie, recalls lying on the beach at Dunkirk, his leg shattered. Next to him was a man, Reg, whose arm was also shattered, and whose eyes were swelled shut by the blast that got his arm. Reg, afraid of being blind, completely looses it and starts screaming for someone to shoot him. Laurie forced his eyes open, and Reg calmed down. A good year or so later, despite all the enforced time they've spent together in the hospital, they're both incredibly embarrassed about the whole thing. It's something they purposefully avoid talking about, because of how emotional Reg was at the time. My family is Canadian and they tend to "out British the British" (as good colonialists do ). My grandmother wept once when my grandfather died. And her tears shocked me. That sort of expressed emotion just wasn't done. I suppose it's a bit of a cop-out to claim cultural differences and move on. I guess a case could be made that by rooting Dumbledore so firmly into a certain aspect of the British culture JKR failed as a writer. But it's one reason I do see Dumbledore as fully admitting his failures, not shunting blame or setting himself up as less flawed than anyone else. > >>Magpie: > > But I'd say obviously we're supposed to take Harry's line of > reasoning here and get that Dumbledore knew what was going on and > let Harry have his chance, and this is a good thing, not a > terrible thing as Hermione thinks. > And it works because in PS, imo, Dumbledore is still in wise man > mode. He *isn't* risking a child's life recklessly because Harry > is the hero of a young adventure story and we can trust > Dumbledore's watching over the whole thing. That's why Harry's > thoughtful while Hermione is exploding and cut off. > Betsy Hp: I do agree with what you're saying. It's just, I refuse to do it. Because if Harry *is* right, if Dumbledore *did* let him enter a gauntlet where Ron is struck so hard *on the head* he's knocked unconscious, and that leaves Harry in a coma for three days... Well, we've got a madman on our hands don't we? Since Dumbledore claims in this OotP speech that he tried to *keep* Harry from facing Voldemort, I feel like I can keep on thinking that the end of PS/SS was very nearly a massive disaster that scared the crap out of Dumbledore at the time. I very well could be willfully ignoring the author's intentions (trained myself to do that with the X-Files ) but until JKR makes it an impossibility, I'll continue to interpert Dumbledore in a manner that makes him palatable to me. Though... I do suspect that JKR set up the fairytale motif specifically to shoot it down. The Dursleys are a good example, I think. At first they do seem rather Dahl-esque, and yet... They were never quite cruel enough to me. James (from the Giant Peach) would have thought them quite warm and fuzzy compared to his aunts. In a similar manner, the all-powerful wiseman turns out to be not all that powerful, and quite capable of making mistakes. In PS/SS Harry thinks of himself as being in a fairytale. With unicorns and magical mirrors and invisibility cloaks, who can blame him? But unlike a fairytale, evil isn't vanquished. Not even by the great wiseman. And neither is the evil surrogate family. The hero will have to deal with them again and again and again, until he finally grows beyond them. > >>Magpie: > > PS/SS was a different style. It also might have been the only > book in the series. If it had been I think it would generally be > seen as Cinderella/wise man-ish. It's Harry's words that, imo, > would be taken as a clue to us readers what Dumbledore was about. Betsy Hp: I agree. But since it's not the only book, and since the WW is not a fairytale place I think it is possible to look at PS/SS in a non- fairytale way. It's like, I never accepted that Slytherin meant evil. Even though it seemed to be the clear message, and in a fairytale or Roald Dahl book those children *would* have been evil. I read PS/SS through GoF over the course of about a week for my very first introduction to the Potterverse. So I started out knowing PS/SS was just the beginning and quickly entered into the changing tone. I think that helped shape my thinking on PS/SS. For better or for worse I just didn't have time for the fairytale motif to get fixed in my mind. Betsy Hp, up past her bedtime and hoping this make a bit of sense From richlauraelaina at sbcglobal.net Thu Apr 20 03:36:58 2006 From: richlauraelaina at sbcglobal.net (richandlaura1) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 03:36:58 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <305.37ab656.3177efcf@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151177 I don't think anyone has said this already. (If they have, please forgive the repetition.) From my first reading of OoTP, I thought that Ron was an odd choice for Prefect from the standpoint of an outstanding role model for other students to look up to and count on. However, I always assumed that Dumbledore didn't put Ron in that position because he was the best candidate. I believe that Dumbledore chose Ron and Hermione because they are Harry's best friends. Harry needs all the extra help and priviledges he can get without any more responsibility. With both of his best friends in positions of limited power, that arrangement could help Harry when (not if) he gets into another difficult situation. Dumbledore has known these are Harry's confidants since PS/SS. In HBP Dumbledore advises Harry to relay all important information to Ron and Hermione because he knows Harry is going to need them, just like he has many times before. What makes Harry a formidible opponent to LV is his support network. IMO, that network is what will make all the difference in the final book. That's why Ron (and Hermione though she does fit the Prefect mold a bit better) were made prefect, because it would help Harry as he prepared himself for the future. A future that Dumbledore knows will inevitably come. Laura -who is very tired and going to bed From belviso at attglobal.net Thu Apr 20 04:10:48 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 00:10:48 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) References: Message-ID: <00c601c66430$687ba7e0$6766400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 151178 > Betsy Hp: > Ah, but see it's the control -- the iron control, the multi-times > mentioned calm -- that tells me Dumbledore is operating on fumes > here. Especially with the little moments JKR throws in. The stiff > denial of Sirius's death by Phineas; the sunlight cutting into > Dumbledore's skin, making him look old; his pedantic way of speaking > (even for him); the moment where he drops his head into his hands; > and finally the tear. > > It's incredibly British. Possibly old-fashioned, but very, very, > typical of the type of man Dumbledore is supposed to be. I'm > reading "The Charioteer" by Mary Renault, which takes place in > England during WWII. There's a scene where the protagonist, > Laurie, recalls lying on the beach at Dunkirk, his leg shattered. > Next to him was a man, Reg, whose arm was also shattered, and whose > eyes were swelled shut by the blast that got his arm. Reg, afraid > of being blind, completely looses it and starts screaming for > someone to shoot him. Laurie forced his eyes open, and Reg calmed > down. A good year or so later, despite all the enforced time > they've spent together in the hospital, they're both incredibly > embarrassed about the whole thing. It's something they purposefully > avoid talking about, because of how emotional Reg was at the time. Magpie: Actually, to be clear, I wasn't referring to Dumbledore's demeanor as being calm--that didn't strike me as odd. I was referring to the exposition he gives that I had so much trouble with. He's not coming out and saying he's less flawed than anyone else, I'm just reading his words and saying okay, yeah, that's a touching "apology" there Dumbledore, but not quite on point for me. Maybe it's the author and not the character, but I think his exposition coupled with the apology is hilariously slick in the way it presents Dumbledore. -m From belviso at attglobal.net Thu Apr 20 03:12:35 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 23:12:35 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP /some Star Wars. References: Message-ID: <009d01c66428$468c5830$6766400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 151179 Doug Pratt: > Well, Merlin is not a 100% Good Guy in the Arthur legends; he is > problematic. Not to say a little crazy. Let me recommend a wonderful > short story called "The Last Defender of Camelot," which shows Merlin > to be quite unlike Dumbledore, and seems to me to be faithful to the > Merlin we see in the Arthurian legends. It was written by Roger > Zelazny, and is part of a collection of short stories called "Unicorn > Variations," which anyone who appreciates stories or chess should own. Magpie: Oh yes--sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Merlin was always good. I meant Merlin in terms of just his arranging the living arrangements Harry has early in his life, which to me seem very Cinderella like, with Harry then delivered from them and returned to Dumbledore. I don't think Merlin ever even comes across as as benevolent as Dumbledore does early on--but then, there's so many different re-tellings of that story. Cinderella has her fairy godmother who's not a political figure with an agenda. Pippin: Pippin: But what makes it obvious that we're supposed to take Harry's line? Magpie: The way it's written, is the best I can do, especially knowing PS/SS could have been expected to stand on its own. Even if Harry's wrong it seems like we're supposed to take this as a reasonable possibility, that Dumbledore would feel this way. Canon doesn't show Harry having great insight into Dumbledore usually, but in PS/SS I think he has the most of all the Trio. I think he's really supposed to be the kid hero who's just learned something and that's why he's explaining something to Hermione, who is there to raise the possible reader objection so Harry can answer it. I don't think Harry is suggesting here that Dumbledore intentionally set things up to test him, just that Dumbledore believes he'd earned the right to face Voldemort on his own. Whether or not he did it intentionally. So even if Harry's wrong, I think Harry's pov is presented as reasonable. Pippin: As for DD's apparent digression into Elf rights, IMO, it's vital that Harry understand that Voldemort's non-human allies see him as the lesser evil, though Iike much else he was told in that interview, Harry does not yet fully understand this. Magpie: Actually, what bothers me about the house-elf part is how it sounds like the flipside of Hermione's problems with SPEW, making Kreacher's feelings just the result of Wizard behavior. Alla: Oh, don't get me started. Please, please, Pippin it is by no means directed at you, you know I really like you and respect you, but every time I remember Dumbledore's "let's blame the dead man" act (IMO of course), I just get so angry. Magpie: Yeah, unfortunately, if it's condescending for Dumbledore to take full credit for Sirius' death it's equally odd for him to be explaining all the ways Sirius was responsible for his own death--which leads back to my problems with the house elf stuff again, making Kreacher something less than a character with his own motivations and passions that have nothing to do with wizards. I mean, I don't think Sirius' treatment of Kreacher had anything whatsoever to do with why Kreacher turned him in. I think Kreacher was loyal to the Blacks and horrified at the way their house was being used, and thought Sirius broke his mother's heart. I took Kreacher's feelings very seriously. Sandy: Sandy, who thinks making Harry a Prefect would have been a contrivance too, but would have made better sense than Ron. Magpie: I wrote a long thing once on Ron as Prefect but in a nutshell, Hermione is the obvious natural choice, but Harry has shown some natural leadership qualities--ironically mostly in OotP when he's not Prefect. Probably Dean and Seamus could have handled the job well enough. Ron's likeable--younger students may have quite preferred to go to him with problems rather than Hermione. But I have to feel for Ron, because while I think he could have been fine despite not being the greatest choice ever (the job doesn't seem all that hard), from the beginning he's totally not supported and everybody all but says it should be Harry. You can see him pretty much give up on the job early on. The way everything's handled right from the beginning--everyone's focused on Harry, talking about how it should have been Harry, but since it's not we all agree not being chosen for Prefect shows how cool you are. Then he's got the twins to deal with (and the Percy example to avoid at all costs) and also Hermione, who by nature takes charge and tells him when he's doing stuff wrong, this after she completely fails to conceal her confusion at the idea he could even have the badge instead of Harry. And Hermione has her own problems as Prefect I'd guess, just the opposite ones of Ron. So yeah, I don't think Ron's being Prefect is that much of an issue in itself-I do think that part of the job is about teaching the kid something (including Hermione) so that they're improved by it. Maybe it did Ron some good. I can just totally empathize with his struggles with it. It mirrors his problems with Quidditch where he's also not quite up to the job as some would be and seems all too aware of it. -m From jazmyn at pacificpuma.com Thu Apr 20 04:55:19 2006 From: jazmyn at pacificpuma.com (Jazmyn Concolor) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 21:55:19 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44471437.9080106@pacificpuma.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151180 Jennifer Carlson wrote: > >Jen: >Considered it, yes, but I somehow doubt it, considering how dark JK >has made it out to be. That is also why it matters if DD is able to >talk to snakes. It is what Voldemort is famous for, and is quite >often throughout the books referred to as the mark of a dark wizard. > > > > On WHOSE word do we have for this? Ron's? Ron has been shown repeatedly ignorant before of his own world, so why should we take his world for it that its the mark of a dark wizard? Hermione? She gets all her facts from books and as we have seen from Lockhart's books, many things in WW books might be taken with a grain of salt. If so, why isn't Harry a dark wizard just for the ability to speak it? I think there are no 'absolutes' in the WW and a lot of people who 'assume' things based on circumstantial and flimsy evidence. Its like trying to claim all blond people are unintelligent to claim that all wizards who speak or understand parselmouth are automatically evil, dark wizards. And even if Dumbledore only understands the speech through use of magic and doesn't speak it, does not mean he is suddenly evil. People spend so much time looking at black and white, they fail to see all the shades of gray between. The whole world isn't neatly divided into good people and death eaters after all. Jazmyn [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From kateydidnt2002 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 06:16:56 2006 From: kateydidnt2002 at yahoo.com (kateydidnt2002) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 06:16:56 -0000 Subject: Interesting contrast between HP and Star Wars Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151181 Here is something interesting I was just thinking about: In the Harry Potter universe the Imperius Curse which imposes your will onto someone else is considered an Unforgivable-one of the worst curses you can use. In Star Wars, however, the Jedi have no problem imposing their will on someone else when they use a Jedi mind trick. Conversely, among the Jedi I would guess that to pilfer someone's mind would be seen as a definite darkside action (many fanfics have this happening and in them it is considered of the dark side). In Harry Potter however Legilimency, the practice of pilfering someone else's mind is not associated with dark magic, though a Dark Wizard can use the ability it is not considered a Dark Art (as far as we know). We know that Dumbledore is a perfectly competent ligelimens and uses it without qualms (Kreacher, Hepzibah's house elf, Morfin). Interesting differences. One universe considers one ability acceptable while another considers it dark and vice versa with a second ability. From kateydidnt2002 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 06:30:23 2006 From: kateydidnt2002 at yahoo.com (kateydidnt2002) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 06:30:23 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: <44471437.9080106@pacificpuma.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151182 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Jazmyn Concolor wrote: > > > > > On WHOSE word do we have for this? Ron's? Ron has been shown > repeatedly ignorant before of his own world, so why should we take his > world for it that its the mark of a dark wizard? Hermione? She gets > all her facts from books and as we have seen from Lockhart's books, many > things in WW books might be taken with a grain of salt. If so, why > isn't Harry a dark wizard just for the ability to speak it? > > Well, Ernie also mentions this. In book two: "Hannah," said the stout boy solemnly, "he's a Parselmouth. Everyone knows that's the mark of a Dark wizard. Have you ever heard of a decent one who could talk to snakes? They called Slytherin himself Serpent-tongue." So while no it doesn't mean anyone with the ability is automatically a dark wizard, there are a number of very infamous Parselmouths. It is a stereotype--all societies have them. Just like Hagrid's pronouncement, "there's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin. You-Know-Who was one," when Hagrid knows this is just not true (at this point we know that Hagrid thought Sirius was a Death Eater and was not a Slytherin). As for Dumbledore being a Parselmouth? "Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself" -Tom "His own very rare gift, Parseltongue" -Dumbledore "It's not a very common gift."-Ron I doubt it, but it does make me wonder (again) what witches and wizards do who are from the UK but do not go to Hogwarts do--given Tom's statement (taken at face value) none of the Gaunt family went to Hogwarts. From somedayalive at yahoo.com Wed Apr 19 05:32:59 2006 From: somedayalive at yahoo.com (Jennifer Carlson) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 05:32:59 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's Drunken Dream In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151183 > zgirnius: > I also don't see the Dumbledore/Jesus parallel. (Well, I do see > that his death may have been a sacrifice, but that does not even > make him unique, in the series. There's Lily...) > > But Rowling is not an atheist, she has stated in an interview that > she is a Christian. I am including a link to the page where I found > it, and her comment on her faith and her writing. Jen: Very true...DD's death as a (possible) sacrifice most certainly is not unique! Thank you for posting that...I could have *sworn* back when she started writing the books she claimed to be athiest or agnostic! I have to admit, hearing she's Christian does turn me off a bit, just b/c I have had such terrible experiences with Christians, and hate to see the wonderful world of HP tainted by that for me! Blessings, Jen From ryelle80 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 02:55:54 2006 From: ryelle80 at yahoo.com (Najwa) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 02:55:54 -0000 Subject: legalities, dark magic, and dark wizards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151184 > > Tonks: > In the books there are 3 unforgivable curses, as you know. These are > unforgivable because they 1. Takes away another person right to > choice or free will. 2. Causes pain for the pleasure of causing > pain or to gain something for oneself as a result. 3. Deprives the > other person of the right to live a full natural life. The > underlying precept behind all of these is a lack of respect for the > other and selfishness on ones own part. Najwa: I have had a question about one particular spell or charm I suppose. The love charm. it's not unforgivable, yet it takes away a person's right to choice and free will of love, doesn't it? It's almost like a love based Imperius. I can understand if it was a spell to increase love that was already there or perhaps keep it going, but to make someone fall in love with you? It almost sounds like ruphynol mixed in with a bit of the cayote ugly scenerio, only long term. From bawilson at citynet.net Thu Apr 20 04:01:30 2006 From: bawilson at citynet.net (Bruce Alan Wilson) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 00:01:30 -0400 Subject: "Unforgivable"--when used against whom? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151185 Tonks: "A word about DD's methods with Kreacher; I am sure that, while milk and cookies would never work with Kreacher, DD did not use an unforgivable on him. DD probably only had to threaten to burn Mrs. Black's portrait to get anything he wanted from Kreacher. No unforgivable there." BAW: If we are to believe fake!Moody, the law against Unforgivable applies to using them on human beings. Kreacher isn't human. On a related note, Harry never cast an Unforgivable. He TRIED, but he never succeeded. There is no record in canon of 'attempted use of an Unforgivable Curse' as a separate crime. And even if it were, there would have to be a complainant, and in no case was there a victim or witness willing or able to testify. BAW From sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 04:20:18 2006 From: sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com (sugaranddixie1) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 04:20:18 -0000 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151186 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sugaranddixie1" > > > > ET wrote: > > For example, when Harry performed the "cutting" curse on Draco, he > was caught by Snape who strongly suspected (actually "knew" by > occlumency) where Harry had learned that spell. ET again: I don't see a way to edit a post , but where I wrote "occlumency" above, I should have said "legilimency". :) ET - who hasn't proficient occlumency skills to hide her embarrassment. :) From ryelle80 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 04:58:52 2006 From: ryelle80 at yahoo.com (Najwa) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 04:58:52 -0000 Subject: The Opposite of a Horcrux - Lily, DD, Harry's eyes In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151187 Del: > And if so, what did DD transfer into Harry? It can't be anything > obvious, because nobody, not even Harry himself, noticed anything > different about his body, his substance. So what could it be? Maybe > it is a special power that Harry will discover when he needs it? > Maybe Legilimency and/or Occlumency? Or something else entirely? Or > will Harry someday notice how strangely shaped his new scar on his > knee is :-) ? Najwa: I know this is an old post, but it occurred to me while reading this that maybe Harry will inherit the scar that is shaped like the London underground? I got this from the List on the Lexicon and I better go ahead and put up the authors just to be sure to cite my sources: Essays The List by Anita (akh), Jo Mears (Serenadust) and Pippin, with contributions from Lyn J. Mangiameli and Siriusly Snapey Susan. Sure it sounds like a silly idea, but if these imprints manifest in a distinct physical trait, then why not that one? After all, "You might see Dumbledore's scar again..." Great post by the way, I do wish I was around during those discussions. From somedayalive at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 05:20:38 2006 From: somedayalive at yahoo.com (Jennifer Carlson) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 05:20:38 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: <44471437.9080106@pacificpuma.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151188 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Jazmyn Concolor > I think there are no 'absolutes' in the WW and a lot of people who > 'assume' things based on circumstantial and flimsy evidence. It's > like trying to claim all blond people are unintelligent to claim > that all wizards who speak or understand parselmouth are > automatically evil, dark wizards. And even if Dumbledore only > understands the speech through use of magic and doesn't speak it, > does not mean he is suddenly evil. Jen: Nobody said that being able to speak or understand Parseltongue MAKES you a Dark Wizard, that is your own incorrect deduction from others' words. The question, though, was why it would be *relevant*, which I answered. From bawilson at citynet.net Thu Apr 20 04:07:40 2006 From: bawilson at citynet.net (Bruce Alan Wilson) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 00:07:40 -0400 Subject: Child Sociopaths Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151189 Jen: "Jen: JKR clearly said Riddle was not born evil, but that he has never known love. In Potterverse that is the greatest evil of all from what I can tell. I often wonder why JKR presented boy Riddle the way she did, as not only unloved but unlovable from the start. Even as a baby he didn't ask for or likely receive much attention because he was 'odd'. Merope abandoning him may have started the process of Tom being unloved, but it didn't end there. The fault for being unloved as a baby cannot lie with a baby any more than Petunia finding Harry unlovable lies with him as a 15-month old. " BAW: What reaction would one have if one had met Ted Bundy, or Charles Manson, or Ed Gein, or Casey Ramirez, or Jeff Dahlmer, et al? Would they have been any less 'off' than Tommy Riddle? From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Thu Apr 20 06:57:11 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 06:57:11 -0000 Subject: Harry and the Law (was:Re: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah??) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151190 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" wrote: > > > >>Eggplant: > > > > Harry was the victim of an unprovoked attack by Draco with an > > Unforgivable Curse, Harry would have been entirely justified if > > he'd killed Draco when he was defending himself. > > Betsy Hp: > Oh, I don't know. Draco could make a reasonable argument that he > was trying to protect himself from an aggressive stalker. > Especially if the map came out. I'd also point out that this > particular argument would mean Bellatrix was perfectly in her right > to kill Harry at the MoM, and Snape had a right to kill Harry at the > end of HBP. Laurel Lei: > And what about Draco in the bathroom and the sectasempra spell...? The > spell for enemies... the spell that Snape "reversed"... had Snape not > arrived and known what to do (because he was the "Prince" and possible > author)...???? Would Harry then have become a murderer if Draco had > died? Isn't what he did attempted murder? Geoff: I disagree. If I might quote part of post 151065 which I sent two days ago... Draco raised the stakes in the duel. The fight began with a Levicorpus and a Leg-Locker Curse and then... 'Harry slipped over as Malfoy, his face contorted, cried, "Cruci-" "SECTUMSEMPRA!" bellowed Hary from the floor, waving his wand wildly.' (HBP "Sectumsempra" pp.488-89 UK edition) Harry was being plain stupid in using an unknown spell and giving into temptation: 'Harry was about to put his book away again when he noticed the corner of a page folded down; turning to it, he saw the Sectumsempra speel, captioned 'For Enemies', that he had marked a few weeks previously. He had still not found out what it did, mainly because he did not want to test it around Hermione but he was considering trying it out on McLaggen the next time he came up behind him unawares.' (Ibid. p484) It must be obvious that he doesn't realise that it could be a highly dangerous spell at this point. Harry is obviously trying to find out what Malfoy is doing, which I don't think necessarily falls into the category of 'stalking'. Let's just look at canon again: 'And Harry realised, with a shock so huge it seemed to root him to the spot, that Malfoy was crying - actually crying - tears streaming down his pale face into the grimy basin.' (HBP "Sectumsempra" p.488 UK edition) Aggressive? 'Malfoy wheeled round, drawing his wand. Instinctively, Harry pulled out his own. Malfoy's hex missed Harry by inches, shattering the lamp on the wall beside him...' (ibid.) And what would that hex have done to Harry had it landed? Aggressive? Who was the first person who moved from defence into a real attack? 'Harry slipped over as Malfoy, his face contorted, cried "Cruci -"' (ibid.) No, neither of the guys emerged from this encounter covered in glory but it was certainly Draco who upped the stakes and started to turn the exchange into a major disaster. And I speak as someone who has expressed a sneaking sympathy towards Mr.Malfoy on occasions... From finwitch at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 08:08:00 2006 From: finwitch at yahoo.com (finwitch) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 08:08:00 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151191 > > Jen: > Nobody said that being able to speak or understand Parseltongue MAKES > you a Dark Wizard, that is your own incorrect deduction from others' > words. > > The question, though, was why it would be *relevant*, which I answered. > Finwitch: It hardly matters if Dumbledore could (There's no record if he could) but I don't think so. Dumbledore always has been observant, however. You know, the way he seemed to just know things... (Read some Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to know how power of observance plays a part...) Dumbledore can certainly observe that whisper, even if the person whose memory it is merely heard it, and deduce that it was parseltongue from other things such as the clearly stated status of being descendants of Salazar Slytherin. Ron heard it when Harry spoke it, remember? But only Harry who understands it, heard it when no obvious source was visible. (Which sound, by others, was probably simply ignored.) Even if Dumbledore doesn't understand parseltongue, he could deduce the critical matters from other things - (I doubt that 'Snakey snakey'- business would have been any importance to him, anyway...) Harry's the one who understood that part, though... BTW, it's entirely possible that Voldemort has hidden at least one horcrux in a place where one can access only by speaking parseltongue... Does the Chamber of Secrets have/had one, hidden in the Basilisk's nest? Perhaps Fawkes brought Dumbledore the Ring from there? Finwitch From finwitch at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 09:20:38 2006 From: finwitch at yahoo.com (finwitch) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 09:20:38 -0000 Subject: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151192 Finwitch: My idea for the "late bloomer" is Gilderoy Lockhart. Not one that I've noticed in the threads here either. And why? Events from books: 1.GL never could do any spell but Memory Charms. 2.He got hit by one. 3.He's still signing things in St Mungos. Speculation: 4. - Quite possibly, he might start *believing* his own books he'll read in order to regain his "memory". You know, books like Magical Me. Really, if you had lost your entire memory (including your name) but had, previously, written your memoirs, would you not read them in order to learn who you are? 5.Consequently, GL will believe he really can do those spells as he has done them. 6. This belief will mean he truly *Can* do those things! It would be like those stories of a fake medium finding the REAL stuff for once... Finwitch From drednort at alphalink.com.au Thu Apr 20 09:58:10 2006 From: drednort at alphalink.com.au (Shaun Hately) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 19:58:10 +1000 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re:Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <4447E7D2.24501.B7817C@drednort.alphalink.com.au> No: HPFGUIDX 151193 On 20 Apr 2006 at 1:49, cass_da_sweet wrote: > I thought that giving Prefect to Ron was a logical choice.(Once I > knew why Harry didn't get it) Compared to his fellow Griffindors Ron > is the better choice. No he's not as intelligent as Hermione but > neither are the others. As Steven1965 has said Ron has > accomplished a lot and none of the other Griffindors,with the > exception of Harry, have Special Awards for Services to the > School. It's also important to realise that in real schools, a prefect isn't always appointed to the job because they are necessarily ready for it. Remember that we are talking about a school - a place where people are learning to do things, a place where they are improving themselves - and in such an environment it is perfectly legitimate, and actually not all that uncommon for someone to be appointed as a prefect in the belief that they will rise to the occasion. I know - it happened to me. And at Hogwarts where you seem to have a situation of multi-age prefects, this is even more reasonable than in many schools which don't have such a system - because there's four experienced prefects around to ensure there's time for the inexperienced ones to come into their own. And with Hermione, who seems very competent from the start, that really means there's five. Honestly I have to say that my biggest problem with what we see in Order of the Phoenix is that whoever the senior Gryffindor prefects are, they seem to be leaving an awful lot to Hermione and Ron. There's no way I would leave the twins to two prefects who were younger than they were - especially not when one of them is their younger brother. I think Hermione handles them well (threatening to inform their mother was a master stroke) but the issue shouldn't have arisen. It isn't Ron's performance that concerns me - but whoever else is around in that House. There's also, as has been mentioned, the TOGA principle to be considered. The Only Guy Available. There's only five boys in Gryffindor fifth year and one of the five has to have the badge. If Harry is ruled out of contention, Ron does seem to me the next best choice. Neville post Order of the Phoenix is another contender - but not the Neville we see before that year in my view. Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html (ISTJ) | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 "You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia From finwitch at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 10:20:14 2006 From: finwitch at yahoo.com (finwitch) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 10:20:14 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <4447E7D2.24501.B7817C@drednort.alphalink.com.au> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151194 "Shaun Hately": > Honestly I have to say that my biggest problem with what we see in > Order of the Phoenix is that whoever the senior Gryffindor prefects > are, they seem to be leaving an awful lot to Hermione and Ron. > There's no way I would leave the twins to two prefects who were > younger than they were - especially not when one of them is their > younger brother. I think Hermione handles them well (threatening to > inform their mother was a master stroke) but the issue shouldn't > have arisen. It isn't Ron's performance that concerns me - but > whoever else is around in that House. Finwitch: You know, only Hermione had a problem with that, and even she admitted that F&G weren't breaking any rules. So um -- no one else saw any need to do anything. We don't know who Gryff 7th Year Prefects were in OOP - Lee Jordan maybe? - but whoever that was, well... don't forget that these pranks were later used against Umbridge (and all but Draco&co were against her). Even the Professors secretly supported this prank-war against Umbridge. Why not 7th-year prefects? (6th years would ALSO be younger than F&G, mind you... and maybe they were in as well). Actually, it seems to me that aside from Umbridge&Filch, only ones against it would of been Molly and Hermione. Besides, it's not like F&G ever had much regard for prefecthood - Angelina as Quidditch Captain would hold something over them, but not since Umbridge kicked them out of the team... Finwitch From finwitch at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 10:49:29 2006 From: finwitch at yahoo.com (finwitch) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 10:49:29 -0000 Subject: legalities, dark magic, and dark wizards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151195 - > Najwa: > I have had a question about one particular spell or charm I suppose. > The love charm. it's not unforgivable, yet it takes away a person's > right to choice and free will of love, doesn't it? It's almost like a > love based Imperius. I can understand if it was a spell to increase > love that was already there or perhaps keep it going, but to make > someone fall in love with you? It almost sounds like ruphynol mixed in > with a bit of the cayote ugly scenerio, only long term. > Finwitch: Well, for one thing, it's a potion, not a curse/charm. Secondly, the effect is temporary - it will stop working by itself after a while. Whereas, AK - nothing can restore the dead. Crucio - such incredible pain until the caster chooses to lift it (or someone stuns/kills/otherwise disables the caster). The Imperius, OTOH, while it can be fought, will usually also last the same way as the crucio - and the caster can be someplace else and leave it working! Thirdly -- well, it's not true love. Most would appreciate true love to the obsessive lust created by the potion, or at least honour their loved one's free will. As for the ones who have used it: Reckless teenagers who don't know any better - and Merope, whom I consider to have been somewhat insane and desperate due to the way her father and brother treated her. Besides, she felt for Tom the same as she made Tom feel for her. Conclusion: While I think that potion is wrong, I don't consider its use as unforgivable. I just pity those like Merope or the teen girls who felt it necessary to do so... Finwitch From drednort at alphalink.com.au Thu Apr 20 11:08:53 2006 From: drednort at alphalink.com.au (Shaun Hately) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 21:08:53 +1000 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re:Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: References: <4447E7D2.24501.B7817C@drednort.alphalink.com.au> Message-ID: <4447F865.16758.196860@drednort.alphalink.com.au> No: HPFGUIDX 151196 On 20 Apr 2006 at 10:20, finwitch wrote: > "Shaun Hately": > > Honestly I have to say that my biggest problem with what we see in > > Order of the Phoenix is that whoever the senior Gryffindor prefects > > are, they seem to be leaving an awful lot to Hermione and Ron. > > There's no way I would leave the twins to two prefects who were > > younger than they were - especially not when one of them is their > > younger brother. I think Hermione handles them well (threatening to > > inform their mother was a master stroke) but the issue shouldn't > > have arisen. It isn't Ron's performance that concerns me - but > > whoever else is around in that House. > > Finwitch: > > You know, only Hermione had a problem with that, and even she admitted > that F&G weren't breaking any rules. So um -- no one else saw any need > to do anything. If that was the case, more senior prefects should still have intervened - to tell Hermione to pull her head in. But I don't, by the way, think that we can say Fred and George weren't breaking any rules. Initially they put up a notice advertising for volunteers to test their products in exchange for cash (OotP, p.200). When Hermione confronts them (p.202), they don't complain that she doesn't have the authority to stop them - they just tell her she'll regret it. It seems to me that Fred and George are aware that she does, in fact, have the authority she's claiming. Later that day, they ignore her, certainly - but it's clear that they are aware that she does have the authority she's claiming to stop them - they are just not afraid of any punishment she can hand out (p.229). It's not that they are not breaking a rule. They just don't care about what her powers of punishment. Not until she brings out the nuclear deterrent of telling their mother. "'Oh, yes, I would.' said Hermione grimly. 'I can't stop you eating the stupid things yourself, but you're not to give them to the first-years.'" (p.230). Note - 'I can't stop you eating the stupid things yourself'. It's that that isn't against the rules - testing their products on other students is against the rules however. "'I can't, they're not technically doing anything wrong,' said Hermione through gritted teeth. 'They're quite within their rights to eat the foul things themselves and I can't find a rule that says the other idiots aren't entitled to buy them, not unless they're proven to be dangerous in some way and it doesn't look as though they are.'" (p.328). It's not against the rules for Fred and George to eat them. It's not against the rules for them to sell them. But it does seem to be against the rules to use other students as crash test dummies - and that is what Hermione stops them doing. > We don't know who Gryff 7th Year Prefects were in OOP - Lee Jordan > maybe? - but whoever that was, well... don't forget that these pranks > were later used against Umbridge (and all but Draco&co were against > her). Even the Professors secretly supported this prank-war against > Umbridge. Why not 7th-year prefects? (6th years would ALSO be younger > than F&G, mind you... and maybe they were in as well). That's a lot later though. At the time this happens - the experimentation - the idea of war-by-prank against Umbridge isn't even on the horizon. And by the time that happens, the products have been (apparently) proven safe and Fred and George are fully at liberty to sell them without interference by Hermione (though I'm sure she'd love to find a rule that said she could). Hermione plays by the rules. She seems to know them well. She only takes Fred and George on when she knows the rules are on her side. When the rules aren't, even if she wishes they were, she let's them be. > Actually, it seems to me that aside from Umbridge&Filch, only ones > against it would of been Molly and Hermione. Besides, it's not like > F&G ever had much regard for prefecthood - Angelina as Quidditch > Captain would hold something over them, but not since Umbridge kicked > them out of the team... It doesn't really matter if Fred and George respect the office or not. That doesn't get the prefects off the hook - they have a job to do whether it's easy or hard. But I could happily live with things even if a senior prefect had just gone to Hermione and said "Look - we've decided it's not worth our time to try and control these two, so don't feel you have to." If the older prefects have decided they have better things to do, then at the very least they should tell the younger prefects this. Now, actually that could have happened - Hermione seems the type to ignore such good advice even if it was offered - but I have to say, even if you've decided that Fred and George aren't routinely worth dealing with, deliberate experimentation on first years would seem to be to be a special case where you have to step in. And it might even be easier, if you've given Fred and George leeway in the past - go up and tell them, that they know you're not the type to be picky, but come on - this is a bit much. Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html (ISTJ) | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 "You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From willsonkmom at msn.com Thu Apr 20 11:26:25 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 11:26:25 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151197 Finwitch: > BTW, it's entirely possible that Voldemort has hidden at least one > horcrux in a place where one can access only by speaking > parseltongue... Does the Chamber of Secrets have/had one, hidden in > the Basilisk's nest? Perhaps Fawkes brought Dumbledore the Ring from > there? Potioncat: I picked the most recent Parselmouth post to comment, but it's to all that I'm responding. Sinister, very sinister is Parseltongue. Anyone who speaks it must be sinister. Harry gets by because it really isn't "him" it's dirt from LV. It's ok for him to use it though. DD doesn't really speak it, because, well, he isn't sinister. So he must be able to glean gobs of information from a hissing pantomine. It's not good to be left handed either. That's really sinister. If you are left handed, you'd better overcome it! Well, not so much now, but in the old days when people still believed in witches. It wasn't good to have a odd mole in those days either.Those were devil's marks. Both were something you were born with, something you didn't choose. You were marked by the devil! Get ready to swing or burn. We've been set up. The WW was set up. Superstition in the WW has it that Parseltongue is a rare gift of Dark Wizards. DD tells us it is not Dark Magic. Come on...if DD says it's OK, then it's OK. Ron got a great deal of grief from us on this. But he doesn't say Harry is a Dark Wizard, or that Parseltongue is Dark. He says it's a rare gift and it's bad. But I think (on this most recent reading) that his point is that it makes Harry look as if he's the Heir of Slytherin. That was the big mystery in CoS. Hermione says it's what Sally was famous for. Upthread someone quoted...McMillan?...on it being Dark. He was wrong about a number of things, although his logic was pretty good at the time. I've always thought he should be an honorary member of HPfGU. So, point one: Parseltongue is not Dark in itself. Where's the canon for DD speaking Parseltongue? Oh, dear. This is a subtle science, my friends, and it was slipped in on us. It was a very quiet canon, unlike the cannon in World WarI that you could hear being loaded before it even fired on you. DD and Harry watch the memories. DD had already seen these memories. He knew what was in them and had picked up the little details. Could he really have guessed at it? Look at how much we disagree about what's going on in Snape's worst memory and we have it in plain English! Granted, we're no Dumbledores. He clearly understood Parseltongue, which is a gift, not a skill you learn. Then, to make sure we were paying attention, DD tells us. "great and good can also speak Parseltongue." Point 2: Canon tells us DD speaks Parseltongue. And as for Finwitch's idea that Parseltongue will be needed in Book &- --Me too. From KLMF at aol.com Thu Apr 20 12:37:50 2006 From: KLMF at aol.com (Karen Fremuth) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 08:37:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Prefect Ron? There's worse. In-Reply-To: <1145515028.1568.26841.m29@yahoogroups.com> References: <1145515028.1568.26841.m29@yahoogroups.com> Message-ID: <4447809E.30605@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151198 I have to agree that I thought Ron was an odd choice as a prefect and my first reasoning was simply that DD was seeing potential in him and wanted to give him a chance, much like Angelina when she chose him for the Quidditch team. With Hermione as his buddy, he would have a strong partner to keep him properly directed. After all, much was made over his being "shunted aside" all the time, first because of his brothers, then because of Harry. This would put Ron in a position where he would be forced to take a leadership role. It could be, too, that DD is aware of Ron's potential role in Harry's future and putting him in a Prefect position would groom him for the tasks ahead. Now, if we want to talk about odd appointments, what about DRACO??? By his father's admission he's not a brilliant student. He's cowardly, bullying, opportunistic, selfish, arrogant, cruel, and he's the most likely to abuse his position of power (and did). What was the logic of appointing him Prefect? The only thing I can see in his favor is his being Snape's favorite, but unless Snape pleaded his case to DD, I don't see why DD would even care about that. Of course, there is always the same logic applied to Ron---that putting him in that position would give him opportunity to prove he's a better person....that was clearly a failure if that was the intent. Otherwise, I must assume the appointment was only made in order to support the plot. Karen F From foxmoth at qnet.com Thu Apr 20 13:02:06 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 13:02:06 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <4447E7D2.24501.B7817C@drednort.alphalink.com.au> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151199 Shaun: > It's also important to realise that in real schools, a prefect isn't > always appointed to the job because they are necessarily ready for > it. Remember that we are talking about a school - a place where > people are learning to do things, a place where they are improving > themselves - and in such an environment it is perfectly legitimate, > and actually not all that uncommon for someone to be appointed as a > prefect in the belief that they will rise to the occasion. I know - > it happened to me. Pippin: JKR as novelist also needs to leave the characters room for personal growth. The Ron who wouldn't confront Fred and George in OOP is planning to have a word or two with them about who they let buy their products at the end of HBP. Also, at the time when prefects were being chosen, Harry was a mess -- being made a prefect might have been therapeutic for him, but would the poor first years really have been better off at the mercy of Harry's slovenly attitude, unprovoked anger and fitful moods? It isn't as if Hogwarts lacked other opportunities for Harry to develop his leadership skills. The DA was arguably a much better fit for his talents and more important overall. It's also not true that Ron had shown no leadership ability. Harry noted back in Book One that Ron was the better chess player because he was better at getting the cooperation of his pieces. Ron hasn't twigged that those same skills could be of use with real people. But I think he will. As for the senior prefects, Fred and George had had seven years to get the measure of them -- as they say, they know exactly how much they'll be allowed to get away with. They seem to have picked a time for experimenting on the first years when they knew that the other prefects would be elsewhere -- perhaps by arrangement? Their mistake was in thinking that they could intimidate Hermione. But after that, they simply took care to conceal what they were doing from her, too. Pippin From belviso at attglobal.net Thu Apr 20 14:06:55 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (sistermagpie) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 14:06:55 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron? There's worse. In-Reply-To: <4447809E.30605@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151200 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Karen Fremuth" wrote: > Now, if we want to talk about odd appointments, what about DRACO??? By > his father's admission he's not a brilliant student. He's cowardly, > bullying, opportunistic, selfish, arrogant, cruel, and he's the most > likely to abuse his position of power (and did). What was the logic of > appointing him Prefect? The only thing I can see in his favor is his > being Snape's favorite, but unless Snape pleaded his case to DD, I don't > see why DD would even care about that. Magpie: Draco seems easily as logically picked as Ron--he's a more obvious choice, actually, imo. He is a leader in Slytherin house. He's a perfectly competent student as far as I can see. Lucius doesn't "admit" he's not a brilliant student, he shames him in front of a shopkeeper for his grades, saying he might not be "fit for more than a thief or a plunderer," but all we know for sure is that a Muggleborn girl beat him in every exam--that kind of scene with a parent is equally common with poor students and with students with demanding parents (who are therefore relatively highly acheivers). Harry would let us know if Draco was struggling academically, and he never does. He's in DADA, Transfig and Potions NEWT classes at least, all of which appear to accept only EEs and up (and in Potions he appears to have gotten an O because he's got his books). So gradewise I don't think there's anything making Draco unsuitable for Prefect. As I said with Ron, I think the idea is more taking people who have certain qualifications and trying to channel them in a productive way. Nor is it a disaster in Slytherin. Draco is awful under Umbridge in the IS, which is a completely different system, but despite all of Hermione's warnings we don't see him abusing his powers when he's just a Prefect. Hermione herself can also benefit from being Prefect--she's not so adept at the job she's ready to teach others yet as others have suggested, imo. She just has her own set of issues and is quick to criticize what other Prefects are doing. I don't think the Prefect person is supposed to give the person a chance to prove they're "a better person" (which Draco certainly doesn't). It's, imo, more about taking the natural social positions of some and the natural social inclinations of others and trying to make them work for the establishment. All the Prefects we see seem to show the weaknesses of their personalities without completely mucking up the job--starting way back at Lupin. They all meet their own challenges on the job; sometimes they grow, sometimes they don't. -m From foxmoth at qnet.com Thu Apr 20 14:22:00 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 14:22:00 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151201 > Pippin: > Harry has indeed suffered from lack of love, but it has never mattered to him that [Petunia] didn't love him. > > Alla: > > How do we know that? Harry IS distressed when he says it, so whether > it is a diversion or not, which again I am not sure how you made > such conclusion, I would say it was Dumbledore's obligation ( if he > indeed loves Harry as much as he claims) to listen to him. IMO of > course. Pippin: Who'd want Petunia in love with them? Honestly, the one thing canon is utterly candid about is Harry's feelings. Dumbledore saw him look into the Mirror of Erised and see the family he's never known, not Petunia having a change of heart. When Fudge says the Dursleys love him deep down (PoA) Harry only thinks that there isn't time to correct him, not that he wishes it were true. I really think it's part of the saving grace of the situation at the Dursleys that Harry never breaks his heart over them. And if he did, we'd know it. Really, we would. Dumbledore has told Harry that there are things that he must say, Harry doesn't want to hear them, and is throwing up a smoke screen. > > > Pippin: > > As for DD's apparent digression into Elf rights, IMO, it's vital > that Harry understand that Voldemort's non-human allies see him as the lesser evil, though Iike much else he was told in that interview, Harry does not yet fully understand this. > > Alla: > > Oh, don't get me started. Please, please, Pippin it is by no means > directed at you, you know I really like you and respect you, but > every time I remember Dumbledore's "let's blame the dead man" act > (IMO of course), I just get so angry. So, it is directed at > Dumbledore. :) > I know, it is emotional reaction again, which I never make a secret > of ( yep, yep am emotionally attached to many characters in > Potterverse, guilty as charged :)), but I found DD conduct in this > part of his speech to be not just self serving, but so very > despicable. > Pippin: See, this is where I don't get you. Intellectually we seem to be on the same page. We want Dumbledore not to be a puppetmaster, we want him to treat Harry as an adult, and we agree that he was wrong to keep back vital information in order to spare Harry's feelings. Right? But your emotional reaction to the speech seems to be coming from a different place altogether. Pardon me if I misrepresent your thoughts, it seems like you want Dumbledore to say that Sirius is dead because Puppetmaster!DD got his strings tangled, you want him to let Harry childishly idealize his godfather instead of helping him understand that other adults are just as fallible as Harry is, and you want him to whitewash Sirius's treatment of Kreacher in order to spare Harry's feelings. Honestly, you know I respect you too, Alla, and I find it hard to understand how anyone can be so sympathetic to Harry's situation at the Dursleys and not see that Kreacher was made to suffer in just the same ways. Think about it: cupboard bed, scabby clothes, expected to do all the chores, has to hear his dead loved ones insulted and villified, expected to do as he's told and otherwise to pretend he's not there, not allowed any possession that might bring him the slightest comfort or pleasure -- really the Dursleys could not treat Harry more like a House Elf if they tried. Sirius was a great man in many ways, but I just can't sit here and type that he did nothing to provoke Kreacher's hatred of him, and I would be horrified if Dumbledore refused to recognize it. It doesn't matter to me that Kreacher was old and ugly and politically incorrect -- because that is the fate that awaits every one of us if we live long enough. Every reactionary idea was pc when it was young. Meanwhile, as long as Harry thinks that Sirius was blameless, he is setting an impossible standard for his own behavior and placing an incredible burden of guilt on himself for not being able to live up to it. He has to be able to see that Sirius played some part in the events that led to his death in order to be able to accept that he, Harry, did also. Dumbledore wants Harry to see that Kreacher's degree of responsibility is less than Harry is making it, both because he was provoked and because he was a slave -- he would have had to obey Narcissa whether he wanted to or not. Having enough impartiality to look beyond his anger at Kreacher and think about what made him make the choices he did is part of becoming the leader that Harry wants to be. I think Dumbledore took responsibility as humbly as he could by not taking it all, not claiming to be a puppetmaster who should have been able to make people do whatever he wanted them to do, and I think the tear was symbolic of many others he must have shed over wrongs he could not right. But old school Brits won't sit there and blub, and it's not everyone's culture to apologize for things that aren't your responsibility just to show that you care either. Alla: > I truly think that Magpie nailed it. JKR was just trying to put in > DD speech as much information as possible - how we supposed to look > at Kreacher's conduct, Sirius attitudes to Kreacher, etc, so to > speak exposition at the end, but in my book there could not have > been a worse place to put it in. Pippin: I agree that JKR needed to put the information there, but she did give Dumbledore a reason to do it. He had just survived Voldemort's attempt to kill him. Repeat after me, "No one ever lived after he decided ter kill 'em " -- what part of that do you think Dumbledore doesn't understand? He's got a year to live at most, if the past is any guide, and he knows it just as surely as if he could peek into JKR's hard drive. He's got to tell Harry everything he knows, as much as he knows, as soon as he can. The time is now. Period. Pippin From sherriola at earthlink.net Thu Apr 20 14:48:00 2006 From: sherriola at earthlink.net (Sherry Gomes) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 07:48:00 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151202 > Alla: > > Oh, don't get me started. Please, please, Pippin it is by no means > directed at you, you know I really like you and respect you, but every > time I remember Dumbledore's "let's blame the dead man" act (IMO of > course), I just get so angry. So, it is directed at Dumbledore. :) I > know, it is emotional reaction again, which I never make a secret of ( Pippin: But your emotional reaction to the speech seems to be coming from a different place altogether. Pardon me if I misrepresent your thoughts, it seems like you want Dumbledore to say that Sirius is dead because Puppetmaster!DD got his strings tangled, you want him to let Harry childishly idealize his godfather instead of helping him understand that other adults are just as fallible as Harry is, and you want him to whitewash Sirius's treatment of Kreacher in order to spare Harry's feelings. Sherry now: Obviously, I'm not Alla. And may I add my comments of great respect for Pippin as well as Alla knowing my respect for her? Here's where I can totally understand Alla's feelings on this matter. The time for this conversation was not right after Harry had watched Sirius die. I can't imagine what I would have done if someone had come to me right after my dad had died and begun to try to make me see his serious faults. (well, I did already know them of course, but something I didn't know.) I would have considered that incredibly insensitive and cruel beyond belief. I hadn't really thought about Dumbledore's speech too much from those terms before, because I can't read past the death of Sirius in OOTP. So, I've only read that speech once and I was still reeling from the impact of what happened at the Ministry. But I can wholeheartedly agree with Alla, that taking that moment, when Harry is devastated to begin to remove the glow from his image of Sirius is or could be considered damn unkind. Putting myself in the emotional fog of the moment, thinking about what Sirius meant to Harry, whether that was reasonable to an outsider's view or not, blaming Sirius could have done more damage, turning Harry farther from Dumbledore out of resentment and instinctive defense of Sirius. It doesn't matter whether we on the outside think Sirius would have been a good parental role for Harry. It only matters that to Harry, his one adult figure, the one who was his, his godfather, his parents' best friend, not his best friend's family, not his headmaster, but his only parental figure ... had just died, and now this person who had ignored him all year is telling him terrible things about that parental figure. Ouch. Sherry From eggplant107 at hotmail.com Thu Apr 20 15:18:03 2006 From: eggplant107 at hotmail.com (eggplant107) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 15:18:03 -0000 Subject: Harry and the Law In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151203 "horridporrid03" wrote: > Draco could make a reasonable argument that he > was trying to protect himself from an aggressive stalker. Reasonable argument? All Harry did was walk into a boy's bathroom, something he had every right to do, and he was viciously attacked with a highly illegal Unforgivable curse. I don't understand why people think it would be interesting to have a hero who is so effete, so politically correct that when somebody is trying to kill him his first priority is the physical well being of the attacker. Boring! Stupid! Comical! Next time I hope Harry disembowels the bad guy. Give me Dirty Harry or give me death. John K Clark From matthew at mjwilson.demon.co.uk Thu Apr 20 11:32:32 2006 From: matthew at mjwilson.demon.co.uk (matt_le_wilson2002) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 11:32:32 -0000 Subject: Interesting contrast between HP and Star Wars - obliviate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151204 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kateydidnt2002" wrote: > > Here is something interesting I was just thinking about: > > In the Harry Potter universe the Imperius Curse which imposes your will > onto someone else is considered an Unforgivable-one of the worst curses > you can use. Interestingly, a memory-wipe (either on students with inconvenient information, or Muggles who have seen too much) is seen as perfectly acceptable, even by Dumbledore. However it is surely a similar violation. Matthew From ellecain at yahoo.com.au Thu Apr 20 15:55:23 2006 From: ellecain at yahoo.com.au (ellecain) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 15:55:23 -0000 Subject: Snape's defection: the timeline question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151205 > Neri: > I haven't read the mugglenet editorial but I think that JKR's > numbers, in this case at least, work quite well together. > Snape is quite justified in saying that he has sixteen years worth of > information on Dumbledore. > > It is true that, strictly speaking, Snape had to include only the > years since GH, since he was supposed to report immediately to his > master any information he gathered about Dumbledore before that. > Snape should have also, perhaps, taken the OotP year out of this > count, because he went to Voldy in the end of the school year of GoF, > only thirteen and a half years after GH. But in Spinner's End Snape > is engaged in a fierce debate with Bella, and "sixteen years worth of > information on Dumbledore" sounds better than "thirteen and a half > years worth of information on Dumbledore", so it should not come as a > surprise that he prefers to speak loosely and use the more inclusive > count. Elyse: Yes, the first time I reread Spinners End, I had no problems with the numbers. Then I joined the fandom and was corrupted by various conspiracy theories.. Thats quite an interesting spin on "sixteen years worth of information on Dumbledore" that you put. I had never considered that Snape was exaggerating the number of years in order to win the debate with Bella, because I assumed that she could check up on the numbers anytime she wanted. What I had read as a slip of the tongue, complete with Freudian analysis, you have managed to turn into an example of Snape's competency as a spy! Really, the more we analyse his half truths in that chapter, the more my head spins... > Neri: > Regarding Snape "switching sides", this was a big discussion before > HBP, involving great philosophical theories, one of which still runs > a popular bar in Theory Bay these days . Elyse: Yeah, the first time I was introduced to George I fell head over heels for thy boy! Sadly, it was post HBP, and so liked him only as a theory. Alas, George hasnt been in the best of health since last July... Neri: I'm not sure that all the > Snape fans quite realize yet how the revelations of HBP put this > discussion in a whole new light. It's now clear that Snape was sent > by Voldemort himself to gather information on Dumbledore, and > probably to serve as a double agent. Snape wouldn't have been able to > take a post at Hogwarts before GH without Voldemort's blessing. So it > appears the whole "changing sides" thing started as an intentional > ruse on Snape's and Voldemort's behalf. Voldemort probably told Snape > to feed Dumbledore some useless information in order to maintain an > illusion that he changed sides. Elyse: I dont know that we can conclude it was a ruse on Voldemort and Snape's behalf. It could have as easily been one that Snape and Dumbledore came up with together. I believe it was only after Voldemort announced his decision to target the Potters, that Snape went to Dumbledore with his "tale of deepest remorse", and Dumbledore could have been the one to come up with the double agent plan. One that Voldemort would have found impossible to resist, and was probably pitched by Snape. "My Lord, I have an ingenious plan....." Neri: Later (and we don't know how much > time before GH) Snape also passed to Dumbledore at least one item of > true information that Voldemort certainly wouldn't want him to pass ? > that Voldy knew the first part of the prophecy and was targeting the > Potters. But Snape had just discovered that he had personal interest > in this specific item. We can't be sure how genuine was the other > information he was passing to Dumbledore at that same time. > Elyse: Perhaps he was passing false information to Voldemort...I'm thinking the location of the Potters. For I have wondered how they managed to stay alive for a year after Harry was born. Also the timing of the Fidelius Charm is suspicious, it seemed more like a last ditch effort to me. Perhaps Snape had warned Dumbledore that Voldemort was going to attack any day now and that insistent danger is why the Fidelius was performed a week before GH rather than much earlier. The information he would have passed would have been to Dark Side and it probably kept the Potters alive for a year. Neri: > So rather than this dramatic decision of Snape to "change sides", the > whole story now appears more like Snape settling into a convenient > arrangement of a double-agent, passing false or genuine information > to both sides according to his own personal interests, and > practically insuring his own survival whatever side wins the war. > The whole "Snape was working for us before Voldemort's fall at > considerable risk to himself" and that heroic "you know what I must > ask you to do" scene in the end of GoF now appear, well, somewhat > less heroic. Elyse: Ahh.. not us DDM!Snapists. Its only the OFH and LID people who read it that way right? *g* Neri: > If Snape indeed "changed sides", one wonders how come he didn't turn > in Lucius, Bella, Rodolfus, Rabastan, Avery, McNair, Nott, Crabbe, > Goyle, Rookwood, or in fact any other DE that we know of, even after > GH. Elyse: Well, Dumbledore knew LV wasnt gone forever, and that would have pretty much ruined Snape's future spying career, no? Putting a load of your old friends in Azkaban when one is at best unsure of the Dark Lord's return, is a terrible survival stategy...just ask Karkaroff. Neri: He could have prevented the attack on the Longbottoms and the > Lucius' Diary scheme in CoS had he done so. Elyse: Ummm... I dont know where you get this from. Even if Snape knew Bella from their DE glory days, she was hardly confiding her plans to him was she? She didnt know where he was in the wake of LV's downfall, remember? She couldnt have told him even if she wanted to since she didnt know where he was. As for Lucius' Diary scheme, Snape's reaction at the end of CoS suggests he wasnt in on it. Neri: It's not a conclusive evidence against DDM! > Snape, but I think it's certainly another thing that JKR will have to > explain if she goes that way. Elyse: Well, all of this is my own individual reading, and the canon gaps have been filled with speculation, so its hardly any conclusive proof *for* DDM!Snape. As for the list of things, JKR is going to have to explain, that list is terribly long whichever direction she goes in, and I'm afraid that she may have to do a lot of what Lupinlore calls "hand-waving" and "rug-sweeping" to get it covered. Elyse ( who is sorry for the length of this post and applauds you if youve made it to the end) From foxmoth at qnet.com Thu Apr 20 16:18:36 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 16:18:36 -0000 Subject: Snape's defection: the timeline question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151206 Neri: > If Snape indeed "changed sides", one wonders how come he didn't turn > in Lucius, Bella, Rodolfus, Rabastan, Avery, McNair, Nott, Crabbe, > Goyle, Rookwood, or in fact any other DE that we know of, even after > GH. Pippin: But Neri, they *were* turned in. At least Lucius, Macnair, Avery, Nott, Crabbe and Goyle were accused and acquitted, and the group of Death Eaters Crouch Jr was caught with had "talked their way out of Azkaban." Lucius claimed he was under the Imperius curse, and I suppose the others were equally convincing. Apparently nobody knew about Rookwood except Karkaroff. It's possible Dumbledore cut some deals of his own, after all he's no fan of Azkaban, but from Snape's "sudden movement" they may have believed Malfoy's story. Pippin From kchuplis at alltel.net Thu Apr 20 16:26:41 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 11:26:41 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Harry and the Law References: Message-ID: <000901c66497$34c7dab0$b301010a@ConsolidatedTelephone.local> No: HPFGUIDX 151207 "horridporrid03" wrote: > Draco could make a reasonable argument that he > was trying to protect himself from an aggressive stalker. eggplant: Reasonable argument? All Harry did was walk into a boy's bathroom, something he had every right to do, and he was viciously attacked with a highly illegal Unforgivable curse. I don't understand why people think it would be interesting to have a hero who is so effete, so politically correct that when somebody is trying to kill him his first priority is the physical well being of the attacker. Boring! Stupid! Comical! Next time I hope Harry disembowels the bad guy. Give me Dirty Harry or give me death. kchuplis: Forgive me but.....these are my all time favorite posts. I just have to tell you as entertaining, exasperating, overly analytical and brilliant other posters may be, it is a post like this that makes my day. I have to agree, Harry did NOT get nasty until nasty was directed at him. I do admit that Petrificus totalus would perhaps have been a better choice, but may have only held off the inevitable because I don't think that Draco wanted Harry to EV-VER be able to recount that he was seen crying to A-NYbody. So, rather than have umpteen other confrontations of the two, JKR cut to the chase, gave Draco another reason to take Harry seriously as well as hate him, showed us what the sectumsempra curse did, showed us that Harry IS a conscionable person by obeying Snape's orders and being appalled by what he had done, even though it was his almost worst enemy and gave Harry even more reason to get sick of Snape before The Awful End. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Thu Apr 20 16:15:47 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 12:15:47 -0400 Subject: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: <44471437.9080106@pacificpuma.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151208 Jen: > >Considered it, yes, but I somehow doubt it, considering how dark JK > >has made it out to be. That is also why it matters if DD is able to > >talk to snakes. It is what Voldemort is famous for, and is quite > >often throughout the books referred to as the mark of a dark wizard. Jazmyn: >On WHOSE word do we have for this? Ron's? Ron has been shown >repeatedly ignorant before of his own world, so why should we take his >world for it that its the mark of a dark wizard? Hermione? She gets >all her facts from books and as we have seen from Lockhart's books, many >things in WW books might be taken with a grain of salt. If so, why >isn't Harry a dark wizard just for the ability to speak it? > >I think there are no 'absolutes' in the WW and a lot of people who >'assume' things based on circumstantial and flimsy evidence. Its like >trying to claim all blond people are unintelligent to claim that all >wizards who speak or understand parselmouth are automatically evil, dark >wizards. And even if Dumbledore only understands the speech through use >of magic and doesn't speak it, does not mean he is suddenly evil. >People spend so much time looking at black and white, they fail to see >all the shades of gray between. The whole world isn't neatly divided >into good people and death eaters after all. Rachel: Ignoring the "Fudge is a DE" argument, when we consider MOM Fudge it is apparant that, indeed, the world isn't divided between good people and death eaters (in fact, it's the people in the middle in Potterverse that seem to cause a lot of difficulty!). Ron is often mistaken when presenting information on the WW, however I would suggest that since the two most famous parselmouths in WW history, Slytherin and Voldemort, are almost automatically connected with being "bad" or "evil" (not always correctly - I would argue that Slytherin was not evil, just had a thing for purebloods) would tie such a rare gift as Parseltongue to being evil. We see through Harry's ability to speak parseltongue that this gift does not always mean evil (although, yes, he has been tainted by it through the AK curse). Other people have mentioned the quote that states just because a wizard doesn't use dark magic doesn't mean he can't. I, for one, do not that DD is an "evil wizard". ~ Rachel From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Thu Apr 20 16:24:50 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 12:24:50 -0400 Subject: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151209 >Finwitch: > >My idea for the "late bloomer" is Gilderoy Lockhart. Not one that I've >noticed in the threads here either. And why? > >Events from books: >1.GL never could do any spell but Memory Charms. >2.He got hit by one. >3.He's still signing things in St Mungos. Rachel: IIRC, JKR said that Lockhart won't be coming back. I think he's stuck in St. Mungo's for good. I don't have any evidence for this though, just something I think I read. If anyone has any quotes from JKR about this it'd be great! ~ Rachel From ryelle80 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 17:12:10 2006 From: ryelle80 at yahoo.com (Najwa) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 17:12:10 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore and Snape's Unbreakable Vow? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151210 Najwa: Dumbledore trusted Snape for some odd reason. I never understood it, until I recently reread the Unbreakable Vow. It's not dark magic, so why wouldn't Dumbledore make this Vow with Snape when he let him work for him? Dumbledore is no Narcissa Malfoy and would undoubtedly word it very precisely, and at the same time he has no selfish intentions. He probably would have said things along the line of do whatever is necessary to protect Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and make sure that Voldemort will not win; or something to that nature. Maybe Dumbledore telepathically pleaded with Snape to kill him, because it would be of some benefit to Harry and perhaps others. I highly doubt that it was never used before and I highly doubt JKR would let us in on this Vow without it being important not only to the book but to the series. What do you all think? Sorry if this might have been brought up before by the way. From ryelle80 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 16:45:43 2006 From: ryelle80 at yahoo.com (Najwa) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 16:45:43 -0000 Subject: Snape's defection: the timeline question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151211 Pippin wrote: > It's possible Dumbledore cut some deals of his own, after all he's no > fan of Azkaban, but from Snape's "sudden movement" they may > have believed Malfoy's story. > > Najwa: I am having trouble with Snape myself. On the one hand he totally seems to be devious and I absolutely abhorred him for killing off Dumbledore, but a thought that never left me is, can Dumbledore be that much of a fool to trust such a person as Snape? We've learned a lot about Snape in this book, but I highly doubt he's completely "gone over to the dark side." It would make sense that JKR would want to show us that even the best of people can be wrong, but that's just too big of a slip up in my opinion. If Voldemort himself is afraid of Dumbledore and cannot fool him, I highly doubt that Minion!Snape can in my humble opinion. There is more to this than meets the eye. It would be a huge let down to find out that Dumbledore was an old fool. I expect a very good turning of the tables in the next book, or at least I hope so. From ryelle80 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 16:38:08 2006 From: ryelle80 at yahoo.com (Najwa) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 16:38:08 -0000 Subject: Harry and the Law In-Reply-To: <000901c66497$34c7dab0$b301010a@ConsolidatedTelephone.local> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151212 > > kchuplis: > > Forgive me but.....these are my all time favorite posts. I just have to tell you as entertaining, exasperating, overly analytical and brilliant other posters may be, it is a post like this that makes my day. I have to agree, Harry did NOT get nasty until nasty was directed at him. I do admit that Petrificus totalus would perhaps have been a better choice, but may have only held off the inevitable because I don't think that Draco wanted Harry to EV-VER be able to recount that he was seen crying to A-NYbody. So, rather than have umpteen other confrontations of the two, JKR cut to the chase, gave Draco another reason to take Harry seriously as well as hate him, showed us what the sectumsempra curse did, showed us that Harry IS a conscionable person by obeying Snape's orders and being appalled by what he had done, even though it was his almost worst enemy and gave Harry even more reason to get sick of Snape before The Awful End. Najwa: I agree. Harry was being cautious and knew Malfoy was up to something, so naturally he wanted to keep an eye on things, and all he did was walk into the bathroom and found malfoy crying. Be didn't laugh, he didn't sneer, he did nothing but stand there,and an embarrassed Malfoy started attacking. There is a difference between a stalker than a sort of defender. For instance, in schools there are security guards sadly enough who patrol the halls to make sure all is well. I am sure if a particularly troublesome student seemed up to something the security guards would naturally want to pay special attention to them to maintain safety and order. That is what Harry's job is pretty much. It is an unsaid job, but it is his job as the Boy Who Lived and the Chosen One. Why else would Dumbledore entrust him with the invisibility cloak and allow Professor Lupin to return the Marauder's Map to him? I highly doubt they thought he'd merely keep them as keepsakes. As for sectumsempra, he had no clue what the effects would be. He made HBP a hero in his mind's eye. He constantly stood up for HBP even after the incident, claiming that it might be soemthing that was used against him and that's why he had it in his book. So it was unintentional that he used such a horrible spell, but it was a way for him to get a clue to watch out from this HBP and to clue us in as well. We know he felt horrible after the incident, and was no where near happy with the outcome. From somedayalive at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 17:07:12 2006 From: somedayalive at yahoo.com (Jennifer Carlson) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 17:07:12 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151213 > Finwitch: > Dumbledore can certainly observe that whisper, even if the person > whose memory it is merely heard it, and deduce that it was > parseltongue from other things such as the clearly stated status of > being descendants of Salazar Slytherin. Jen: That was always my thought when reading that passage in the book...I admittedly never even considered that DD actually *understood* the language, I simply assumed he recognized the language! Very interesting theory you have about the Horcruxes, though!!! From ryelle80 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 18:15:18 2006 From: ryelle80 at yahoo.com (Najwa) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 18:15:18 -0000 Subject: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151214 > Rachel: > IIRC, JKR said that Lockhart won't be coming back. I think he's stuck in > St. Mungo's for good. I don't have any evidence for this though, just > something I think I read. If anyone has any quotes from JKR about this it'd > be great! > ~ Rachel > Najwa here: Ok I have this vague memory that Aunt Petunia couldn't be the late bloomer, and if so please remind me, because I just feel that she might be the one. Her or Filch, and Filch wouldn't interest me as much as Aunt Petunia becoming a witch, so I'm hoping that memory is wrong. Who better to become one, and JKR seems to be hiding something about Petunia anyway, and sort of laughs at the idea of Petunia being a squib, but said it was a good guess. Hagrid already knows magic, so it couldn't be him, and Lockhart knows magic, just isn't very good at it. I think to be a squib you couldn't do any magic at all and come from a family of Witches and Wizards. Anyway, feel free to squash my train of thought and set me straight :) -Najwa From oppen at mycns.net Thu Apr 20 18:23:12 2006 From: oppen at mycns.net (ericoppen) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 18:23:12 -0000 Subject: Ron as a prefect Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151215 I think that about 90% of Ron's lackluster performance, his first year as a Prefect, can be traced to the twins' influence. He may be a prefect, but to them he's still their "ickle Ronniekins," and they pay him absolutely no mind. They never have before, after all. This is often a problem when you mix up family and non-family dynamics; there are reasons why, forex, the military generally tries to not have members of the same family serving in the same unit. When someone's supposed to be your superior in rank but you still see him as your little sibling, it's hard to override a lifetime's impressions and treat him as a superior. I'd say that all the Gryffindor prefects in the year of OotP found Gred-and-Forge a trial to deal with. They were as old as the oldest Gryff prefects, and with their well-honed teamwork, well able to double-team a lone prefect any time they wanted. Or they could use their identicalness to good effect, confusing people about who had done what. Once the twins were gone, Ron did better at Quidditch, and I think he probably did well enough as a prefect after they left, or in situations where they weren't involved. He just couldn't rein in his older brothers---and neither could anybody else, as Umbridge discovered. From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Thu Apr 20 18:33:32 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 14:33:32 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060420183332.61332.qmail@web37010.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151216 Najwa here: (Snipped) Ok I have this vague memory that Aunt Petunia couldn't be the late bloomer. Her or Filch, and Filch wouldn't interest me as much as Aunt Petunia becoming a witch, so I'm hoping that memory is wrong. JKR seems to be hiding something about Petunia anyway, and sort of laughs at the idea of Petunia being a squib, but said it was a good guess. Catherine now: JKR states on her website that Aunt Petunia will not demonstrate magical abilities, but you're also right that JKR is hiding something about Petunia. If she's not a squib or a muggle or a witch, then what is there left? As for magical "late bloomers" we should start a list of possibilities. there's: Filch, Mrs. Figg, Dudley (although I think that JKR has said it wasn't him), Uncle Vernon (that would kill me with laughter!). I can't think of anyone else. My vote is Mrs. Figg. Any other ideas? Catherine --------------------------------- Enrich your life at Yahoo! Canada Finance [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From phil at pcsgames.net Thu Apr 20 19:08:56 2006 From: phil at pcsgames.net (Phil Vlasak) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 15:08:56 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Magical Late Bloomer References: <20060420183332.61332.qmail@web37010.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <005101c664ad$e1b84eb0$6600a8c0@phil> No: HPFGUIDX 151217 Catherine now: > > JKR states on her website that Aunt Petunia will not demonstrate magical > abilities, but you're also right that JKR is hiding something about > Petunia. If she's not a squib or a muggle or a witch, then what is there > left? > As for magical "late bloomers" we should start a list of possibilities. > there's: Filch, Mrs. Figg, Dudley (although I think that JKR has said it > wasn't him), Uncle Vernon (that would kill me with laughter!). I can't > think of anyone else. My vote is Mrs. Figg. Any other ideas? > > Catherine Now Phil: I think the most obvious is Merope Gaunt. From sherriola at earthlink.net Thu Apr 20 19:14:25 2006 From: sherriola at earthlink.net (Sherry Gomes) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 12:14:25 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: <005101c664ad$e1b84eb0$6600a8c0@phil> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151218 Now Phil: I think the most obvious is Merope Gaunt. Sherry now: Isn't JKR's word on this that it would be someone late in life? Tom's mother would hardly be considered late in life. My vote is for Mrs. Figg. I like her, and she's more deserving than anyone else I can think of. I can picture a scene in which the death eaters attack Privet drive, Harry is helpless and Figgy does magic in desperation. I'd love that to happen! I hope very strongly that it is not Filch, because of his desires to see cruel punishments inflicted on the students. I tremble to think what he could do to them if he could suddenly do magic. Sherry From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 19:47:10 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 19:47:10 -0000 Subject: legalities, dark magic, and dark wizards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151219 > >>Najwa: > > I have had a question about one particular spell or charm I > > suppose. The love charm. it's not unforgivable, yet it takes > > away a person's right to choice and free will of love, doesn't > > it? It's almost like a love based Imperius. I can understand if > > it was a spell to increase love that was already there or > > perhaps keep it going, but to make someone fall in love with > > you? It almost sounds like ruphynol mixed in with a bit of the > > cayote ugly scenerio, only long term. > >>Finwitch: > > Secondly, the effect is temporary - it will stop working by itself > after a while. > > The Imperius, OTOH, while it can be fought, will usually also last > the same way as the crucio - and the caster can be someplace else > and leave it working! > Betsy Hp: I suspect that the reason love potions are considered okay while the imperius is a big bad no-no is the muggle prejudice. I suspect that muggles are, in general, more susceptible to the potions, while most wizards can be taken down by the Imperius. With Ron the point was made that the potion was old and had therefore intensified, and we also know that he is pretty susceptible to any sort of lust suggestion. (His reactions to veelas.) But the two times we see people turned into mindless slaves by love potions, the effected are muggles. The first was Tom Riddle, and the second was that poor muggle who was being used as a table by the witch that snared him. See the WOMBAT test: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151138 "5. Witch F fed love potion to a Muggle man, who has married her. When you went around with a wedding gift you discovered that she is using him as an occasional table." Since wizards generally see muggles as slightly less than full human, this sort of behavior while bad isn't labeled as Unforgivable. Or at least, that's how it looks to me anyway. Oh, and I'd say the scenario JKR put forth in her test puts paid to the "was Tom raped" question. It seems to me that Merope raped Tom in just about every way possible. No wonder she decided to die. Betsy Hp From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 20:12:58 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 20:12:58 -0000 Subject: Harry and the Law (was:Re: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah??) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151220 > >>Betsy Hp: > > Oh, I don't know. Draco could make a reasonable argument that > > he was trying to protect himself from an aggressive stalker. > > Especially if the map came out. > > > >>Geoff: > > Harry is obviously trying to find out what Malfoy is doing, which > I don't think necessarily falls into the category of 'stalking'. > > Aggressive? > Who was the first person who moved from defence into a real attack? > Betsy Hp: Oh dear. I was being a bit flippant in the above post in response to a comment I took to be a bit flippant. I should stop doing that as it tends to get me in trouble. I honestly don't think Draco was correct in attempting to cast the Crucio. However, was Harry stalking Draco? Sure he was. With a proper motivation, yes. But he was, none the less, following Draco sometimes while hidden by his invisibility cloak, and using the Marauders' map to actively follow Draco's movements. When Harry found Draco crying in the boys room he didn't just stumble onto the scene because he had a pressing need to use the facilities. He actively or *aggressively* searched Draco out. "...[Harry] saw Malfoy's tiny, labeled dot standing in a boys' bathroom on the floor below... "Outside the bathroom, he pressed his ear against the door. He could not hear anything. He very quietly pushed the door open." (HBP scholastic p.521) When Draco does finally spot Harry, Harry is rather obviously peeping through the door to watch and listen to Draco. He's not innocently walking into a room and catching Draco out. Yes, Draco is the first to become *physically* aggressive. But Harry was aggressively engaging in the act of stalking or spying on or hunting or following Draco. Which, yeah, I don't blame Harry for doing at all. Just as I don't blame him for reacting to Draco's attack. (Stupid to use a spell he had no notion of, of course -- but by no means evil.) Betsy Hp From kewpiebb99 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 20:17:36 2006 From: kewpiebb99 at yahoo.com (dkewpie) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 13:17:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: <005101c664ad$e1b84eb0$6600a8c0@phil> Message-ID: <20060420201736.14353.qmail@web81905.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151221 --- Phil Vlasak wrote: > Now Phil: > I think the most obvious is Merope Gaunt. > Yup, it's definitely Merope Gaunt. I think it's really just simple as that, nothing more. It's really no shocking mystery and twist as people seem to think it is. I find it a bit funny that people are still speculating and coming up with theories about this when it's been already answer in book 6 so black and white. But oh well, to each and hiw own, but sure there'll be lots of "that's it?!?!" disappointment when book 7 is out...hehh... J From hickengruendler at yahoo.de Thu Apr 20 20:24:45 2006 From: hickengruendler at yahoo.de (hickengruendler) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 20:24:45 -0000 Subject: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: <20060420201736.14353.qmail@web81905.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151222 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, dkewpie wrote: > > > > --- Phil Vlasak wrote: > > > Now Phil: > > I think the most obvious is Merope Gaunt. > > > > > Yup, it's definitely Merope Gaunt. I think it's really just simple as that, nothing more. > It's really no shocking mystery and twist as people seem to think it is. I find it a bit > funny that people are still speculating and coming up with theories about this when it's > been already answer in book 6 so black and white. But oh well, to each and hiw own, but > sure there'll be lots of "that's it?!?!" disappointment when book 7 is out...hehh... > > J > Hickengruendler: I do agree that Merope Gaunt is a likely candidate, and if there's nothing more about it in book 7, than I'll be the first one to admit that JKR really meant Merope. But I really have to wonder what makes you that sure that it's her. I would argue that at this time another solution to this mystery is just as equally possible. I for example wonder, if the time during which Merope does magic really counts as "desperate circumstances". To be precise, at the time she bewitched Tom senior her circumstances were probably less desperate than ever before, seeing that both father and brother were in Azkaban and couldn't bully her anymore. From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 18:35:59 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 11:35:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Prefect Ron? There's worse. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060420183559.92223.qmail@web61315.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151223 Magpie: Draco seems easily as logically picked as Ron--he's a more obvious choice, actually, imo. He is a leader in Slytherin house. Joe: Is he a leader in Slytherin? Aside from Crabbe, Goyle and Parkinson do we ever see other housemates following his lead? I can only think of two times, the "Potter stinks" badges and the "Weasley is our King" episode. Magpie: He's a perfectly competent student as far as I can see. Harry would let us know if Draco was struggling academically, and he never does. As I said with Ron, I think the idea is more taking people who have certain qualifications and trying to channel them in a productive way. Nor is it a disaster in Slytherin. Draco is awful under Umbridge in the IS, which is a completely different system, but despite all of Hermione's warnings we don't see him abusing his powers when he's just a Prefect. Hermione herself can also benefit from being Prefect--she's not so adept at the job she's ready to teach others yet as others have suggested, imo. She just has her own set of issues and is quick to criticize what other Prefects are doing. Joe: I think this hits the nail on the head. Malfoy is a fine Slytherin Prefect just as Ron is a fine Gryffindor Prefect. They both do a great job upholding the traits their individual House's value. From ryelle80 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 19:08:23 2006 From: ryelle80 at yahoo.com (Najwa) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 19:08:23 -0000 Subject: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: <20060420183332.61332.qmail@web37010.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151224 > Catherine now: *snip* > As for magical "late bloomers" we should start a list of possibilities. > there's: Filch, Mrs. Figg, Dudley (although I think that JKR has said it wasn't him), Uncle Vernon (that would kill me with laughter!). I can't think of anyone else. My vote is Mrs. Figg. Any other ideas? Najwa again: I rather love the idea of Uncle Vernon becoming a wizard, not only would it be funny just to find out that he was one, but it would also be entertaining to see him going to Hogwarts as an adult. My guess is he'd be placed in Slytherin. He's definitely got the attitude of one. I see no Gryffindor or Ravenclaw qualities in him at all, but if he can surprise us with becoming a wizard, then he could surprise us there as well. I can't think of any other candidates either, unless its someone not too important, and that, in my humble opinion, would be a waste of storyline. Arabella Figg, is a squib, she's not a very prominant character, and I could see why JKR would want to make her the late bloomer, due to her role in the Order of the Phoenix, but I hope it will be someone that will totally catch us all off guard and have some comical value. This last book is going to be the darkest, so why not a little bit of humor to lighten the mood some? From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Thu Apr 20 22:05:21 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (saberbunny) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 22:05:21 -0000 Subject: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151225 > > > Now Phil: > > > I think the most obvious is Merope Gaunt. > > > Hickengruendler: > > I do agree that Merope Gaunt is a likely candidate, and if there's > nothing more about it in book 7, than I'll be the first one to admit > that JKR really meant Merope. > I for example wonder, if the time during which Merope does magic > really counts as "desperate circumstances". Catherine again: Here's the quote "In my books, magic almost always shows itself in a person before age 11; however, there is a character who does manage in desperate circumstances to do magic quite late in life, but that is very rare in the world I am writing about." JKR in an interview dated March 19, 1999, the link is below.... http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/1999/0399- barnesandnoble.html So it would be likely that the person has already shown up, but I agree with Hickengruendler that it doesn't really count as "desperate circumstances". She was in love/lust and perhaps a bit dersperate for Tom to love her, but she was in much better shape with her family in Azkaban. Had she used magic to save herself while pregnant, then her circumstances were desperate and I would agree. Also JKR says "quite late", Merope would have been what 18, 19 when this happened? That's just "a little late" in my books. Quite late would be more middle- aged or at least over 30. Who knows, but one thing I do know is that it isn't Snape! Oops, I mean Professor Snape! Catherine From bboyminn at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 22:39:55 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 22:39:55 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151226 > richandlaura1/Laura wrote: > > ... From my first reading of OoTP, I thought that Ron was an odd > choice for Prefect from the standpoint of an outstanding role > model for other students to look up to and count on. However, I > always assumed that Dumbledore didn't put Ron in that position > because he was the best candidate. I believe that Dumbledore > chose Ron and Hermione because they are Harry's best friends. > > ...edited... > > That's why Ron (and Hermione ...) were made prefect, because it > would help Harry as he prepared himself for the future. A future > that Dumbledore knows will inevitably come. > > Laura -... > bboyminn: Again, I'm reminded of the blind men examining an elephant, each of them is absolutely right within the bounds of what they preceive. You too Laura, are right in that I am sure that Ron and Hermione being Harry's best friends, and more importantly, being eager and willing to help Harry out in any emergency that might arise, weighed heavily in their favor. But I think that is only one apsect of the decision. It is merely one bit of evidence that shift the weight in their favor. As I said before, you can't weigh Ron's quaifications against the general concept of 'Perfect'. You, more importantly, have to weigh his qualifications along side the other available condidates. Certainly we would perfer a long list of perfectly qualified, perfectly studious, and perfectly diciplined students, but what we have, other than Ron and Harry, are Dean, Seamus, and Neville. Other than Neville, none of them have ever distinguished themselves in anyway in any real-life situation. I'm not discounting what you said, hopefully, I'm validating it. Being Harry's friends and helping him in past and future emergencies are just ways in which Ron and Hermione have distinguished themselves and proven their abilities. When house discipline is needed and when an emergency occurs, the administration needs candidates that will take action, and Ron and Hermione have proven time and time again that they are willing and capable of taking action /when it counts/. So, yes, I agree, Ron and Hermione's friendship with Harry weighed heavily in the decision to choose them as Prefects, but I don't think it was just that friendship, it was the actions they performed in the course of that friendship that has proven their worth, and I agree that that is an aspect that makes Ron more qualified that Dean, Seamus, or Neville. If anyone was number three on the list, it was most likely Neville, shy as he is, when the time came, Neville charged into battle without fear or hesitation. What have Seamus and Dean ever done that carries any weight in the dark and dangerous time that now exist? I do believe, that either Dean or Seamus may have been picked under normal circumstances. They are basically reliable students who have never made much trouble and seem to be respected by their peers. Yet, these are not normal times. Indeed these are dark and dangerous times in which Prefects may be called upon to do far more than merely tell students off for talking too loudly. So, given that dark and dangerous times, and when compared to the other candidates, and since Harry has already been excluded, Ron and Hermione seem the likely choice. Just a thought. Steve/bboyminn From somedayalive at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 17:03:20 2006 From: somedayalive at yahoo.com (Jennifer Carlson) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 17:03:20 -0000 Subject: Child Sociopaths In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151227 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Bruce Alan Wilson" wrote: > What reaction would one have if one had met Ted Bundy, or Charles > Manson, or Ed Gein, or Casey Ramirez, or Jeff Dahlmer, et al? > Would they have been any less 'off' than Tommy Riddle? Jen: Sociopathy cannot be diagnosed in children, because their minds are not done growing. So yes, had ANY of those people been shown a certain amount of love and caring as children, natural sociopathic tendencies may have been curbed, creating different people entirely. Blessings, Jen From somedayalive at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 20:48:33 2006 From: somedayalive at yahoo.com (Jennifer Carlson) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 20:48:33 -0000 Subject: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151228 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "hickengruendler" wrote: > I for example wonder, if the time during which Merope does magic > really counts as "desperate circumstances". To be precise, at the > time she bewitched Tom senior her circumstances were probably less > desperate than ever before, seeing that both father and brother were > in Azkaban and couldn't bully her anymore. Jen: Perhaps, but love is also an incredibly strong force, as is the desire for true happiness, neither of which Merope has ever experienced, and she sees Tom Sr. as the answer...so that certainly could qualify as desperate circumstance! Blessings, Jen From ryelle80 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 22:13:03 2006 From: ryelle80 at yahoo.com (Najwa) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 22:13:03 -0000 Subject: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: <005101c664ad$e1b84eb0$6600a8c0@phil> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151229 > > Now Phil: > I think the most obvious is Merope Gaunt. > Najwa once again: Sorry for my prior ignorance, I do realize now that you meant when she was alive, but I feel that she doesn't really count, because she wasn't that late in her life when she did finally do magic, and honestly i think she just couldn't keep her concentration enough, and had her father and brother been out of the picture earlier she would have been just as capable, though Tom Riddle was her muse. IF she is the one, and I see what everyone means by she is, then it is definitely a let down. Just like when JKR said that wizards have something better than the Internet, and I think I realize now she meant the Pensieve. Once again, pardon my ignorance, I keep thinking in future terms, and not in past or present. Najwa From bboyminn at yahoo.com Thu Apr 20 23:59:10 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 23:59:10 -0000 Subject: legalities, dark magic, and dark wizards In-Reply-To: <8FB5FA11-39EE-4703-A5DC-F84E5FD4BC55@stevenmcintosh.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151230 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, stevemac wrote: > > stevemac: > > From reading some of the recent posts about DD and Parseltongue, I > thought it was interesting that I did not have a clear distinction > between these categories... > > Although it is easy to get the general 'dark magic = bad' > connotations, I'm really curious about what others have to say on > where the definitions and dividing lines are. ...edited > > I'm just wondering where the boundries lie between illegal magic, > dark magic, and dark wizard. > > stevemac > bboyminn I've always made a distinction between "Dark" (with a capital 'D') magic and 'dark' (with a small 'd'). Bad, evil, rotten, nasty magic is definitely 'dark' but it is not necessarily 'Dark'. There is a lot of magic in the books that people are assuming is 'Dark' (capital 'D') when it is not, or at least, it is not established as so in the books. My theory is that there has to be some underlying aspect, some aspect in the very nature of the magic that makes it 'Dark' because use and intent are not enough to explain it. Certainly good magic can be used for a bad purpose, so does that make 'light' magic 'dark'? And I would assume under the right circumstances bad magic could be used for some good purpose, so does that make 'dark' magic 'light'? It really can't be explained by intent or purpose, so I speculate it is something deeper. I speculate that in the very core nature of Dark Magic it is somehow destructive. Remember that at Durmstrang Dark Magic is taught, how can that magic be classfied as 'dark' when it can't have evil intent or purpose when it is used in the classroom? Yet, if it is destructive in the /Creation/ of the magic, then even minor seemingly harmless spells can still be qualified as 'dark' if the aspect of destruction is involved in their creation. Her is an example to illustrate what I mean. Perhaps these minor seemingly innocent spells draw on the life force that surrounds us. These spells steal, perhaps even totally consuming, the life force of plants, animals, and humans that surround the wizard. That represents an unacceptable element of destruction that 'Light' wizards would not accept. So, there is a whole range of magic from simple and minor to totally evil and destructive that falls under the official classification of DARK MAGIC. There are other spells that are bad by their nature, application, and intent that, while not DARK MAGIC, are 'dark' magic. For example, we know that the Unforgivable curse are 'dark' (small 'd') but we really don't know that they are 'Dark' (capital 'D'). We know that they are bad, we know that they are evil, but we don't know with absolute certainty that they are DARK. Yet, evil as these Unforgivable spells may be, it is possible to conceive of, admittedly unlikely, circumstances in which they could be used for good. For example, Aurors in the last Voldemort war were authorized to use the Unforgivables in the line of duty, so, a quick stroke of a pen, and suddenly the spells turn from 'dark' to 'light'? Even better, let us assume that someone was about to be killed (hit by a train, or whatever) and they were too far away to affect by other means, you could Imperius them and compell them to move off the track and out of harms way. (Remember, I did say 'unlikely' circumstances.) Is that likely to be preceieved as a 'Dark' action? It that likely to be preceived as using 'Dark' magic? Again, my purpose in proposing such an unlikely scenario is to show that intent, purpose, and result can't possibly be the determining factor in determining truly 'Dark' (capital 'D') Magic. It has to be something deeper, something at the very core of the creation of the magic. The above explanation is only a summary. There are many ways in which magic can be destructive and consumptive in its creation process that I have not mentioned such as consuming the body, mind, and soul of the Dark Wizard, consuming and destroying the humanity of the Dark Wizard, and, manyy other apsects of destruction and consumption. For a more detailed discussion, please see - From: "Steve" Date: Wed Oct 5, 2005 2:09 am Subject: Nature of Dark Magic http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/141171 I'm particularly fond of the 'Well of Darkness' discussion in that thread. I'm sure there is an older discusion of this, but it took long enough to thing the above thread. Just passing it along. Steve/bboyminn From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 21 00:12:49 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 00:12:49 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151231 > > Alla: > > > > Oh, don't get me started. Please, please, Pippin it is by no means > > directed at you, you know I really like you and respect you, but every > > time I remember Dumbledore's "let's blame the dead man" act (IMO of > > course), I just get so angry. So, it is directed at Dumbledore. :) I > > know, it is emotional reaction again, which I never make a secret of ( > > Pippin: > But your emotional reaction to the speech seems to be coming from a > different place altogether. Pardon me if I misrepresent your thoughts, it > seems like you want Dumbledore to say that Sirius is dead because > Puppetmaster!DD got his strings tangled, you want him to let Harry > childishly idealize his godfather instead of helping him understand that > other adults are just as fallible as Harry is, and you want him to > whitewash Sirius's treatment of Kreacher in order to spare Harry's feelings. > Alla: Yes, your summary is not quite what I meant as to why Dumbledore speech makes me so angry. :)) I could probably just refer you to what Sherry said ( we do seem to think alike these days, Sherry :)), but let's hope that I will make some additional clarifications and not just repeating what she said. First of all, my main issue with Dumbledore talking about Sirius is not that he does not take enough blame for Sirius' death. I mean, we all know whom to blame for Sirius' death and while I think that Dumbledore's treatment of Sirius shows that he had no clue about who Sirius is and how to help him, I of course cannot say that DD bears much blame for Sirius' death . I don't care whether Sirius was a devil himself, I am absolutely convinced that it is cruel and heartless to bring the topic of the Sirius fallings ( and he had plenty of those, sure) an hour after Sirius died. So, yes, what Sherry siad - the timing was absolute idiocy on Dumbledore's behalf. I don't want Dumbledore to whitewash Sirius treatment of Kreacher. I don't want Dumbledore to bring this topic AT ALL when Harry is in pain and grieving. It is strange, because I am going to bring up the same example as Sherry did. In my book, my father was a wonderful man, but I am sure he had some character flaws, since we all do. Please believe me that if ANYBODY would dare to bring up to me those character flaws an hour after my father's death, I would probably not speak with this person ever again, because on the top of my head I cannot think of the greatest disrespect that this person could show not even to my dead father, but to me. I am sure I wrote about it in the past, but it bears repeating. I am very fond of saying that you either speak good or nothing of dead. So, to go back to Dumbledore, I cannot think of greatest disrespect Dumbledore could show to Harry other than start badmouthing the person that Harry probably loved the most among the adults in Potterverse. So, yes, it has nothing to do with whitewashing Sirius treatment of Kreacher, it has A LOT to do with Dumbledore paying respect to Harry grief and I saw none. Now, maybe Dumbledore for some reason thought that there is a PRACTICAL reason Harry needs to know about Sirius mistreating Kreacher, and honestly, on the top of my head I cannot think of any such reason. So, then I think that Dumbledore should have done it LATER. When would have the timing been right? I don't know. My dad died eight years ago and I still have no desire to hear about his character flaws, at all. But for the literary purposes, I think that HBP would have been MUCH better place to bring it up, since Harry is feeling better. But isn't it funny ( unless I am wrong and I could be, but I don't remember ) that Dumbledore NEVER brings it up in HBP, ever, not when Harry accepts Kreacher's ownership. The subject of Sirius mistreating Kreacher never comes up to the best of my recollection in HBP. Yep, I think JKR was backtracking A LOT from Dumbledore as she inadvertently portrayed him in his OOP speech. THAT is why I consider this speech not a well written piece, because I don't think JKR planned to portray what I got from this speech at all. I think she truly wanted to make Dumbledore apologetic, but instead she made him well.. I already said how I perceive OOP Dumbledore. JMO, Alla, who sincerely hopes that she did not just do "me too" with Sherry post, but posts it anyway and will go slamming her fingers afterwards. From stevejjen at earthlink.net Fri Apr 21 00:14:46 2006 From: stevejjen at earthlink.net (Jen Reese) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 00:14:46 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151232 > Pippin: > I agree that JKR needed to put the information there, but she did > give Dumbledore a reason to do it. He had just survived Voldemort's > attempt to kill him. Repeat after me, "No one ever lived after he > decided ter kill 'em " -- what part of that do you think Dumbledore > doesn't understand? He's got a year to live at most, if the past is > any guide, and he knows it just as surely as if he could peek into > JKR's hard drive. He's got to tell Harry everything he knows, as > much as he knows, as soon as he can. The time is now. Period. Sherry: > Putting myself in the emotional fog of the moment, thinking about > what Sirius meant to Harry, whether that was reasonable to an > outsider's view or not, blaming Sirius could have done more > damage, turning Harry farther from Dumbledore out of resentment > and instinctive defense of Sirius. It doesn't matter whether we > on the outside think Sirius would have been a good parental role > for Harry. It only matters that to Harry, his one adult figure, > the one who was his, his godfather, his parents' best friend, not > his best friend's family, not his headmaster, but his only > parental figure ... had just died, and now this person who had > ignored him all year is telling him terrible things about that > parental figure. Ouch. Jen R: Rationally, logically, what Pippin said makes complete sense: the time had arrived and perhaps was overdue for the Explanation. Dumbledore had one shot to explain to Harry not only the events of that year but the reason behind many of the events of Harry's entire life and he needed to get it right or risk having Harry turn away from him. No pressure there. Emotionally though, I feel like Sherry and Alla. Dumbledore seemed distant and harsh, talking in a way he'd never talked to Harry before. At a time when I *most* expected words of compassion, the Dumbledore well ran dry. And therein lies my own interpretation of that speech--Dumbledore's well *had* run dry. Even if he should have had more to give Harry in the form of compassion and a few nice philosophical phrases to set everything right, he couldn't do it. Since we don't get to see anything from his perspective it's impossible to know this, but just as Harry felt he couldn't stand to go forward, Dumbledore may have not wanted to go forward either. Just as Harry wanted to give up on being Prophecy Boy, I think Dumbledore had a rare moment of wishing he wasn't the one who had heard the prophecy and taken on the sometimes very difficult task of keeping Harry safe and preparing him for his future. Dumbledore had also just experienced a heart-stopping moment in the DOM when he realized he did not have the power to save Harry. It was one thing to hear about the graveyard, but to see Harry possessed by Voldemort and believe in that instant someone he'd grown to love was going to die a horrible and painful death....well, I don't think Snape was lying that Dumbledore was shaken by the DOM but it wasn't because of the duel with Voldemort, it was because he thought for a moment he'd lost Harry. I didn't see HBP as Dumbledore reversing that speech so much as a renewed sense of hope that he DID have something to offer Harry by sharing information about Voldemort's past and attempting to locate and destory the horcruxes even at the risk of dying in the process. In the end, I guess I don't want that speech to go away or be edited. It was raw, hard to hear, and made me feel uneasy but it was a 'darkest hour before the dawn' moment that seemed right for the transition between the dark and depressing tone of OOTP and the more hopeful and active themes in HBP. Jen R. From dontask2much at yahoo.com Fri Apr 21 00:54:44 2006 From: dontask2much at yahoo.com (rebecca) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 20:54:44 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) References: Message-ID: <002f01c664de$2eb1cf40$6501a8c0@MITRE.ORG> No: HPFGUIDX 151233 >Jen R said: > In the end, I guess I don't want that speech to go away or be > edited. It was raw, hard to hear, and made me feel uneasy but it was > a 'darkest hour before the dawn' moment that seemed right for the > transition between the dark and depressing tone of OOTP and the more > hopeful and active themes in HBP. Rebecca now: When I read all these posts, the first thought I had was the phrase "moment of truth." That's what the end of OoP is for me, in a way, because as Dumbledore states, the truth should be treated with great caution. Philosophers debate what "truth" is all the time, and there's always a connection and debate about truth and knowledge. Dumbledore was dealing with a very emotional Harry in his office: I'm curious how compassion, kind words, and hugs lessen the blow of truth and the reality that Harry faces with Sirius' loss, the truth behind why he was attacked as a child and his parents killed, and his possible future? IMO, I think looking at how Harry reacted to DD in 2 key paragraphs in HBP gives us a better idea of how we should perhaps interpret how DD acted and treated Harry at the end of OoP. The first is where Harry leaves the Dursleys with DD: "He had never had a proper conversation with the headmaster outside of Hogwarts before; there was usually a desk between them. The memory of their last face-to-face encounter kept intruding too, and it rather heightened Harry's sense of embarrassment; he had shouted a lot on that occasion, not to mention done his best to smash several of Dumbledore's most prized possessions. " Harry is embarrassed. Not angry, not hurt by his last OoP conversation with DD. The second exchange below leaves me with the perception that DD did do the appropriate thing with Harry when he revealed the truth to him in OoP: "Sirius represented much to you that you had never known before," said Dumbledore gently. "Naturally, the loss is devastating. . . . "But while I was at the Dursleys' ..." interrupted Harry, his voice growing stronger, "I realized I can't shut myself away or - or crack up. Sirius wouldn't have wanted that, would he? And anyway, life's too short. . . . Look at Madam Bones, look at Emmeline Vance. ... It could be me next, couldn't it? But if it is," he said fiercely, now looking straight into Dumbledore's blue eyes gleaming in the wandlight, "I'll make sure I take as many Death Eaters with me as I can, and Voldemort too if I can manage it." To me, that mindset and maturity Harry displays in this paragraph is partially as a result of the way DD tells him the truth in OoP. He has accepted reality and, in effect, the truth. Accepting the truth and embracing reality, no matter how good or bad, empowers one for extraordinary actions in desperate times. The truth, as they say, shall set you free. :) Rebecca From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 21 00:57:08 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 00:57:08 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151234 > Jen R: Rationally, logically, what Pippin said makes complete > sense: the time had arrived and perhaps was overdue for the > Explanation. Dumbledore had one shot to explain to Harry not only > the events of that year but the reason behind many of the events of > Harry's entire life and he needed to get it right or risk having > Harry turn away from him. No pressure there. Alla: Oh, but I probably was not making myself clear. I totally agree that time had come to explain about the Prophecy, etc, I have no problem with that part of the speech on the intellectual level, that needed to be said, but the part about Sirius just was NOT needed to be said, in my book, except JKR wanting to let us know how she intended to present Sirius treatment of Kreacher. I mean, really , without Dumbledore speech did anybody not understand that Sirius did not treat Kreacher well? JKR showed it to us, Ia m not quite sure why in addition to showing it she felt a need to make Dumbledore say it and cut Harry's wounds. Jen: > Emotionally though, I feel like Sherry and Alla. Dumbledore seemed > distant and harsh, talking in a way he'd never talked to Harry > before. At a time when I *most* expected words of compassion, the > Dumbledore well ran dry. Alla: Yes, absolutely with the exception of information about Sirius, which as I said I did not find necessary, I have no problem with the Informative part of DD speech,l I have lots of problems with his emotional behaviour though so to speak. > Alla: Jen, have I ever told you that I find your writing to be one of the most PERSUASIVE on the list? Because even when I think differently , when I read your posts I often think , oh, yes, she is right. So, love your interpretation, have to think about it to decide whether I adopt it or not, but love it regardless. Jen R.: > In the end, I guess I don't want that speech to go away or be > edited. It was raw, hard to hear, and made me feel uneasy but it was > a 'darkest hour before the dawn' moment that seemed right for the > transition between the dark and depressing tone of OOTP and the more > hopeful and active themes in HBP. Alla: On that I probably beg to differ. I would MUCH prefer this speech to be edited, although I doubt that this is going to happen, but I can make a wish, can't I? I mean, you are arguing that it was a transition to HBP, right? But after reading HBP could you predict after that speech that tone in HBP will switch so drastically again? I mean, I just don't see it as a good transition, unless you will convince me :) JMO, Alla From stevejjen at earthlink.net Fri Apr 21 01:14:56 2006 From: stevejjen at earthlink.net (Jen Reese) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 01:14:56 -0000 Subject: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: <20060420201736.14353.qmail@web81905.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151235 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, dkewpie wrote: > Yup, it's definitely Merope Gaunt. I think it's really just simple > as that, nothing more. It's really no shocking mystery and twist as > people seem to think it is. I find it a bit funny that people are > still speculating and coming up with theories about this when it's > been already answer in book 6 so black and white. But oh well, to > each and hiw own, but sure there'll be lots of "that's it?!?!" > disappointment when book 7 is out...hehh... Jen R.: One crucial thing disqualifies Merope in my opinion and that is she's already proven herself to be a witch, just not an effective one. Dumbledore refers to her as a witch, she has a wand, she's able to make a pot move across the floor and likely has performed ineffective magic before from the way Marvolo goes on about her. So how exactly is she the best candidate for the late bloomer? Unless JKR is being vague in her wording, the late bloomer is someone who has NEVER performed magic of any kind before desperate circumstances inspire the person to do so 'quite late in life'. Sherry: > My vote is for Mrs. Figg. I like her, and she's more deserving > than anyone else I can think of. I can picture a scene in which > the death eaters attack Privet drive, Harry is helpless and Figgy > does magic in desperation. I'd love that to happen! I hope very > strongly that it is not Filch, because of his desires to see cruel > punishments inflicted on the students. I tremble to think what he > could do to them if he could suddenly do magic. Jen: I always figured Filch acted that way because he had no power and was jealous, so I'm thinking it if he can finally use magic to at least clean the castle he won't be so bad . He's my guess but only because I like the Eileen Prince=Irma Pince theory and think Filch might do something to save her when Voldemort discovers her true identity. We'll find out Eileen did something to defy him that caused her to go into hiding many years ago and LV still wants her dead for it. I'm not quite to the point of buying the idea Filch is Tobias, but I could get there before book 7. Jen R. hoping this question wasn't answered by Merope because then she'll feel really old. From phil at pcsgames.net Fri Apr 21 01:19:32 2006 From: phil at pcsgames.net (Phil Vlasak) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 21:19:32 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Magical Late Bloomer References: Message-ID: <006d01c664e1$a8bdfb80$6600a8c0@phil> No: HPFGUIDX 151236 Now Phil again: I just thought of another candidate for the Magical Late Bloomer. A person who in all my investigation only did one magical spell in the six books with her wand: Sibyll Trelawney in POA: Professor Trelawney swept over to him holding a dustpan and brush Why didn't she use a Reparo spell to fix the broken teacup? in GOF: interestingly at the present time. If you will all look this way, I will dim the lights. ..." She waved her wand and the lamps went out. The fire was the only source of light now. This is the only time she used her wand in the six books. in OOP: She was busy putting copies of battered, leather-bound books on each of the spindly little tables with which her room was littered when Harry entered the room, but so dim was the light cast by the lamps covered by scarves and the low-burning, sickly-scented fire that she appeared not to notice him as he took a seat in the shadows. Why didn't she use Wingardium Leviosa to fly the books onto the tables? in HBP: "I--well," said Professor Trelawney, drawing her shawls around her defensively and staring down at him with her vastly magnified eyes. "I wished to--ah-- deposit certain--um--personal items in the room. ..." And she muttered something about "nasty accusations." "Right," said Harry, glancing down at the sherry bottles. She bent down, scooped up her sherry bottles, and dumped them unceremoniously in a large blue-and-white vase standing in a nearby niche. Why didn't she use the Evanesco spell to vanish the wine bottles? Phil who thinks she needs a Kwikspell course. From hpfgu.elves at gmail.com Fri Apr 21 01:40:43 2006 From: hpfgu.elves at gmail.com (hpfgu_elves) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 01:40:43 -0000 Subject: ADMIN: Discussing Sensitive Cultural & Religious Topics Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151237 Greetings HPfGU Community: We List Elves extend our most eager welcome to our new members, and wave hello to those of you whose "faces" we see daily! The teapot is on the table in the corner, please make yourselves at home! We're delighted that you're here, and that your topics of discussion are so thought-provoking and different from other Harry Potter groups on the vast virtual world which is the Internet. Likewise, we congratulate you for continuing to maintain respect and open discussion about cultural and religious topics related to your interpretations of the Potter septology; we're all adult fans here and we think that these topics can, as you've exemplified recently, be discussed in a mature and engaging way. We hope that you will continue to do so as these threads progress, and encourage you to preface your replies to these intriguing topic threads with the following tips in mind to avoid misunderstandings which might steer the conversation in a not-so-productive direction: **Remember, your post is all your fellow HPfGU readers and posters see of YOU. Since we're not all in the same physical room, we can't see how you "mean" for your post to be interpreted by others. **If your post is an opinion piece, preface it with 'in my opinion'" (IMO), because it IS your opinion, after all. :) It may not be someone else's! ** Include questions in your replies which do not invite yes or no answers. It's not important to be right all the time, but it's important recognize others who may have viewpoints which differ from your own as well as accept and respect them. It's totally cool to agree to disagree. We appreciate your participation - and remember, there's plenty of tea and cookies for everybody! Best Regards, The HPfGU List Elves From kernsac at earthlink.net Fri Apr 21 01:38:07 2006 From: kernsac at earthlink.net (Peggy Kern) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 18:38:07 -0700 Subject: "Go get your invisibility cloak" Message-ID: <019001c664e4$3e4f18d0$6401a8c0@Kernputer> No: HPFGUIDX 151238 Hi, all. I just finished rereading the HP books for about the zillionth time, and I woke up during the night the other night thinking about something that I wanted to throw out for discussion/consideration. In the beginning of HBP, Dumbledore tells Harry he wants him to keep his invisibility cloak with him at all times, and Harry seems to be doing this, judging by all the times he puts it on to investigate Malfoy. But on the day when Dumbledore takes Harry with him, Dumbledore asks Harry to go get his invisibility cloak and meet him in the entrance hall. And it appears that Harry already had the cloak with him, because all he got when he went back to the dormitory was the potion and the map to give to Ron and Hermione. So why would Dumbledore ask Harry to go get something he'd already been told to keep with him, and which he apparently had with him anyway? Was there something else going on behind the scenes, or in Dumbledore's mind, that we don't know about? I also noticed that Dumbledore was looking out the window when Harry came to his office that day, and continued to look out the window at the end of their conversation before Harry left, to supposedly get the cloak. Dumbledore seems to me to be watching or waiting for something. I just think there was more going on than we know about yet during that time. What do you all think? Peggy From Ajohnson5 at comcast.net Fri Apr 21 02:11:02 2006 From: Ajohnson5 at comcast.net (April Johnson) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 22:11:02 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] "Unforgivable"--when used against whom? References: Message-ID: <023c01c664e8$d7626d20$6601a8c0@april> No: HPFGUIDX 151239 > BAW: > On a related note, Harry never cast an Unforgivable. He TRIED, but > he never succeeded. > > BAW April Now: Actually he did cast one that succeeded, just wasn't very good. Against Bella in the MOM. He cast it, it caused a little pain, but she told him he really had to mean it. So, the spell did work, he did cast it, he was just bad at it. April From stevejjen at earthlink.net Fri Apr 21 02:37:00 2006 From: stevejjen at earthlink.net (Jen Reese) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 02:37:00 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151240 Alla: > Oh, but I probably was not making myself clear. I totally agree > that time had come to explain about the Prophecy, etc, I have no > problem with that part of the speech on the intellectual level, > that needed to be said, but the part about Sirius just was NOT > needed to be said, in my book, except JKR wanting to let us know > how she intended to present Sirius treatment of Kreacher. I mean, > really , without Dumbledore speech did anybody not understand that > Sirius did not treat Kreacher well? JKR showed it to us, Ia m not > quite sure why in addition to showing it she felt a need to make > Dumbledore say it and cut Harry's wounds. Jen: I do understand your objections there. Re-reading it now it seems like Dumbledore was almost mad at Sirius for what happened. That if Sirius had really tried to have a better relationship with Kreacher, if he had just followed Snape's orders and stayed behind, if only, if only....He doesn't *say* that, but he doesn't talk glowingly about a man who just died. And yes, that is speculation! Maybe someone else has a better explanation. > Alla: > On that I probably beg to differ. I would MUCH prefer this speech > to be edited, although I doubt that this is going to happen, but I > can make a wish, can't I? I mean, you are arguing that it was a > transition to HBP, right? But after reading HBP could you predict > after that speech that tone in HBP will switch so drastically > again? > > I mean, I just don't see it as a good transition, unless you will > convince me :) Jen: I'm not *that* persuasive :), thanks for the kind words though. Just to fine-tune my thoughts, the speech seemed like the ending of a cycle of chaos, relationship struggles, miscommunications, mistakes, etc, which were presumably made in part because Voldemort was back to full strength and that's what he does just by being alive. I think that's what OOTP was about, right, at least in part? LV's strength is causing the other side to make critical errors, spreading discord and enmity? I sort of thought the point of that speech was Dumbledore didn't want to be telling Harry anything at all, but his own errors and mistakes in dealing with his order members & Harry and the disastrous MOM incident forced his hand. Okay, so the speech marked the end of the old, including DD's and Harry's previous relationship. The actual transition to brighter days in HBP was the very last paragraph of the book, the one about Harry heading into the sunlit street with the Dursleys in his wake. It just gave me the sense that Harry is coming into his own in part because he knows the whole story now and in part because he trusts his friends have his back. That's just my perception. I mean, all that probably should have happened WAY before that moment, but finally there it is. Jen R., finding herself wondering about the series as a whole and how the books will work together when book 7 is finally out. From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 21 02:47:18 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 02:47:18 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151241 > >>Alla: > Oh, but I probably was not making myself clear. I totally agree > that time had come to explain about the Prophecy, etc, I have no > problem with that part of the speech on the intellectual level, > that needed to be said, but the part about Sirius just was NOT > needed to be said, in my book, except JKR wanting to let us know > how she intended to present Sirius treatment of Kreacher. I mean, > really , without Dumbledore speech did anybody not understand that > Sirius did not treat Kreacher well? JKR showed it to us, I am not > quite sure why in addition to showing it she felt a need to make > Dumbledore say it and cut Harry's wounds. Betsy Hp: I don't think the goal was to either hurt Harry, make Sirius look bad, or even shift the blame off of Dumbledore's shoulders. When Dumbledore brought Kreacher up, he didn't launch right into any sort of criticism of Sirius. He was pretty much sticking to the facts. Snape did A, Dumbledore did B, Kreacher did C, etc. But Harry reacted, understandably I think, with a lot of anger towards Kreacher's part in the happenings. It's at this point that Dumbledore goes into his thing about Kreacher and the plight of house elves. Was this the best time for it? I'm of two minds. On the one hand, it's no good for Harry to fixate on Kreacher. Because Dumbledore is right, he is what wizards made him. He was a tool rather than a cause, and it's important that Harry realize that. But Kreacher wasn't created by Sirius. And one year (less, really) of Sirius treating Kreacher well may not have been enough to change Kreacher's loyalty. So the tact Dumbledore took (I warned Sirius, Sirius should have...,etc.) *was* a mistake. But that's the thing, Dumbledore isn't the perfect, fairytale wiseman. He's going through his own emotional fog (love that phrase) and he falls back a bit on his old phrases and arguments. (I could totally see Dumbledore making a similar argument at a political meeting at the MoM.) So I guess I feel that yes, Dumbledore did need to deal with Harry putting the blame on Kreacher, but also, yes he could have handled it better. But I don't blame either Dumbledore or JKR for the awkwardness. As Jen R. says, its rawness is what makes it real. Dumbledore is human, not a hallmark card. *That's* what JKR needed to give us there, IMO. I loved that the argument ended with Dumbledore burying his face in his hands. He really is at the end of his endurance. And yes it angers Harry. He wants Dumbledore to be the man in charge, for there to be *someone* in charge. But that's the painful thing about adulthood, there is no person in charge with a magic wand to make it all better. And that's the truth Harry was demanding to be a part of all year, the truth Dumbledore was trying to protect him from, and the truth Harry needed (as he instinctually realized) to know. > >>Alla: > > I mean, you are arguing that it was a transition to HBP, right? > But after reading HBP could you predict after that speech that > tone in HBP will switch so drastically again? > I mean, I just don't see it as a good transition, unless you will > convince me :) Betsy Hp: Well, I'm not Jen R., and I usually send you screaming in the opposite direction but the transition *did* work for me. Everything Dumbledore promised in this speech he did in HBP (less than a month later, I believe). He is treating Harry as an adult. And the really cool thing? Harry is *acting* like an adult. It's like Rebecca says in her post here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151233 > > To me, that mindset and maturity Harry displays in this paragraph > is partially as a result of the way DD tells him the truth in OoP. > He has accepted reality and, in effect, the truth. Accepting the > truth and embracing reality, no matter how good or bad, empowers > one for extraordinary actions in desperate times. > Betsy Hp: And you know? What a relief for Dumbledore too, I'd imagine. He's told Harry the truth, awkwardly, painfully. But he did it. And Harry rose to the challenge. Which took a bit of the burden off of Dumbledore's shoulders, I'd think. I'm glad he lived long enough to see it. Betsy Hp From bawilson at citynet.net Fri Apr 21 01:07:38 2006 From: bawilson at citynet.net (Bruce Alan Wilson) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 21:07:38 -0400 Subject: Late-life magic Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151242 Najwa here: "Ok I have this vague memory that Aunt Petunia couldn't be the late bloomer, and if so please remind me, because I just feel that she might be the one. Her or Filch, and Filch wouldn't interest me as much as Aunt Petunia becoming a witch, so I'm hoping that memory is wrong. Who better to become one, and JKR seems to be hiding something about Petunia anyway, and sort of laughs at the idea of Petunia being a squib, but said it was a good guess." BAW: JKR has said that it will NOT be Aunt Petunia. I'm plumping for Uncle Vernon, myself. Can you imagine his reaction after? From rdoliver30 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 21 03:21:03 2006 From: rdoliver30 at yahoo.com (lupinlore) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 03:21:03 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151243 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jen Reese" wrote: > > > In the end, I guess I don't want that speech to go away or be > edited. It was raw, hard to hear, and made me feel uneasy but it > was a 'darkest hour before the dawn' moment that seemed right for > the transition between the dark and depressing tone of OOTP and > the more hopeful and active themes in HBP. Well, I guess the question is what JKR was trying to accomplish with that speech. If she was just trying to lay out some plot points then the speech did its job. If, however, as I suspect, the speech had the additional goal of putting forth and reinforcing a positive view of Dumbledore, then for many of us the results were at best ambivalent and at worst positively off-putting. The sources for this ambivalence have been put forth by others and I won't go into them in detail. But the reasons for it, that is why JKR wrote the speech the way she did -- who knows? I suspect being under pressure had a lot to do with it. It has been suggested that she may have been trying to echo certain cultural tropes having to do with British stereotypes, but if that is the case those echoes certainly fell on deaf ears as far as many of us are concerned -- and I do think that is an example of poor writing, falling in the category of being too clever for your own good. And I agree that a recent version of DD in a medium that is not to be named was probably an attempt to partially correct that misfire. This is one area where we badly need some interview quotes. Maybe we'll get some one of these days. Lupinlore From rdoliver30 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 21 03:31:39 2006 From: rdoliver30 at yahoo.com (lupinlore) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 03:31:39 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151244 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" wrote: > > Betsy Hp: > Well, I'm not Jen R., and I usually send you screaming in the > opposite direction but the transition *did* work for me. > Everything Dumbledore promised in this speech he did in HBP (less > than a month later, I believe). He is treating Harry as an adult. > And the really cool thing? Harry is *acting* like an adult. > Which, of course, brings up a problem that many of us have with OOTP, which is that THAT (i.e. the way Harry's grief and relationship with DD is handled) just is not in any way believable. Sorry, but it just smacks of JKR sweeping all of the issues of OOTP under the rug because they are too messy to deal with properly. And perhaps that is where the transition issues come in. For those of us who find the transition jarring, it means, sort of de facto, that we think that either the situation at the end of OOTP doesn't match HBP (Alla's position) or that HBP doesn't match the situation at the end of OOTP (my take). Whether you look at it from one direction or another, for many of us it just doesn't work and isn't believable (i.e. JKR is trying very hard to sell a certain point of view, and whether at the end of OOTP or the beginning of HBP, we aren't buying). Lupinlore From kking0731 at gmail.com Fri Apr 21 04:06:33 2006 From: kking0731 at gmail.com (Kathy King) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 00:06:33 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] "Go get your invisibility cloak" In-Reply-To: <019001c664e4$3e4f18d0$6401a8c0@Kernputer> References: <019001c664e4$3e4f18d0$6401a8c0@Kernputer> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151245 Peggy snipped a bit: I also noticed that Dumbledore was looking out the window when Harry came to his office that day, and continued to look out the window at the end of their conversation before Harry left, to supposedly get the cloak. Dumbledore seems to me to be watching or waiting for something. I just think there was more going on than we know about yet during that time. What do you all think? Snow: I totally recall what I thought about this scene when I first read it because I have a tendency to stare in this same manner when I realize that things are about to change?it's like saying goodbye to the past even though it hasn't been clarified as past yet. You just know that what you are seeing is never going to be the same. This scene was clear to me that Dumbledore was preparing himself for the inevitability of change. He was taking in the last sunset fall on something that would never be the same. Whether or not he knew his days were numbered or whether he visualized Hogwarts being attacked for the first time or possibly both, Dumbledore was in quiet solitude with a sight he would never see the same way again for better or for worse. Just my view Snow [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From c.john at imperial.ac.uk Fri Apr 21 10:49:48 2006 From: c.john at imperial.ac.uk (esmith222002) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 10:49:48 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151246 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jen Reese" wrote: > > Alla: > > Oh, but I probably was not making myself clear. I totally agree > > that time had come to explain about the Prophecy, etc, I have no > > problem with that part of the speech on the intellectual level, > > that needed to be said, but the part about Sirius just was NOT > > needed to be said, in my book, except JKR wanting to let us know > > how she intended to present Sirius treatment of Kreacher. I mean, > > really , without Dumbledore speech did anybody not understand that > > Sirius did not treat Kreacher well? JKR showed it to us, Ia m not > > quite sure why in addition to showing it she felt a need to make > > Dumbledore say it and cut Harry's wounds. > > Jen: I do understand your objections there. Re-reading it now it > seems like Dumbledore was almost mad at Sirius for what happened. > That if Sirius had really tried to have a better relationship with > Kreacher, if he had just followed Snape's orders and stayed behind, > if only, if only....He doesn't *say* that, but he doesn't talk > glowingly about a man who just died. And yes, that is speculation! > Maybe someone else has a better explanation. > Personally, I think that DD sees Sirius as someone who could have seriously derailed his plans. Up until Sirius' arrival, DD had managed to control Harry's upbringing quite well. It is clear that DD is very proud that Harry has remained such a decent person despite everything that has happened to him. It is also implied that it is Harry's decent nature/ability to love that will ultimately defeat Voldemort. Sirius, however, is impulsive, emotional and often unkind. I think that DD is very aware of the fact that Harry idolises Sirius, and that might lead to Harry starting to behave like Sirius. This is probably even more likely after Sirius' 'martyrdom'. Therefore it seemed perfectly logical to me that DD would attempt to curtail this before Harry left for the summer. Yes, DD was a little clumsy - probably due to fatigue in trying to hold everything together. However, at that moment, I think DD was more concerned about Sirius' character flaws possibly derailing the grand plan, than he necessarily was about Harry's feelings. Brothergib From lolita_ns at yahoo.com Fri Apr 21 11:15:12 2006 From: lolita_ns at yahoo.com (lolita_ns) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 11:15:12 -0000 Subject: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: <20060420183332.61332.qmail@web37010.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151247 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, catherine higgins wrote: > JKR states on her website that Aunt Petunia will not demonstrate magical abilities, but you're also right that JKR is hiding something about Petunia. If she's not a squib or a muggle or a witch, then what is there left? > Lolita now: Maybe Petunia & Lily's parents were both squibs? Then it would be reasonable that 'they were thrilled to have a witch in the family', as Petunia told us in PS. And it would explain her knowledge of some things connected to the wizarding world. And, since squibs can see some of the things connected to the Wizarding world, as opposed to Muggles (Hogwarts*,, for instance - Rowling said sth along the lines that a muggle would only see a decrepit old building if they were standing in front of it; Squibs, OTOH, can see it & enter it - e.g. Filch), it would mean that the Evanses & Lily shared sth, and Petunia was completely excluded, since she is a Muggle. No wonder she is so resentful about the wizarding world. * I'm not saying that the Evanses, at any point in their lives, saw Hogwarts. I'm just stating it as an example of a part of the wizarding world that squibs are aware of. Cheers, Lolita From OctobersChild48 at aol.com Fri Apr 21 06:26:24 2006 From: OctobersChild48 at aol.com (OctobersChild48 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 02:26:24 EDT Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). Message-ID: <1be.31a15c8.3179d510@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151248 > OctobersChild48: > I, of course, expected Harry to be made a Prefect, > and Dumbledore's > > speech at least explained why he wasn't, not that I agree with his > decision > > Jen: > I agree with DD's decision...it made perfect sense to me NOT to > put Harry anymore in the spotlight than he already was. Can you > elaborate on why you disagree with DD's decision not to make Harry > prefect? > > Sandy: OoP, page 844, American "I feel I owe you another explanation, Harry," said Dumbledore hesitantly. "You may, perhaps, have wondered why I never chose you as a prefect? I must confess .... that I rather thought ... you had enough responsibility to be going on with." Dumbledore tells Harry this immediately after revealing the prophecy to him. Taken in this light it could seem to be a good explanation for why DD didn't make Harry prefect, but I just don't see it. To begin with, at the time DD made his prefect decision, Harry knew absolutely nothing about the prophecy or his role as "the Chosen One", so Harry was totally in the blind about DD's decision and why he made it. Harry had already been isolated at the Dursleys all summer with just enough contact from his friends to know something was going on that he was being excluded from, and then he gets overlooked for prefect too. As we know, Harry was pretty much in capslock mode at both the beginning and end of OoP, which I think was perfectly justified. He had just been through the final events of the TWT, watched Cedric be murdered, and faced off with Voldemort and won again, but suddenly, here he was, being put into the position of being persona non grata. He deserved better than that, and he deserved to be made prefect, and the fact that he wasn't added further to his feelings of exclusion. It is your position that had he been made prefect he would have been more in the spotlight than he already was. How so? I also ask how making him prefect would have affected him when it came to his position as a result of the prophecy? How, exactly, does he have enough responsibility to be going on with that would be severely affected by him being a prefect? It's not like he's in a training program that requires every bit of spare time that he has. He doesn't even know about this responsibility until the end of the school year. Furthermore, it does not keep him from being the head of the DA, or from being Quidditch captain the following year. Other than for his walks through the pensieve with Dumbledore in HBP I see no extensive or intensive prepararations being made for his destined showdown with Voldemort, and those certainly wouldn't have interfered with him being a prefect. Even if I were willing to accept Dumbledore's reason for not having made Harry a prefect I would have to question him waiting a year to tell Harry why. Yes, yes, I know, it would have ruined the plot of the book. I just don't agree with the decision not to make Harry a prefect, and the reason for it. Sandy -- OctobersChild48 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Fri Apr 21 11:32:53 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 07:32:53 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060421113253.21788.qmail@web37012.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151249 Lolita now: Maybe Petunia & Lily's parents were both squibs? Then it would be reasonable that 'they were thrilled to have a witch in the family', as Petunia told us in PS. And it would explain her knowledge of some things connected to the wizarding world. Catherine again: What a great thought....then what would the non-magical daughter of a pair of squibs be considered? Granted I thought JKR said that the "magic gene" was dominant and resilient, so I don't know if a pair of squibs could produce a magical daughter. Just like 2 people with blue eyes can't produce a brown-eyed baby as they lack the dominant brown-eyed gene. Maybe the magic gene is more complicated than the eye-coulured gene (which is pretty simple) could be more like hair-colour. But dominant means that if you possess the gene, it will be displayed over the recessive gene. Oh, it's too early in the morning for me to be contemplating genetics...I haven't even had my tea yet! But that was an excellnt thought Lolita! Catherine --------------------------------- Have a question? Yahoo! Canada Answers. Go to Yahoo! Canada Answers [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From saundradj at hotmail.com Fri Apr 21 05:25:43 2006 From: saundradj at hotmail.com (Saundra) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 05:25:43 -0000 Subject: Child Sociopaths In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151250 Jen: > JKR clearly said Riddle was not born evil, but that he has > never known love. In Potterverse that is the greatest evil of all > from what I can tell. > > I often wonder why JKR presented boy Riddle the way she did, as not > only unloved but unlovable from the start. Even as a baby he didn't > ask for or likely receive much attention because he was 'odd'. > Merope abandoning him may have started the process of Tom being > unloved, but it didn't end there. The fault for being unloved as a > baby cannot lie with a baby any more than Petunia finding Harry > unlovable lies with him as a 15-month old. " BAW: > What reaction would one have if one had met Ted Bundy, or Charles > Manson, or Ed Gein, or Casey Ramirez, or Jeff Dahlmer, et al? > Would they have been any less 'off' than Tommy Riddle? Actually, you touched on something that has been in my mind since I read the first HP book. Harry and the years 15 months to age 5 when he finally went to school. What happened when he cried upon waking and his parents weren't there? Children, even small ones, know and react to change. What happened when he skinned his knee or was afraid in the dark? Ted Bundy was hospitalized for a long time as a baby and it contributed to the way responded to people. They say boy babies whose cries aren't responded to learn to self soothe. These babies grow to never really attach to another person. We see this in crack babies as well. I think that being so loved for those 15 months provided a reserve, and the blood protection provided by Harry's Mum protected him from more than Voldemort and his DEs. I think it gave him a resilience of spirit to hide with himself until he could get out. Saundra (emerging from lurkdom for her first post) From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Fri Apr 21 13:25:56 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 13:25:56 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <1be.31a15c8.3179d510@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151251 Sandy wrote: > OoP, page 844, American "I feel I owe you another explanation, Harry," said Dumbledore hesitantly. "You may, perhaps, have wondered why I never chose you as a prefect? I must confess .... that I rather thought ... you had enough responsibility to be going on with." Dumbledore tells Harry this immediately after revealing the prophecy to him. Taken in this light it could seem to be a good explanation for why DD didn't make Harry prefect, but I just don't see it. Steven1965aaa: I just take it as arising out of DD's mistake, another consequence of his mistake. DD tried to protect Harry by (1) keeping certain facts from him and (2) refraining from imposing on him the responsibility of being a prefect. From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Fri Apr 21 14:40:37 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 14:40:37 -0000 Subject: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151252 In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, catherine higgins > wrote: > > JKR states on her website that Aunt Petunia will not demonstrate magical abilities, but you're also right that JKR is hiding something about Petunia. If she's not a squib or a muggle or a witch, then what is there left? Steven1965aaa: In the scene at the Dursley's house in the beginning of HBP Dumbledore refers to the "appalling damage" she and Uncle Vernon have done to Dudley. Dudley and Uncle Vernon look mystified but Petunia's face goes oddly red/crimson (in my best recollection, I don't have the book here). That seems to me to be a clue signaling that she knows something they do not (something beyond the damage which is obvious, raising him as spoiled, etc.), but I really have no idea what it could mean. From richter at ridgenet.net Fri Apr 21 15:17:45 2006 From: richter at ridgenet.net (richter_kuymal) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 15:17:45 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151253 c.john I think that DD sees Sirius as someone who could have seriously derailed his plans. Up until Sirius' arrival, DD had managed to control Harry's upbringing quite well. PAR: this rather implies Puppetmaster!DD. Surely a father figure who can provide HP with comfort and concern (GoF) and who goes to the extreme of living as a dog eating rats in order to "be there" is something that HP could emulate as a GOOD thing. Sirius, however, is impulsive, emotional and often unkind. == Actually, I find him rather restrained in many situations. He ignores a lot of what Kreacher does to annoy him; he doesn't ever physically beat Kreacher -- Sirius picks him up (by his loincloth, not by an arm or ear) and removes him from the room when the House elf is too annoying and won't leave. Compare to the Malfoy's handling of Dobby. We don't see ironed hands in Kreacher, nor death threats. The worst Sirius does is threaten Kreacher with "clothes" - - freedom that probably Sirius would dearly LIKE to give Kreacher but can't. As to emotional, he seems to discuss the issues of OOP rationally enough and doesn't respond excessively to Molly's innuendos. Yes, he hates Snape. Tolerates the man insulting him in his own house though, for the sake of the OOP. Doesn't like Kreacher -- well who would other than Narcissa, who only "likes" him for the sake of what Kreacher can bring her? Has enough courage, bravery and yes, LOVE to take risks for Harry. That is bad? Impulsive? Not really. He didn't obey DD. That isn't impulsive, that is disagreeing with DD's orders. He went to the MOM to rescue Harry -- ok, he might not have gotten killed if he hadn't gone, but he was a useful member of that rescue party and without a rescue party Harry and the others would likely have died or been crucio'd to insanity. He jibes at Bella. There, I'll grant you, it isn't the smartest thing to do when you are in a fight. Very traditional for the old "knight in armor" Arthurian types though. I felt Hagrid handled it better with Harry on the subject of Sirius. Hagrid tries to point out to Harry that Sirius' death was that of a warrior and honorable. If Hagrid can recognize it "wasn't his nature" for Sirius to sit on the sidelines inactive and worse, trapped in a house he hated, I just don't see that DD couldn't. I too, find DD's speech to Harry self serving and inappropriate. If DD is doing it to "prevent" Harry from behaving like Sirius,that is even more manipulative and even worse. It just isn't appropriate to respond to another person's grief over a death as an opportunity to "mold" them into a particular behavior. PAR From c.john at imperial.ac.uk Fri Apr 21 15:38:09 2006 From: c.john at imperial.ac.uk (esmith222002) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 15:38:09 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151254 > > I felt Hagrid handled it better with Harry on the subject of > Sirius. Hagrid tries to point out to Harry that Sirius' death was > that of a warrior and honorable. If Hagrid can recognize it "wasn't > his nature" for Sirius to sit on the sidelines inactive and worse, > trapped in a house he hated, I just don't see that DD couldn't. I > too, find DD's speech to Harry self serving and inappropriate. If > DD is doing it to "prevent" Harry from behaving like Sirius,that is > even more manipulative and even worse. It just isn't appropriate to > respond to another person's grief over a death as an opportunity > to "mold" them into a particular behavior. > PAR > We have DD's own admission that he had intended to stick to his plan, but was distracted by his love for Harry. The fact that DD realises this, suggests that he also realises that he has to get back to the plan - no matter what! Despite everything else, it is the eventual defeat of Voldemort that is most important. It is even possible that DD kept Sirius out of action so that Harry wouldn't have anymore reason to hero worship Sirius. As for PuppetMaster DD!, it is quite clear that DD is doing his best to control the situation for the overall good of the wizarding world. The last thing DD wants is Harry's character deviating, just when it appears that the confrontation with Voldemort is at hand! Brothergib From amiabledorsai at yahoo.com Fri Apr 21 18:15:26 2006 From: amiabledorsai at yahoo.com (amiabledorsai) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 18:15:26 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151255 lupinlore: > Which, of course, brings up a problem that many of us have with > OOTP, which is that THAT (i.e. the way Harry's grief and > relationship with DD is handled) just is not in any way believable. Given that Harry would have learned not to cry before he learned how to read, and that he'd just found out the hard way that his own good intentions could lead to hideous results, what were you expecting? Amiable Dorsai From ejblack at rogers.com Fri Apr 21 18:53:39 2006 From: ejblack at rogers.com (Jeanette) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 18:53:39 -0000 Subject: One last golden day of peace...... Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151256 I have just finished rereading HBP, and the last sentence set me thinking. Rowling rarely does the expected thing in the books. As I see it, in the next book, she can either have Fleur and Bill's wedding as a shining happy day OR that can be a day when Rowling shows that Volemort truly is attacking all happy normal life, and that there can be no "golden days of peace" until he is defeated. Jeanette From finwitch at yahoo.com Fri Apr 21 19:34:28 2006 From: finwitch at yahoo.com (finwitch) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 19:34:28 -0000 Subject: Magical genes In-Reply-To: <20060421113253.21788.qmail@web37012.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151257 > Catherine: > > What a great thought....then what would the non-magical daughter of a pair of squibs be considered? > Granted I thought JKR said that the "magic gene" was dominant and resilient, so I don't know if a pair of squibs could produce a magical daughter. Finwitch: A Muggle-in-the-know, probably. Considering that the two squibs were living like Muggles. (instead of raising half-kneazels or something). Other Muggles-in-the-know are the parents/siblings of Muggleborns AND people like the Prime Minister who just get told. (Ch 1 in HBP) The difference between ordinary Muggles and the ones in-the-know is that the Muggles-in-the-know don't get obliviated -- IOW they are, due to special circumstances, permitted to know that magic is real... But for gene-pool -- I think that general colouring is better. The amount of pigment varies quite a lot, really. There's six genes involved with amount of pigment (they effect the colour of eyes, hair and skin.) -- As for magic, the number would be SEVEN. (Because, well, it IS the mysterious number seven with the greates magical power!!!) Now, as these appear - I'd say that with 1 Magic Gene (out of 7) you have an artist or something. 2- They'd be excellent in their field of choice. They can develop so great a skill that it's almost magic - but not quite. (Like Mozart with music...) 3- Enough Magic to get into Hogwarts - a wizard. Lockhart might be one (he never could do more than memory charms, despite all the theory he studied to write the books!) 4-6.. Various wizards. 7-- Well, powerful wizards. Albus Dumbledore, probably. However, genes tell potential - it's up to each person how they develop themselves... Finwitch From bboyminn at yahoo.com Fri Apr 21 20:13:18 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 20:13:18 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron - DD's Decision In-Reply-To: <1be.31a15c8.3179d510@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151258 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, OctobersChild48 at ... wrote: > > > OctobersChild48: > > I, of course, expected Harry to be made a Prefect, and > > dumbledore's speech at least explained why he wasn't, not that > > I agree with his decision ... > > > > Jen: > > I agree with DD's decision...it made perfect sense to me NOT to > > put Harry anymore in the spotlight than he already was. ... > > > > > > Sandy: > OoP, page 844, American > "I feel I owe you another explanation, Harry," said Dumbledore > hesitantly. "You may, perhaps, have wondered why I never chose > you as a prefect? I must confess .... that I rather thought ... > you had enough responsibility to be going on with." > > Dumbledore tells Harry this immediately after revealing the > prophecy to him. Taken in this light it could seem to be a good > explanation for why DD didn't make Harry prefect, but I just > don't see it. To begin with, at the time DD made his prefect > decision, Harry knew absolutely nothing about the prophecy or > his role as "the Chosen One", so Harry was totally in the blind > about DD's decision and why he made it. bboyminn: Harry knew nothing about the Prophecy, BUT, and that is a big 'but', Dumbledore did. He knew the Prophecy and he comprehended its impact. Consider going about your daily life, now consider going about your daily life with a 50 pound bag of sand strapped to your back. In a philosophical and psychological sense, that 50 pound bag of sand represents Harry's knowledge of the Prophecy. Dumbledore knew he had run out of excuses, the time was, or soon would be, at hand when Dumbledore had to place that immense burden on Harry, and that Harry would have no choice but to bear it. That had to be an immense internal struggle for Dumbledore. One one hand, he knew he had to reveal the Prophecy, but on the other hand, he would do anything to avoid laying such an immense burden on Harry. So, he decided against making Harry Prefect, which is a responsibility that lasts three years by the way, because he knew that regardless of Harry's current set of responsibilities there was an immense psychological weight that Harry would soon have to bear. The whole situation is further complicated by Voldemort's newly found ability to access and influence Harry's mind. Luring Harry to the Ministry was a very powerful act with immense but unknown consequences. Dumbledore knew he had to tell Harry about the Prophecy, but at the same time, telling him could potentially be the same as telling Voldemort. Complicated, very complicated; so Dumbledore distanced himself from Harry while he tried to work out those complications. It gave him the perfect excuse to keep putting off telling Harry what he knew Harry needed to know, and would soon have to know. > Sandy -- OctobersChild48: > > ... but suddenly, here he was, being put into the position of > being persona non grata. He deserved better than that, and he > deserved to be made prefect, and the fact that he wasn't added > further to his feelings of exclusion. > bboyminn: Expanding on my last statement above regarding the connection between Voldemort and Harry. This is also something Harry worries about tremendously. After the attack on Mr. Weasley, Harry starts doubting himself. He wonders if he his mere presences is betraying his freinds and the Order by revealing to Voldemort the location of Grimmauld Place and the knowledge that Harry gained while he was there. Further Harry fears that he has become an instrument of Voldemort, that Voldemort has compelled him to attack Mr. Weasley, and that he is therefore a danger to everyone around him. Of course, Harry feels these things from a very distorted path of thinking, but they are valid concerns of Harry's, and certainly valid concerns of Dumbledore's. We see that Harry is very burdened already by what he currently knows, certainly the additional knowledge of the Prophecy that absolutely confirms and seals his fate is a very heavy burden indeed, and I have no problem with Dumbledore reluctance to convey that information. > Sandy -- OctobersChild48: > > It is your position that had he been made prefect he would have > been more in the spotlight than he already was. How so? I also > ask how making him prefect would have affected him when it came > to his position as a result of the prophecy? ... bboyminn: I think the use of the word 'spotlight' was more metaphorical than literal. How can you possibly claim that knowledge of the Prophecy doesn't place an additional burden on Harry? It makes Harry's confrontation with Voldemort inevitable, and confirms that Harry's fate is sealed, he must either die or kill. That's a lot to heap on the shoulder of such a young boy. So, I go back to my original point, while, as circumstances turned out, Dumbledore didn't reveal the Prophecy until the end of the year, Dumbledore knew that the moment could come at any time, indeed the moment was long past arriving, so the transfer of knowledge was inevitable. It was just a question of when would the best time be. So, regardless of what Harry personally knew, Dumbledore make his Prefect decision with the foreknowledge of the Prophecy, and the absolute certainty that he would have to tell Harry soon. The situation and the decision is further compicated by both Harry, to a limited extent, and Dumbledore knowing that Voldemort now had access to Harry's mind. That is one really big complication. > Sandy -- OctobersChild48: > > Furthermore, it does not keep him from being the head of the DA, > or from being Quidditch captain the following year. ... . bboyminn: A couple of last points, the DA Club was a secret club created and executed without Dumbledore's knowledge or consent, he could have hardly taken that into consideration when he made his decisions. Quidditch on the other hand, is Harry's only relief from the burdens he is already carrying. Removing that would have made Harry's situation worse rather than better. Even in wartime, people need to find some joy, and Quidditch is Harry's joy. As I have said before in another context, if you look at the selection of Ron, which means not selecting Harry, in the limited context of 'Prefects' then you fail to see the whole picture. If you view the selection from the perspective of weighing Ron against other available candidates, and weighing Harry's lack of being a candidate from the broader perspective of the entire book and the entire series then we see that Harry is already stuggling with the weight he is currently carrying. Dumbledore has foreknowledge that he must compound and increase Harry's struggle tremendously. Umbridge's presences certainly doesn't help matters in that particular year. Everything is complicated by Voldemort's ability to potentially access Harry's mind. Blend all these complications together and you have the perfect mix for Dumbledore making the decisions he did make. Re-compound that by acknowledging that foresight is never as clear as hindsight, and I don't have any problems with the way the circumstances unfolded. Just a few thoughts. Steve/bboyminn From bboyminn at yahoo.com Fri Apr 21 20:55:14 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 20:55:14 -0000 Subject: Magical genes - OT Comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151259 > finwitch wrote: > > ... > > But for gene-pool -- I think that general colouring is better. The > amount of pigment varies quite a lot, really. There's six genes > involved with amount of pigment (they effect the colour of eyes, > hair and skin.) > > -- As for magic, the number would be SEVEN. ... > > ... 1 Magic Gene (out of 7) you have an artist or something. > 2- They'd be excellent in their field of choice.... (Like Mozart > with music...) > 3- Enough Magic to get into Hogwarts - a wizard. ... > 4-6.. Various wizards. > 7-- Well, powerful wizards. Albus Dumbledore, probably. > > However, genes tell potential - it's up to each person how they > develop themselves... > > Finwitch bboyminn: OK, I admit I'm straying into OT area here, and picking an extremely find nit to boot, but here it is... It's not as simple as accumulated genetic 'points', in you six gene hair, eyes, and skin sequence there are not six combinations, assuming a basic binary on-off configuration, but two to the power of 6 (2^6) which is 64 combinations. With your seven magical genes, there are 128 possible combinations. A wizard with genes 1, 3, and 7 set is going to be magically different than a wizard with 2, 4, and 6 set. Though they will be similar in skill level, they will be different in specific skills. Not sure I have a point, just passing it along for what it's worth, and quite sure from a strict genetic perspective, it's probably wrong. Steve/bboyminn From AllieS426 at aol.com Fri Apr 21 20:56:14 2006 From: AllieS426 at aol.com (allies426) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 20:56:14 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <20060419225810.78398.qmail@web37005.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151260 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, catherine higgins wrote: > > I agree that Ron as Prefect was a little strange. But besides Harry, there's Dean, Seamus and Neville as Gryffindor 5th years. Dean and Seamus are a little too minor to be made Prefects. That leaves Neville, which would have been an interesting choice, post OotP and HBP. Allie now: Neville doesn't have a strong enough personality to be a prefect. Nobody would listen to him. Dean or Seamus would have been better than Ron, I think, just because neither of them is in trouble all the time! (At least, not that we see.) JKR could have made one of them prefect easily enough by having Harry and Ron wonder who's the male prefect in their year when Hermione gets her badge. I think the main reason for Ron to be prefect was so that Harry would have that train ride alone with Neville, Luna, and Ginny at the beginning of OoTP. From belviso at attglobal.net Fri Apr 21 21:09:57 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (sistermagpie) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 21:09:57 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151261 > Allie now: > > Neville doesn't have a strong enough personality to be a prefect. > Nobody would listen to him. Dean or Seamus would have been better > than Ron, I think, just because neither of them is in trouble all the > time! (At least, not that we see.) JKR could have made one of them > prefect easily enough by having Harry and Ron wonder who's the male > prefect in their year when Hermione gets her badge. I think the main > reason for Ron to be prefect was so that Harry would have that train > ride alone with Neville, Luna, and Ginny at the beginning of OoTP. Magpie: I agree. Neville has the advantage of being a bigger character than Dean or Seamus, but he seems the worst choice for Prefect. He has proven himself brave and exceptional in many ways, but the Prefect job isn't really about that; it's about relating to other students in a certain way. Luna's also proved herself very worthy, but she wouldn't be a good Prefect either. I consider myself a fantasic person, but I don't think I'd be a good choice either. It truly makes you wonder about Remus, actually. Had he not had the type of friendship he did with MWPP, he would probably have been a fine Prefect. James and Sirius seem like more of the leader type in the Pensieve, but Remus' control in the classroom and authority as a teacher is great. He's good with authority as an adult. I wonder if that's something he developed more as he got older, or if DD saw it earlier. -m From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 21 22:13:56 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 22:13:56 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151262 > >>Lupinlore: > Which, of course, brings up a problem that many of us have with > OOTP, which is that THAT (i.e. the way Harry's grief and > relationship with DD is handled) just is not in any way > believable. Sorry, but it just smacks of JKR sweeping all of the > issues of OOTP under the rug because they are too messy to deal > with properly. And perhaps that is where the transition issues > come in. For those of us who find the transition jarring, it > means, sort of de facto, that we think that either the situation > at the end of OOTP doesn't match HBP (Alla's position) or that HBP > doesn't match the situation at the end of OOTP (my take). Whether > you look at it from one direction or another, for many of us it > just doesn't work and isn't believable (i.e. JKR is trying very > hard to sell a certain point of view, and whether at the end of > OOTP or the beginning of HBP, we aren't buying). Betsy Hp: I understand your opinion. I just disagree with it. Harry's rage was *very* believable to me. Dumbledore's exhaustion was just as believable. I've not actually read any polls, so I've no idea how the fans break down on this particular issue, but the author didn't intrude in this scene for me. Actually, for the standard, "Dumbledore explains it all (tm)" scene, JKR was absent for me in this one in a way she hadn't been before. But then, OotP is really the book that I feel best introduces the more human Dumbledore to us, so it makes sense that he gets to have his most emotional scene, his most human scene, now. Honestly, I really didn't get any sense of a "certain point of view" being foisted on us by JKR. I didn't get the impression that Harry or Dumbledore were stepping in as her voice box, and I didn't get the impression that some great moral point was being forced down my throat. Sirius died. And Dumbledore and Harry are both having to deal with that horrible, inescapable fact. Death generally doesn't come with a moral attached. JKR was good enough, in my opinion, to recognize that. Eh, maybe it's like the difference between Ron and Hermione (can't recall the book). Hermione felt that Harry needed to sit around and talk about his grief (or problem, whatever it was); Ron realized that a bit of action (flying) was more to Harry's taste. Harry talked it all out with Dumbledore at the end of OotP. Now he's up for a bit of action. It would have surprised me if he'd been eager for more emoting, and it would have surprised me if Dumbledore had encouraged it. > >>Lupinlore: > > It has been suggested that she may have been trying to echo > certain cultural tropes having to do with British stereotypes, but > if that is the case those echoes certainly fell on deaf ears as > far as many of us are concerned -- and I do think that is an > example of poor writing, falling in the category of being too > clever for your own good. > Betsy Hp: Well, if you're not familiar with British culture, then yeah, I guess it can seem a bit foreign. But a British writer writing her British characters as acting in a British manner doesn't strike me as being "too clever for [her] own good". It strikes me as JKR writing what she knows. Which is what writers are supposed to do. But this does raise a question for me, especially for those who disliked the scene: Did Dumbledore seem out of character here? Betsy Hp From yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com Fri Apr 21 20:27:52 2006 From: yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com (stevemac) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 15:27:52 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: <20060421113253.21788.qmail@web37012.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060421113253.21788.qmail@web37012.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4DC6F1D8-DA96-4068-968D-4C95D1284836@stevenmcintosh.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151263 > Lolita: > > Maybe Petunia & Lily's parents were both squibs? Then it would be > reasonable that 'they were thrilled to have a witch in the family', > as Petunia told us in PS. And it would explain her knowledge of some > things connected to the wizarding world. stevemac: I was just wondering this myself... or more to the point that Lily and Petunia Dursley's parents were "delighted to have a witch in the family". That strikes me as odd, as I get the impression that most parents of muggle-born wizards are a bit shocked (thinking back on some of the students talking about their parents). If this is truly how most parents feel, I think it odd that they would be 'delighted' unless, maybe, one or both of their parents were at least 'in the know' muggles or squibs. I tried hard to look up some information about which was the older sister... If they wanted a witch, and non-magical Petunia was born, then they would have indeed been delighted and doting when they had a 2nd daughter, Lily, who turned out to be a witch. A wild fantasy theory here, is that there will turn out to be SOME reason why (at least in the movies) Ginny Weasley looks like Lily Potter... Maybe a further back genetic tie-in from the Evans to the Weasleys... perhaps the accountant cousin (or Molly Weasley's side of the family). OK, sure... a little far-fetched... (also, I don't think that the fact that some previous lineage has not been brought up to be a big deal... as they are all used to being related to each other, and treat such ancestry casually) From OctobersChild48 at aol.com Fri Apr 21 19:40:46 2006 From: OctobersChild48 at aol.com (OctobersChild48 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 15:40:46 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re:Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). Message-ID: <196.5361f985.317a8f3e@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151264 ISandy: > > There was absolutely nothing to recommend Ron as a > > viable candidate for it. He is not a good student, doesn't show signs of > being > > particularly magically gifted, is guilty of much rule breaking, yes, I > know, > > so is Harry, and has never shown any kind of leadership qualities. Nor > does he > > seem to be driven to succeed in any way. And he isn't particularly > overloaded > > with self confidence. > Irene: > And Rowling seems hell-bent on the idea of him being a perfect soul-mate > for Hermione. Grrrr. Not to restart the shipping wars, as I'm not a fan > of Harry/Hermione either. > > Sandy: I haven't been a part of this list long enough to have seen the shipping wars and certainly don't want to re-start them, but I would like to comment on this. It has been obvious from book one that there is some kind of chemistry between Ron and Hermione, and a better example of opposites attracting I have never seen. It was oh so subtle, but it always seemed obvious that the two were destined to share their future together, and I had no objections to that, and in fact, at first, found it charming. But, since GoF, I have formed a totally negative position towards Ron where Hermione is concerned. It has nothing, however, to do with the above mentioned things. It has to do with the fact that he shows no care, concern or respect for Hermione at all. I consider his treatment of her to be abusive and chauvanistic. First there is his reaction to the veelas and Fleur, and then the Yule Ball fiasco in GoF. And then there's the Lavender thing in HBP, which I find the most disturbing of all. He knew he was hurting Hermione but he kept right on doing it. I have to wonder if Ron could ever be truly faithful to Hermione, and it has crossed my mind that he could possibly even be physically abusive to her. Unless Ron undergoes a major change of attitude in the next book I don't see him as ever being a suitable mate/partner for any woman, much less Hermione. Sandy [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From kellyglessner at hotmail.com Fri Apr 21 19:15:42 2006 From: kellyglessner at hotmail.com (FrisbeeK) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 19:15:42 -0000 Subject: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: <20060421113253.21788.qmail@web37012.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151265 > > Lolita said: > > Maybe Petunia & Lily's parents were both squibs? Then it would be > reasonable that 'they were thrilled to have a witch in the family', > as Petunia told us in PS. And it would explain her knowledge of some > things connected to the wizarding world. > Frisbee K: Just another thought- what if the Evanses were like the Weasleys - specifically Mr. Weasley? What if Lily's dad or mom was the muggle equivalent of the dept of magic and mysticisms in muggles with the same sort of fascination Arthur Weasley has? Compound this with Lily being like Hermoine (a witch in a family full of muggles) - it would be a dream come true for a magical researcher. So Petunia hears all about magic but gets slighted because she's well...normal in a muggle family and Lily gets to go to Hogwarts and gets the attention because she's the freak her parent(s) always wanted to study. FrisbeeK From jedynka0 at op.pl Fri Apr 21 16:31:37 2006 From: jedynka0 at op.pl (castle_bird_blue) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 16:31:37 -0000 Subject: Problem with Sirius(was:re:Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP ) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151266 >richter_kuymal wrote: > PAR: this rather implies Puppetmaster!DD. Surely a father figure > who can provide HP with comfort and concern (GoF) and who goes to > the extreme of living as a dog eating rats in order to "be there" > is something that HP could emulate as a GOOD thing. > > Actually, I find him rather restrained in many situations. > Yes, he hates Snape. Tolerates the man insulting him in his own > house though, for the sake of the OOP. > Has enough courage, bravery and yes, LOVE to take risks for Harry. > That is bad? Impulsive? Not really. He didn't obey DD. That isn't > impulsive, that is disagreeing with DD's orders. He went to the > MOM to rescue Harry -- ok, he might not have gotten killed if he > hadn't gone, but he was a useful member of that rescue party and > without a rescue party Harry and the others would likely have died > or been crucio'd to insanity. He jibes at Bella. There, I'll > grant you, it isn't the smartest thing to do when you are in a > fight. Very traditional for the old "knight in armor" Arthurian > types though. > blue: From his first appearance in book 3, Sirius Black was all about emotions and acting on impulses. This is rather hard to deny seing that in almost his every single scene he is raging, bitching, storming, throwing tantrums or running around jumping or singing parodies of Christmas Carolls (And yes I'm aware of the "Padfoot' return" chapter in GoF but I also recall that he came back to England without thinking and caring about what it could mean for his safety, recklessly sneaking around and chirping about eating trashes). In the scene with Molly, he was described as acting or speaking aggresively and if it had not been for Lupin he would have probably hit or hex Molly after her infamous Azkaban' comment. That doesnt sound rationally for me. And there is nothing wrong with being emotional or fiery about things. On the contrary- I prefer that kind of attitude rather than passivity. How many people fell in love with McGonagall in OOTP because of her "new found" raw emotions and fierce attitude toward Umbridge? The problem with Sirius was that his "fierceness" and emotions were directed on the wrong people or subjects: miserable House Elf, his crazy miserable mother, Snape whom he used to make miserable at school, Dumbledore and Molly Weasley and the last three people know far better than him what responsibility, maturity and duties means. That's why Sirius comes out rather as a bratty than strong and admirable. That's why IMO Dumbledore could see him as a treat for Harry and his journey. blue From Giallar2 at aol.com Fri Apr 21 17:16:36 2006 From: Giallar2 at aol.com (Nancy) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 17:16:36 -0000 Subject: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151267 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "steven1965aaa" wrote: > > In the scene at the Dursley's house in the beginning of HBP Dumbledore > refers to the "appalling damage" she and Uncle Vernon have done to > Dudley. Dudley and Uncle Vernon look mystified but Petunia's face > goes oddly red/crimson (in my best recollection, I don't have the book > here). That seems to me to be a clue signaling that she knows > something they do not (something beyond the damage which is obvious, > raising him as spoiled, etc.), but I really have no idea what it could > mean. Nancy: Hello all, I am new to your board but an avid fan.. (Hi Pippin) That quote seems to give the most evidence that it will be Dudley, along with his reaction to the dementors - actually feeling it which Mrs Figg did not. Nancy From amiabledorsai at yahoo.com Fri Apr 21 23:21:34 2006 From: amiabledorsai at yahoo.com (amiabledorsai) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 23:21:34 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151268 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "allies426" wrote: > > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, catherine higgins > wrote: > > > > I agree that Ron as Prefect was a little strange. But besides > Harry, there's Dean, Seamus and Neville as Gryffindor 5th years. Dean > and Seamus are a little too minor to be made Prefects. That leaves > Neville, which would have been an interesting choice, post OotP and > HBP. > > Allie now: > > Neville doesn't have a strong enough personality to be a prefect. > Nobody would listen to him. Dean or Seamus would have been better > than Ron, I think, just because neither of them is in trouble all > the time! (At least, not that we see.) Amiable Dorsai: Unless, of course, the leader of the Order of The Phoenix and the man who killed Grindelwald is more impressed by a kid who tries to stop the theft of the Philosopher's Stone, who charges into the Chamber of Secrets to rescue his sister knowing that there's a Basilisk waiting for him, and who, unarmed, stands up on a broken leg to defy a mass-murderer, than he is by students who quietly keep their noses clean. Amiable Dorsai From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 21 23:43:18 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 23:43:18 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/Hermione (was:Re:Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <196.5361f985.317a8f3e@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151269 > >>Sandy: > > And then there's the Lavender thing in HBP, which I find the most > disturbing of all. He knew he was hurting Hermione but he kept > right on doing it. I have to wonder if Ron could ever be truly > faithful to Hermione... Betsy Hp: But... They weren't dating. Why should Ron run his dating choices by Hermione? She didn't run Krum by him. (Nor did she need to.) > >>Sandy: > ...and it has crossed my mind that he could possibly even be > physically abusive to her. Betsy Hp: Which is ironic considering Hermione has physically attacked Ron, but he's never physically attacked her. I don't know, it looks like you're asking for a bit of a double standard here. Hermione can date who she wants, when she wants, but Ron has to ask Hermione for permission. Hermione attacks Ron but he's the one who gets labeled abusive. > >>Sandy: > Unless Ron undergoes a major change of attitude in the next book I > don't see him as ever being a suitable mate/partner for any woman, > much less Hermione. Betsy Hp: I don't know, Ron strikes me as a bit of a sweetie. And I suspect that he's the type that once he falls, he's gone. He's got self- esteem issues, but they appear to be clearing up. (No thanks to Hermione who not only treated Ron like he needed help tying his shoes, but attended and spoke highly of a club from which Ron had been excluded.) I think it's fairly clear that the books will end with Ron and Hermione sitting in a tree (with church steeples and baby-carriages dancing through their heads). However, I think *both* of them have a bit of growing to do before either of them become prime dating material. Betsy Hp From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Fri Apr 21 23:56:02 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 23:56:02 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <196.5361f985.317a8f3e@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151270 Sandy: *(snip)* > But, since GoF, I have formed a totally > negative position towards Ron... *(snip)* ...he shows no care, concern or respect for Hermione at all. I consider his treatment of her to be abusive and chauvanistic. Ceridwen: I do agree that R/H seems to have been foreshadowed since PS/SS. But I have to disagree with the rest of your assessment. Not because you aren't seeing these things, as you may have noticed, everyone has a different vision of what is happening in certain areas. The reason I disagree is that, until near the end of HBP, there has been nothing serious between Ron and Hermione on a romantic level, in my opinion. For the first two books in particular, they are very young, eleven and twelve, to be having romantic thoughts about each other. True, some people do get crushes at that age. Okay, most people do. But usually just crushes, and I tend to think that these crushes are on 'safe' targets, people they know deep down will never reciprocate. Like crushes on teachers or celebrities, or other students who have never given them a second look. Ron was disappointed that Hermione had another date for the Yule Ball, and he seemed to be jealous after that, but I can imagine that he thought Hermione wasn't interested after all by the end of GoF, and he moved on. I don't see Ron as abusive to Hermione. I don't think she would allow it. Also, she appears more competent than he is with her magic, he would have to be dumber than some areas of fandom presume to get in her face and risk her wrath. My opinion, of course. Sandy: > First there is his reaction to the veelas and Fleur, and then the Yule Ball fiasco in GoF. And then there's the > Lavender thing in HBP, which I find the most disturbing of all. Ceridwen: Again, we seem to see things differently. I think Ron is behaving like any young male at the threshhold of his coming of age. And again, the Veelas have a power over men, if I recall correctly - and they would certainly qualify as safe objects of a crush who wouldn't give Ron the time of day. Yes, the Yule Ball was a fiasco for Ron. He should have asked Hermione immediately rather than waiting until she had a date. But he is new at this sort of thing, and it is possible that he might even be lagging behind the other fourth years at this point. Everyone matures at a different rate. As for Lavender, why shouldn't he go out with her? Hermione doesn't seem to be showing an interest in HBP (that I could see), and it has been two years since the Yule Ball. Many people have boyfriends and girlfriends before they settle down to their one true love. Some people even have wives and husbands before they settle down to their one true love. I see this as just part of growing up. Harry worries at one point about what would happen to the friendship if Ron and Hermione start dating. It would certainly change the dynamics of the group! And, what if they break up? That would change the dynamics negatively. We don't know that Ron worries about this, but we don't know that he doesn't, either. What does become obvious is that hurt feelings are already present in Hermione, though I sincerely believe Ron is clueless, at least until the pecking birds episode. Sandy: > He knew he was hurting Hermione but he kept right on doing it. Ceridwen: Here, I think you are giving Ron too much credit. When Hermione unleashes the Canaries of Doom on him, he is completely mystified. I think he sees Hermione as a friend, much like Harry is a friend, not as a potential partner. Canaries do not equal romantic feelings to him at this point (though I am sure that he either got it later or he will get it one of these days). Of course, I could be reading with different ideas in mind. Most of us come from very different backgrounds which color the way we read the books. Sandy: > I have to wonder if Ron could ever be truly faithful to Hermione, and it has crossed my mind that he could possibly even be physically abusive to her. Unless Ron undergoes a major change of attitude in the next book I don't see him as ever being a suitable mate/partner for any woman, much less Hermione. Ceridwen: I do hope that Ron turns out well. He has reasonably decent role models at home. His father doesn't seem to be abusive to his mother, and he strikes me as loving and caring, though a little obsessed with Muggle things. Ron is still young. He has just turned seventeen, so he has a lot of emotional maturing left to do. People go out with a lot of different people before settling down, and they are able to remain faithful. I don't think Ron will be any different. I think he will do a lot of maturing in book 7, wars do that to people. But, that's the way I see it. Of course, your mileage may vary. Ceridwen. From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Sat Apr 22 00:38:27 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 00:38:27 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <196.5361f985.317a8f3e@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151271 > ISandy: > > > > There was absolutely nothing to recommend Ron as a > > > viable candidate for it. Steven1965aaa: I can't get over all this Ron bashing. Ok, so the guy has some immaturity issues, no question. But come on, for the following moment, alone, he outshines every student at the school with the exception of Harry and possibly Hermione: "If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us too!" he said fiercely, though the effort of standing upright was draining him of still more color, and he swayed slightly as he spoke." (POA p.339, spoken to someone he believed to be a mass murderer). If any character in the books (much less any other candidate for prefect) other than Harry and Dumbledore has had a more stand-up moment than that, let me know. From dontask2much at yahoo.com Sat Apr 22 02:00:22 2006 From: dontask2much at yahoo.com (rebecca) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 22:00:22 -0400 Subject: What if the GH House Was the Intended Horcrux? Message-ID: <01b201c665b0$841620d0$6501a8c0@MITRE.ORG> No: HPFGUIDX 151272 So, I've wondered about this and I thought I'd share some flash of momentary insight and questions with you all. Yes, yes, I'm sure you understand that when these thoughts come upon a person, one feels compelled to share in the hopes that others might have input, too. Welcome to rollercoaster ride of possibilities! Mayhem will surely ensue. In the first book, Hagrid makes a statement to Dumbledore that I have wondered about: "No, sir -- house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. He fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol." I've seen before where folks here and elsewhere have asked about this, speculated, and debated how Lord Voldemort's failed AK could have caused an explosion of the house. We've seen how curses which rebound affect the objects around them in numerous books, CoS, OoP and HBP to name a few. But what if, what IF, Harry wasn't intended to be a LV's Horcrux at all? Could the GH house itself have been Godric Gryffindor's actual home at one time? Couldn't the house have been the intended Horcrux and subsequently failed to keep that fragment of LV's soul inside? Wouldn't it be like Lord Voldemort to covet it if he knew it were Godric Gryffindor's ancestral home? And wouldn't it be like JKR to put a major Horcrux in plain sight? I ask this because it appears that Grimmauld Place had been in the Black family for many years - I am not saying that the GH house was in the Potter family (as in related to GG) but it is possible one could have purchased it. Likewise, look at LV's placing of the Slytherin ring *inside* the Gaunt home; that home was special enough to him to place the ring there. The same applies for the locket in the cave: places are almost as important as "things" to the Dark Lord. If you're LV at the height of his power, why not skip the Horcrux object and place a fragment of your soul directly in the those ancestral walls which belonged to a Founder? What if everything went wrong when you went to do it, and your last soul fragment failed to be contained by the home? De-stroyed. What if your soul did split, but not necessarily as you intended it to - it wasn't a "clean" split like you'd done before? Seems to me you might float about less than the meanest spirit.....and you'd be left with one power (possession) while some thing or some ONE got some of your other innate talents. Something to ponder there, hm? rebecca, who wonders if the Riddle House was always in the Riddle family, too From OctobersChild48 at aol.com Fri Apr 21 23:44:35 2006 From: OctobersChild48 at aol.com (OctobersChild48 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 19:44:35 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Child Sociopaths Message-ID: <3bc.d66a93.317ac863@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151273 In a message dated 4/21/06 8:44:21 AM Eastern Daylight Time, saundradj at hotmail.com writes: > Actually, you touched on something that has been in my mind since I read > the first HP book. Harry and the years 15 months to age 5 when he finally went > to school. What happened when he cried upon waking and his parents weren't > there? Children, even small ones, know and react to change. What happened > when he skinned his knee or was afraid in the dark? Sandy: I'm glad to know that I am not the only one who had these kinds of thoughts, which I think of as being one of the foibles of being an adult reader. But my thoughts went even deeper. Harry came to the Dursleys at an age that requires a lot of work, for lack of a better word. Based on my experiences as RL mother Harry still needed to be bottle broken and potty trained, watched closely as he toddled about getting into everything. He needed to be bathed and his diapers changed. I can't help but feel that Harry went through hell with Petunia being the one responsible for handling all of this. She did not want him and did not like him, and she had her own child just a few months older who required the same care. As the mother of Irish twins I know how hard it can be doing this kind of double duty. As he was going through this phase of his life how much must he have suffered at the hands of Petunia? How much neglect did he endure? Of course these things would never come up in the books, and I doubt they are part of JKR's backstory, but as an adult, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother I can't help but think of these things. Sandy [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From Lucid1953 at aol.com Fri Apr 21 23:33:09 2006 From: Lucid1953 at aol.com (Lucid1953 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 19:33:09 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Magical Late Bloomer Message-ID: <3ab.112797a.317ac5b5@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151274 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "steven1965aaa" wrote: > > In the scene at the Dursley's house in the beginning of HBP > Dumbledore > > refers to the "appalling damage" she and Uncle Vernon have done to > > Dudley. Dudley and Uncle Vernon look mystified but Petunia's face > > goes oddly red/crimson (in my best recollection, I don't have the > book > > here). That seems to me to be a clue signaling that she knows > > something they do not > > > Nancy: > > Hello all, I am new to your board but an avid fan.. (Hi Pippin) > > That quote seems to give the most evidence that it will be Dudley, > along with his reaction to the dementors - actually feeling it which > Mrs Figg did not. > > Nancy > > > > Diane (also new-ish - been lurking for a few weeks): To support what Nancy said, If Dudley, as a wee tyke, once "made something happen" when upset or angry, that could explain why is has been so coddled and spoiled by his parents. If the magic-loathing Dursleys saw a glimmer of potential wizardry in Duddykins, might they not think that they could keep it at bay by never allowing the boy to get angry or frustrated? I admit this is pretty far-fetched (I can think of arguments against it even as I type this), but, given how the Dursleys loathe magical people, it's fun to think about. Diane [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 22 01:48:41 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 18:48:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <196.5361f985.317a8f3e@aol.com> Message-ID: <20060422014841.1039.qmail@web61324.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151275 Sandy: I haven't been a part of this list long enough to have seen the shipping wars and certainly don't want to re-start them, but I would like to comment on this. It has been obvious from book one that there is some kind of chemistry between Ron and Hermione, and a better example of opposites attracting I have never seen. Joe: I don't know, it seems rather Beatrice and Benedict to me. Sandy: It was oh so subtle, but it always seemed obvious that the two were destined to share their future together, and I had no objections to that, and in fact, at first, found it charming. But, since GoF, I have formed a totally negative position towards Ron where Hermione is concerned. It has nothing, however, to do with the above mentioned things. It has to do with the fact that he shows no care, concern or respect for Hermione at all. I consider his treatment of her to be abusive and chauvanistic. Joe: Abusive? If I remember right both Harry and Hermione have caused physical harm to another student by punching them. Hermione has also hexed Ron for kissing another girl. If anyone is abusive(and they aren't) it's Hermione and pretty vindictive too Sandy: First there is his reaction to the veelas and Fleur, Joe: Yeah he is such a bad guy for having a mostly uncomtrolable reaction to a magical compulsion. coughLockheartcough Sandy: and then the Yule Ball fiasco in GoF. And then there's the Lavender thing in HBP, which I find the most disturbing of all. He knew he was hurting Hermione but he kept right on doing it. Joe: So Ron isn't allowed a social life that Hermione doesn't like? Sandy: I have to wonder if Ron could ever be truly faithful to Hermione, and it has crossed my mind that he could possibly even be physically abusive to her. Unless Ron undergoes a major change of attitude in the next book I don't see him as ever being a suitable mate/partner for any woman, much less Hermione. Joe: I would like to know what part of canon makes you think Ron could not be faithful to a woman? I would also like to know what part of canon shows Ron physically abusing anyone much less someone he is dating. To me I often wonder why no one asks if Hermione is good enough for Ron? Yeah she's smart, she's also snotty, full of her self, a wet blanket, bossy and doesn't seem to get along well with her other dormmates. Yeah Parvati and Lavender aren't rocket scientists but they are fairly well adjusted and socially adept. If Hermione doesn't have female friends that we know of it probably isn't because all the Gryffindor girls are flawed but because she is. Joe From AllieS426 at aol.com Sat Apr 22 02:23:53 2006 From: AllieS426 at aol.com (allies426) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 02:23:53 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151276 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "amiabledorsai" wrote: > > Amiable Dorsai: > Unless, of course, the leader of the Order of The Phoenix and the man > who killed Grindelwald is more impressed by a kid who tries to stop > the theft of the Philosopher's Stone, who charges into the Chamber of > Secrets to rescue his sister knowing that there's a Basilisk waiting > for him, and who, unarmed, stands up on a broken leg to defy a > mass-murderer, than he is by students who quietly keep their noses clean. > > Amiable Dorsai > Allie again: That depends on what you're expecting from your prefect. I don't come from the British school system, so I'm not exactly sure what they do, but my interpretation was that they're something like hall monitors. In normal times, you wouldn't want Ron in this position, but since reading Steve's post I've changed my opinion. You are right - these are not normal times. You want someone who's proven in battle patrolling the corridors these days. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 22 02:48:44 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 02:48:44 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151277 > Betsy Hp: > Actually, for the standard, "Dumbledore explains it all (tm)" scene, > JKR was absent for me in this one in a way she hadn't been before. > But then, OotP is really the book that I feel best introduces the > more human Dumbledore to us, so it makes sense that he gets to have > his most emotional scene, his most human scene, now. > > Honestly, I really didn't get any sense of a "certain point of view" > being foisted on us by JKR. I didn't get the impression that Harry > or Dumbledore were stepping in as her voice box, and I didn't get > the impression that some great moral point was being forced down my > throat. Sirius died. And Dumbledore and Harry are both having to > deal with that horrible, inescapable fact. Death generally doesn't > come with a moral attached. JKR was good enough, in my opinion, to > recognize that. Alla: Oh, that is very interesting. And I think this is exactly where my problem lies which may stopped me from adopting Jen Reese and your intrerpretation if it is similar to Jen's, I am not quite sure. Jen argued yesterday that Dumbledore in this scene is shown as at the end of his rope and that he is tired and upset and shocked of almost loosing Harry and accordingly he may not necessarily say the best things to Harry. ( Right, Jen? I am not misinterpreting you?) I actually have no problem with such interpretation whatsover, except I don't see hesitant Dumbledore, upset Dumbledore in this scene, even though he tries to be upset. Or maybe I am not expressing myself well again. Maybe Dumbledore IS upset, what I don't see is self-doubting Dumbledore, Dumbledore who is not sure again whether he does a right thing, etc. What I do get out of this speech is Dumbledore indeed being JKR's mouthpiece and doing the explanation of the plot points, one by one. I mean, if we were to argue that while in general Dumbledore was right that it is necessary to tell the truth to Harry ( and I agree with it), his mood prevented him from stopping himself and NOT to talk that way about Sirius ( like what Kreacher did was Sirius fault, and that basically it is Sirius fault that he died - of course that is just the impression I got), I will buy it. I will buy it that Dumbledore being 150 old man had no clue how to talk to grieving teenager, that he forgot the pain of loosing the loved ones and only just recently experienced the scare of loosing Harry and that is why he was not quite himself, but As I said I just don't see self-doubting Dumbledore, unsure of himself Dumbledore, it is like - yeah, I did not tell you about Prophecy in the past, so I was wrong, but not QUITE so wrong, but now I am right totally right, oh and of course it is your Godfather's fault that he died. ( Not to mention that I think that Dumbledore got it wrong - I think Kreacher would have hated Sirius no matter what, because Kreacher loved Sirius' parents and Sirius left them behind at sixteen. I give Kreacher's feelings enough respect for that. I mean, I am not denying that Sirius did not treat him well, but no, I don't think that Kreacher betrayed him because of that. I think I agree with Magpie on this again, if I did not misinterpret her. I am afraid I don't make much sense, but yes, I did not see much of human Dumbledore in this scene. I saw a lot more of him in HBP though. One line " I am not worried, I am with you" worked wonders on me to show Dumbledore humanity and lots better than his OOP speech. JMO, Alla From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 22 03:06:18 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 03:06:18 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151278 Brotherjib: > We have DD's own admission that he had intended to stick to his plan, > but was distracted by his love for Harry. The fact that DD realises > this, suggests that he also realises that he has to get back to the > plan - no matter what! Despite everything else, it is the eventual > defeat of Voldemort that is most important. It is even possible that > DD kept Sirius out of action so that Harry wouldn't have anymore > reason to hero worship Sirius. Alla: Plan. I think the plan Dumbledore had is to keep Harry safe no matter what and to help him prepare for the battles to come. I am not sure Dumbledore had more detailed plans than that. And Dumbledore keeping Sirius out of action deliberately, degrading him in Harry's eyes deliberately, I disagree completely. I would be the first one to say that Dumbledore was very wrong to keep Sirius in Grimmauld place thus contributing to his depression ( NOT to his death, but to his depression - IMO absolutely), but I will raise you the same objection that I will raise to Dumbledore leaving Harry with Dusleys to train him with Dursleys abuse. Dumbledore must have considered the possibility that Harry will learn of these plans one day and I think Harry may seriously reconsider giving his loyalties to Headmaster who deliberately harms his Godfather or who tries to train Harry with Dursleys help. Now, Dumbledore who desperately tries to keep both Harry and Sirius alive while in the process ignoring the very nature of his characters, yes, this Dumbledore I see in the books. IMO, Alla From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 22 04:16:09 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 04:16:09 -0000 Subject: Problem with Sirius(was:re:Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP ) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151279 Blue: > The problem with Sirius was that his "fierceness" and emotions were > directed on the wrong people or subjects: miserable House Elf, his > crazy miserable mother, Snape whom he used to make miserable at > school, Dumbledore and Molly Weasley and the last three people know > far better than him what responsibility, maturity and duties means. Alla: Just to make sure that I understood you correctly. You are not joking, you are seriously saying that Snape knows what maturity means? Oh, and I am rather fond of Molly altogether, but her comment about Azkaban and Sirius deserved much stronger reaction in my book than what Sirius said. blue: > That's why Sirius comes out rather as a bratty than strong and > admirable. That's why IMO Dumbledore could see him as a treat for > Harry and his journey. Alla: We definitely see two very different Dumbledores. I do not understand why Dumbledore would see person ( no matter how many flaws he had) who loved Harry as a threat to Harry. I think he was glad that there is somebody who can give Harry some taste of what parental love means. IMO, Alla From doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com Sat Apr 22 04:45:31 2006 From: doddiemoemoe at yahoo.com (doddiemoemoe) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 04:45:31 -0000 Subject: regarding prophecy and late bloomers.... Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151280 What if DD entrusted the contents of said prophecy to more than one person??? Also, what if said "late bloomer" happened to be aberforth... Of all the folks DD could have spoken with I think the folks he may have given the most information to may well have been Ms. Figg and his brother, Aberforth... After all, we do know that Aberforth caught Snape lurking outside of Trelawney's job interview...Aberforth was there during the "sign- ups" for D.A....He also showed up when dung was selling black artifacts.(I'm guessing Aberforth has the locket) We also know that Aberforth got into trouble performing illegal goat charms....(did he receive a sentence in Azkaban, and if so, did this rob him of magical prowess for a while?--hence showing magic late in life--hence the dirty things in his pub). One other aspect that is amusing to consider is that if DD discovered the 12 uses of dragons blood.; perhaps his brother(who was arrested for performing illegal charms upon goats) may have had a more pertinent discovery regarding uses of goats blood and goats in general...(i.e. the 12 great goat charms...SEVEN uses of goats blood etc..) Perhaps Harry saving Ron with a Beazor and snape mentioning it in his text...may mean more than we think! I think one of the major clues in HBP may have been the location DD chose for harry to Disapparate/Reapparate from. I also believe that it may be kismet that perhaps in book seven; rather than begin at the Dursley's and leave to HOGwarts....it may have a great deal more meaning, i.e. leave from the Dursley's and go to the Hog's Head... DD, (Who wonders how many folk actually know about DD's family? I think it may only be Snape...could this mean something?) From amiabledorsai at yahoo.com Sat Apr 22 12:23:32 2006 From: amiabledorsai at yahoo.com (amiabledorsai) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 12:23:32 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151281 > Betsy Hp: > > >>Lupinlore: > > > > It has been suggested that she may have been trying to echo > > certain cultural tropes having to do with British stereotypes, but > > if that is the case those echoes certainly fell on deaf ears as > > far as many of us are concerned -- and I do think that is an > > example of poor writing, falling in the category of being too > > clever for your own good. > > > > Betsy Hp: > Well, if you're not familiar with British culture, then yeah, I > guess it can seem a bit foreign. But a British writer writing her > British characters as acting in a British manner doesn't strike me > as being "too clever for [her] own good". It strikes me as JKR > writing what she knows. Which is what writers are supposed to do. Amiable Dorsai: Well said! Betsy Hp: > But this does raise a question for me, especially for those who > disliked the scene: Did Dumbledore seem out of character here? Amiable Dorsai: I liked the scene quite a bit, I thought it showed us a new side of Dumbledore--one I found quite believable. Up until this moment, we've seen a Dumbledore who was on top of his game--even when confronted by Fudge and Umbridge in his ofice, he was in command of himself and the situation. In the scene with Harry at the end of OotP, I think we're seeing something else entirely. we're seeing a man whose good intentions have just blown up in his face, a man who is feeling every one of his 150 years. The tragedy of Dumbledore, as I see it, was that he couldn't bring himself to be enough of a bastard. At the end of the first Voldemort War, he was forced to make a horrible decision--he had to put a baby into a home where he knew that baby wouldn't be loved, in order to save that baby's life. It was the right decision, or a right decision, anyway. It did keep Harry alive, if not happy. It did preserve the Prophecy Child for his inevitable rematch with Voldemort. The logical next thing to do would be to tell Harry his destiny as soon as he hit Hogwarts, to immediately start training him for his destiny. That would be the logical thing. But then, I think, Dumbledore found that he couldn't do it, couldn't bring himself to spoil Harry's joy at discovering magic, couldn't resist allowing Harry a just little bit of a happy childhood, then just a little bit more, and a little bit more, until suddenly it was too late--he couldn't even look Harry in the eye without awakening the Voldemort connection, much less sit him down and tell him what he needed to know. Similarly, once Harry found Sirius, Dumbledore tried to keep him safe for Harry's sake, rather than do the logical thing, the thing Sirius wanted to him to do: send him out to battle Voldemort and his Death Eaters. And then, that night at the Department of Mysteries, all Dumbledore's sins of compassion came home to roost. I think when he talked to Harry that night, he was exhausted, emotionally, physically, and morally, and was as sick of keeping secrets as Harry was of being kept in the dark. Perhaps, as a result, he said a little more about Sirius than he should have. Amiable Dorsai From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Sat Apr 22 13:09:22 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 13:09:22 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151282 Amiable Dorsai: *(snip)* > The tragedy of Dumbledore, as I see it, was that he couldn't bring > himself to be enough of a bastard. Ceridwen: I love this line! I think you're right. And maybe that's what is bothering me. If you are right, then this is one of those points where JKR has set up the stereotypical only to knock it down, and it puts me off-balance. But, this tragedy is most certainly Dumbledore not being able to be enough of a bastard, which works well with the way I perceived him through books 1-4. Amiable Dorsai: *(snipping again)* > The logical next thing to do > would be to tell Harry his destiny as soon as he hit Hogwarts, to > immediately start training him for his destiny. > > That would be the logical thing. > > But then, I think, Dumbledore found that he couldn't do it, couldn't > bring himself to spoil Harry's joy at discovering magic, couldn't > resist allowing Harry a just little bit of a happy childhood, then > just a little bit more, and a little bit more, until suddenly it was > too late--he couldn't even look Harry in the eye without awakening the > Voldemort connection, much less sit him down and tell him what he > needed to know. Ceridwen: Yes, I think that would have been the logical thing to do. It would certainly have been fair to Harry to let him know what was heading his way! But as I read it, Harry was eleven, and completely unfamiliar with his new world. I assumed that Dumbledore was allowing him time to assimilate himself. But now that you brought it up, he did indulge Harry some, giving back a small portion of what he had missed by being raised with the Dursleys. In your perspective, then, Dumbledore talking to Harry at the Mirror of Erised was a brief attempt to get things back on track, without spoiling the brief joys of childhood. And, yes, things do creep up on all of us when we put things off. I'm very good at that, putting things off until the last possible minute. Occasionally this means that I am overstressed, and slightly more rare, I miss deadlines and find myself doing a fancy tap-dance to straighten things out. Not as often now, I'm working on the procrastination. But, I can see how Dumbledore might have allowed his indulgence to wrongly dictate a false timeline of security. Amiable Dorsai: > And then, that night at the Department of Mysteries, all Dumbledore's > sins of compassion came home to roost. > > I think when he talked to Harry that night, he was exhausted, > emotionally, physically, and morally, and was as sick of keeping > secrets as Harry was of being kept in the dark. Perhaps, as a result, > he said a little more about Sirius than he should have. Ceridwen: Yes, this is likely if your reaction to the scene and all that went before, is correct. I can certainly see it this way. I'll have to read things over with this in mind to see if it plays out for me in the actual story. But for now, it sounds logical. It's just a shame that it had to play that way, if it did. And it brings Dumbledore back into a more coherent character without resorting to Puppetmaster! DD, which is, I think, a bit over the top. Ceridwen. From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Sat Apr 22 13:32:19 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 09:32:19 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re:Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <20060422014841.1039.qmail@web61324.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060422133219.83367.qmail@web37001.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151283 Sandy: But, since GoF, I have formed a totally negative position towards Ron where Hermione is concerned. It has nothing, however, to do with the above mentioned things. It has to do with the fact that he shows no care, concern or respect for Hermione at all. I consider his treatment of her to be abusive and chauvanistic. Catherine now: Firstly, I don't think JKR would write a potentially abusive relationship between any characters, let alone Ron and Hermione. But mostly, we're dealing with teenagers here. And seriously, not all teenagers can see past the ends of their noses to how their behaviors may affect someone around them. Ron is notorious for "having the emotional range of a teaspoon" if I remember the quote correctly. He really doesn't understand girls at all, nor does Harry. It's part of growing up. What man can really say that he understands women??? I have enough trouble trying to understand myself half the time, let alone worrying about if my husband understands me! I think it's all pretty innocent between the two of them. They are both trying to deny the feelings they've had for each other, pretty much from the start. Both worried that the other one doesn't feel the same way, so they bicker. They get jealous and angry at each other, and then finally, when the proverbial manure really hits the fan, they are there for each other, and you know what...that's what counts. Catherine (Who once had a boyfriend ask her if she would like him to tell her "everything I hate about you". Teenagers can be pretty stupid when it comes to love and feelings! But he was not, and never became an abusive person or have an abusive personality, he was just an idiot at that time, and since grew out of it...) --------------------------------- Enrich your life at Yahoo! Canada Finance [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Sat Apr 22 04:49:25 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 00:49:25 -0400 Subject: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151284 >Najwa again: >I rather love the idea of Uncle Vernon becoming a wizard, not only >would it be funny just to find out that he was one, but it would also >be entertaining to see him going to Hogwarts as an adult. My guess is >he'd be placed in Slytherin. Rachel here: I don't believe that Adults /can/ attend Hogwarts. It would be akin to an adult attending a middle school. I'm sure that, entertaining the idea that Vernon discovers he can do magic, they would have ways for him to learn without attending school. IMO, if Vernon is indeed the winning candidate, I think it will just be one sudden spurt of magic and not like a suddenly-open door. ~ Rachel From rdoliver30 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 22 04:48:31 2006 From: rdoliver30 at yahoo.com (lupinlore) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 04:48:31 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151285 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" wrote: > > Jen argued yesterday that Dumbledore in this scene is shown as at > the end of his rope and that he is tired and upset and shocked of > almost loosing Harry and accordingly he may not necessarily say the > best things to Harry. ( Right, Jen? I am not misinterpreting you?) > > I actually have no problem with such interpretation whatsover, > except I don't see hesitant Dumbledore, upset Dumbledore in this > scene, even though he tries to be upset. Yes, I think this is the nub of the issue. I do think that JKR was using DD very obviously as a mouthpiece here. But more than that, she was trying to sell a certain view of DD. That is, I think she was trying to sell the "epitome of goodness" view. And I think it is that selling point that, for whatever reason, has fallen on deaf ears with many of us. He simply comes off as too cold and harsh to support such an interpretation. > I am afraid I don't make much sense, but yes, I did not see much of > human Dumbledore in this scene. I saw a lot more of him in HBP > though. One line " I am not worried, I am with you" worked wonders > on me to show Dumbledore humanity and lots better than his OOP > speech. > I don't quite agree here. I think that a human DD does indeed come across here -- but he isn't the human JKR is trying to sell throughout the series. Rather, he's a very cold and unsympathetic man, possibly manipulative, extraordinarily off-putting, and certainly VERY unlikeable. And in that sense, JKR's message about an "epitome of goodness," or even a kind and caring man, simply doesn't come through for some of us -- at least not in this scene. I do agree that a different DD comes across in HBP, along with a different Harry (and it is that transition that, IMO, is so very unbelievable and poorly done, but that is a somewhat different issue). Lupinlore From belviso at attglobal.net Sat Apr 22 15:04:46 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 11:04:46 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore on the Dursleys/Prefect Ron References: Message-ID: <015501c6661e$1a036540$f66c400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 151286 BetsyHP: > But this does raise a question for me, especially for those who > disliked the scene: Did Dumbledore seem out of character here? Magpie: Not to me. He seemed perfectly in character and very human, but this is the bad aspect of Dumbledore's character coming through in technicolor. Joe Goodwin: To me I often wonder why no one asks if Hermione is good enough for Ron? Yeah she's smart, she's also snotty, full of her self, a wet blanket, bossy and doesn't seem to get along well with her other dormmates. Yeah Parvati and Lavender aren't rocket scientists but they are fairly well adjusted and socially adept. If Hermione doesn't have female friends that we know of it probably isn't because all the Gryffindor girls are flawed but because she is. Joe Goodwin: Allow me to join in on thinking Ron is a good guy--and actually, I do look at the relationship as worrying more about Ron than Hermione. Not because she's not good enough because she's worthy as a human being and Ron doesn't have to pick somebody I think is best for him, but yeah, I think Hermione always makes it clear she thinks he's inadequate very often and I don't much like that being the story for the rest of his life. There are moments where we see why Hermione likes him--well, one moment stands out, which is where she looks at him when he throws Percy's letter into the fire. That's why she loves Ron. But she dismisses a lot about him where she shouldn't as well. He's got a lot more gifts than Hermione seems to recognize and ITA that Hermione's bad relationship with Parvati and Lavender is more down to Hermione's flaws and not theirs. I'm also surprised at the idea Ron's considered potentially abuse by so many (not here but I've seen it a lot before). To me he's the most realistic teenaged boy when it comes to other women. I love it in HBP when he reveals that he pretty much checks out every female they know (Tonks is alright but Fleur's hotter...). He's not in control of his raging hormones. He's least sensitive when it comes to women. His family is associated with traditional gender roles top to bottom. Sometimes he makes bad mistakes that Hermione's right to call him on. But abusive? As others have said, he's less likely to resort to physical violence by this point than Harry or Hermione. He always actually seems to me to show an instinctive compassion that the others sometimes don't--that is, he tends to be the one to think people should be let alone and not controlled or manipulated or forced into doing what he wants. He's used to compromise and not getting his way. In terms of being faithful to a wife I see no more problem with Ron than anyone else. He's not Hermione's boyfriend in HBP--he's also just found out that she snogged Krum (not that that was a bad thing for her to do imo), whom she's still writing to as of OotP. Is he still being strung along? (Krum seems completely smitten with Hermione, yet she's interested in Ron the whole time, and goes to a party and kisses Cormac to make Ron jealous.) I don't think Ron is half so calculating. His problem is more being passive, hiding from Lavender when he should break up with her. That's treating her badly. But I admit I was kind of rooting for Ron and Lavender as a couple. He could use an ordinary girl who thinks he's great. It's hard going out with someone who can't hide she thinks you're inadequate in many ways.And Hermione's been very angry at Ron throughout the books for things that hurt her, but her being hurt doesn't necessarily mean he's intentionally hurting her. Just as Ron's anger or other feelings at what Hermione does doesn't mean she's intentionally hurting him. -m From tonks_op at yahoo.com Sat Apr 22 16:13:14 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 16:13:14 -0000 Subject: What if the GH House Was the Intended Horcrux? In-Reply-To: <01b201c665b0$841620d0$6501a8c0@MITRE.ORG> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151287 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "rebecca" wrote: > In the first book, Hagrid makes a statement to Dumbledore that I have wondered about: > > "No, sir -- house was almost destroyed, (Snip)> Could the GH house itself have been Godric Gryffindor's actual home at one time? Couldn't the house have been the intended Horcrux and subsequently failed to keep that fragment of LV's soul inside? Wouldn't it be like Lord Voldemort to covet it if he knew it were Godric Gryffindor's ancestral home? And wouldn't it be like JKR to put a major Horcrux in plain sight? > (Snip)> Likewise, look at LV's placing of the Slytherin ring *inside* the Gaunt home; Tonks: Hum.. I like the idea of the house being the house of GG. Maybe it has been in DD's family. Maybe it was the site of the Order's headquarters back then. It would make sense that the Order would meet at Albus's place. Maybe the Potter's were in hiding there just as Sirius was at his own home later. This would explain a lot of the unexplainable questions folks here have had. "How did DD know so soon?", for example. Course it causes more problems too. Why would the Order's headquarters be in the obvious place. When whould the headquarters have been changed if Sirius were arrested just after the house was distroyed. But it does make one wonder, where is the old family home of all of the founders? Tonks_op From sherriola at earthlink.net Sat Apr 22 16:30:24 2006 From: sherriola at earthlink.net (Sherry Gomes) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 09:30:24 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Magical Late Bloomer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151288 Nancy: Hello all, I am new to your board but an avid fan.. (Hi Pippin) That quote seems to give the most evidence that it will be Dudley, along with his reaction to the dementors - actually feeling it which Mrs Figg did not. Nancy Sherry now: Welcome Nancy! JKR has said that there is nothing to Dudley. I believe her words were, what you see is what you get, or something like that. Or, there's nothing more to Dudley than what you see. Anyone know where the exact quote is? Anyway, I'm thinking it's not going to be dudders. Thank goodness. sherry From kchuplis at alltel.net Sat Apr 22 16:30:36 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 11:30:36 -0500 Subject: The Map: Has this been asked Message-ID: <3372AD1A-6992-49A9-96C1-ADCB9468828D@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151289 When and how did Filch acquire the Mauraders Map? Just occurred to me this a.m. when reading the passage where Fred and George give it to Harry. Is it tied in with the prank do you suppose? Probably has no bearing on anything but thought I would ask. kchuplis From coriolan at worldnet.att.net Sat Apr 22 17:10:05 2006 From: coriolan at worldnet.att.net (Caius Marcius) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 17:10:05 -0000 Subject: The Map: Has this been asked In-Reply-To: <3372AD1A-6992-49A9-96C1-ADCB9468828D@alltel.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151290 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Karen wrote: > > When and how did Filch acquire the Mauraders Map? Just occurred to me > this a.m. when reading the passage where Fred and George give it to > Harry. Is it tied in with the prank do you suppose? Probably has no > bearing on anything but thought I would ask. > All we know is that Filch acquired it at some point - we are not told the specifics. See the Lexicon for more details. http://www.hp-lexicon.org/magic/devices/devices-m.html#Marauders_Map - CMC From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 22 15:54:34 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 08:54:34 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060422155434.49731.qmail@web61325.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151291 Amiable Dorsai: It was the right decision, or a right decision, anyway. It did keep Harry alive, if not happy. It did preserve the Prophecy Child for his inevitable rematch with Voldemort. The logical next thing to do would be to tell Harry his destiny as soon as he hit Hogwarts, to immediately start training him for his destiny. That would be the logical thing. Joe: Sorry but I think it would have been an unmitigated disaster to tell a eleven year old boy who only just found out about the magical world that he had to save it by killing one of the most powerful wizards on the planet. Either Harry would have thought Dumbledore utterly mad and never had any confidence in him or if he had believed it he would have been crushed under the pressure. As anyone who knows anything about training soldiers will tell you, you first give them the basics, good food, exercise, and training with their weapons. The first years at Hogwarts did exactly that. Then you give them advanced training to make them better soldiers. I' an certain any other ex-military reading this will back me up here. Dumbledore did the only thing he could do compassion or not. Anything else would have been sheer stupidity and Dumbledore wasn't stupid Amiable Dorsai: But then, I think, Dumbledore found that he couldn't do it, couldn't bring himself to spoil Harry's joy at discovering magic, couldn't resist allowing Harry a just little bit of a happy childhood, then just a little bit more, and a little bit more, until suddenly it was too late--he couldn't even look Harry in the eye without awakening the Voldemort connection, much less sit him down and tell him what he needed to know. Joe: He had to give Harry some happiness because otherwise Harry had no reason to fight for the wizarding world. If you have nothing then you have nothing to lose. Amiable Dorsai: Similarly, once Harry found Sirius, Dumbledore tried to keep him safe for Harry's sake, rather than do the logical thing, the thing Sirius wanted to him to do: send him out to battle Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Joe: Sirius wanted Harry to know more certainly but I am unsure that he thought Harry was read to go to war. I'm also not so certain how wise any councel from someone driven half mad by prison would be. From spirittalks at gmail.com Sat Apr 22 17:32:20 2006 From: spirittalks at gmail.com (Kim) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 13:32:20 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore the parselmouth? References: Message-ID: <00ba01c66632$b6626ee0$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> No: HPFGUIDX 151292 Finwitch: It hardly matters if Dumbledore could (There's no record if he could) but I don't think so. Dumbledore always has been observant, however. You know, the way he seemed to just know things... (Read some Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to know how power of observance plays a part...) Dumbledore can certainly observe that whisper, even if the person whose memory it is merely heard it, and deduce that it was parseltongue from other things such as the clearly stated status of being descendants of Salazar Slytherin. Kim (Me): This post makes me think about the basilisk slinking through the pipes of the castle. I've always wondered why the other students and teachers couldn't even hear the snake hiss, though Harry wasn't always alone when he heard it. While Harry could hear it plainly enough to understand the words he was saying. Now I also wonder why a very observant Dumbledore didn't hear the snake hiss and understand the language, as well. He's all through the castle all the time. Or maybe it's just that the trio, and especially Harry, are very "lucky" and always in the right place at the right time. Or it's just an oversight by the author who's trying to get a gazillion elements of a long and wonderful story all packed into 7 books and sometimes has to just ask us to overlook some inconsistencies. Kim From spirittalks at gmail.com Sat Apr 22 19:48:21 2006 From: spirittalks at gmail.com (Kim) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 15:48:21 -0400 Subject: Timing Question References: <01b201c665b0$841620d0$6501a8c0@MITRE.ORG> Message-ID: <01ab01c66645$b97c5e70$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> No: HPFGUIDX 151293 Perhaps this was dealt with before I joined the group or I've missed it since but I wonder if anyone can help me with a timing question that's been bothering me. When Voldemort attacked Harry's family in Godrick's Hollow the house was destroyed and Harry had to be removed before muggles started storming the place, which I'm assuming would have happened fairly quickly. Sirius was obviously there if not during, then shortly after, as he offered his motorcycle to Hagrid to spirit Harry away. Surely Harry wasn't left alone in the ruins of his home for most of the day while the wizarding world celebrated the destruction of Voldemort? Hagrid and Sirius must have been there soon after the explosion and Harry must have been quickly removed. Even before Dursley heads off to work in the morning he notices that things are different on this day and it continues throughout the day. When Profs. Dumbledore and McGonnagal are talking, they discuss parties going on all day and McGonnagal says she's been watching the Dursley home all day. It's definetely night when they receive Harry from Hagrid as Dumbledore has to use the Put Outter to darken the street. So from what I can tell, the incident at Godrick's Hollow happened overnight or in the early AM. The placement of Harry at the Dursley's happened after dark that night. So I finally get to my question: Why did it take all day for Hagrid to get Harry to Dumbledore? Surely there were better ways if it was an all day motorcycle ride. And certainly Harry didn't fall asleep on the way and sleep the entire day without waking, trying to walk and talk, or cry for food. So where have I messed up in my working out the timing of this day? Thanks! Kim From spirittalks at gmail.com Sat Apr 22 18:58:12 2006 From: spirittalks at gmail.com (Kim) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 14:58:12 -0400 Subject: Magical Late Bloomer References: Message-ID: <00f601c6663e$b54807c0$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> No: HPFGUIDX 151294 If Vernon Dursley is the late bloomer, it opens up several possibilities. Dursley has never been kind to Harry. In fact, he's often been cruel. Wouldn't it be right in character for him to use magic against Harry when/if magical people appear in his world and he blames Harry for being the reason they come? He's often seen in a state so angry that he reacts strongly to situations. Isn't that how Harry first used magic? To possibly (though not probably) strengthen the argument that it could be Vernon who blooms late in life. And perhaps meaning nothing at all; in SS we see this: "Uncle Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like "Mimblewimble." page 50, Am PB edition, when Hagrid had just burst into the shack in which Vernon was attempting to hide the family from Harry's letters. The Lexicon says that " 'mimble' is used sometimes to indicate an indecisive sound someone might make they don't know what to say or their courage has failed them." http://www.hp-lexicon.org/about/books/op/rg-op10.html That being said, and I'm aware that this group is not for discussion of the games but I think this is relevant to the discussion about the late bloomer... in one of the games there is a spell called "Mimblewimble". I can't recall which game, offhand, but it's one of the first. So I have to wonder how much input JKR has into the games and if she meant this to be a clue or if it's just a coincidence. Kim From dkrasnansky at hotmail.com Sat Apr 22 20:07:16 2006 From: dkrasnansky at hotmail.com (david_krasnansky) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 20:07:16 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore can be alive, if you squint just right (long) Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151295 Peter Petigrew (Wormtail) is dead and Dumbledore is not. DD is PP and PP is DD. Basically Dumbledore has taken control of PP and PP has the guise of Dumbledore using the polyjuice potion. Dumbledore also masquerades as PP using polyjuice potion. One of the 10 uses of dragon's blood is to fortify a potion, to increase it's affect, to lengthen it's duration. Dragon's blood makes Polyjuice Potion last much longer, perhaps until a counter potion is taken. HBP Chapter 3 (Polyjuice does not work correctly on PP's magically created silver hand.) As he placed his wand in his pocket, Harry saw that his hand was blackened and shriveled; it looked as though his flesh had been burned away." HBP Chapter 4 (Dumbledore is the spider. PP (Wormtail) is polyjuiced to look like Dumbledore.) Harry nodded, his eyes fixed resolutely on the spider now climbing Dumbledore's hat. ... "Yes," said Harry again, "And now everyone knows that I'm the one" "No, they do not," interrupted Dumbledore. "There are only two people in the whole world who know the full contents of the prophecy made about you and Lord Voldemort, and they are both standing in this smelly, spidery broom shed." HBP Chapter 20 (A bottle contains Dumbledore's memory as he could not take it from PP polyjuiced as himself.) "However, I have two last memories that I would like to share with you." Dumbledore indicated the two little crystal bottles gleaming beside the Pnsieve. ... Harry got to his feet once more as Dumbledore emptied the last memory into the Pensieve. "Whose memory is it?" he asked. "Mine," said Dumbledore. HBP Chapter 26 (DD requires HP to give his word as under physical duress DD's control over PP slips. As the pain increases DD control over PP wanes and PP pleads for relief. Later in delerium PP relives a similar painful event involving Voldemort.) "Once and for all, Harry, do I have your word that you will do all in your power to make me keep drinking?" ... "I - all right, but -" "I don't want... Don't make me..." "...don't like...want to stop..." "No..." "I don't want to...I don't want to...Let me go..." "Make it stop. Make it stop" "No, no, no, no, I can't, I can't, don't make me. I don't want to..." "It's all my fault, all my fault," he sobbed. "Please make it stop, I know I did wrong, oh please make it stop and I'll never, never again..." "Don't hurt them, don't hurt them, please, please, it's my fault, hurt me instead..." "Please, please,please, no...not that, not that, I'll do anything..." "No more, please, no more..." "I want to die! I want to die! Make it stop, make it stop, I want to die." "KILL ME!" The cave was practice for HP. DD wants HP to look for the Horcruxs. DD knows that LV will "see" what HP is doing and as the polyjuced PP he can learn from LV their locations. From bboyminn at yahoo.com Sat Apr 22 21:46:47 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 21:46:47 -0000 Subject: The Dementor Solution Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151296 No the Dementor Solution is not a really nasty dishwashing liquid, it's a concept I'm bringing in from a discussion in another group. Certainly the basic concept of Dementor's kissing Voldemort is not new, but I wonder if it has been examined from this particular perspective before. Here is what I said in the other group - Well, the real question is what happens to the soul once the Dementor has /kissed/ it out of a body. Is it consumed, digested, and thereby destroyed? The Dementor only getting short term nourishment from it? Or, is the soul imprisoned in the Dementor so that the Dementor can feed off of the souls emotions forever? That is the one true question that needs to be answered. If the soul is destroyed, then disregarding Voldemort for the moment, that is very bad. In a sense, it means no heaven or hell, the spiritual essense of that person vanishes and ceases to exist. Instead of eternal spiritual life, we have the unheard of spiritual death. That's quite a complicated situation with many ethical and relgious dilemmas. On the otherhand, again discounting Voldemort for a moment, if the soul lives on in a kind of Dementor Purgatory, trapped inside the Dementor while the Dementor feeds on the emotions of the soul. That works better, because Voldemorts eternal soul would be trapped inside the Dementor. It wouldn't matter whether Harry found and destroyed all the Horcruxes, because their existance only keeps Voldemort's soul earth-bound, and that is exactly what being kissed by the Dementor would do. That is one of the dark and dreadfull things about the Dementor. It's not that they leave the body soulless, but that they leave a soul with no resolution, with no final rest, no eternal peace; a soul forever cut off from heaven. This would be away for Harry to destroy Voldemort without having to become a killer himself. Further, in a dark and sad way, Voldemort gets his wish, he will now live earth-bound forever, but sadly he will do so not with freewill and free volition, but eternally trapped in a Dementor. I'm sure that not what he had in mind. So, all Harry has to do is convince a Dementor to kiss Voldemort, shouldn't be that difficult (he said with a great deal of sarcasm). On the other hand, if the Dementor-Kissed Soul is consumed and thereby destroyed, how does that effect Voldemort if Horcruxes still exist? Could the Dementor still digest that soul fragment contain in Voldemort's body, or would the Horcrux soul pieces prevent that? And if so, how would they prevent it? I can't see how they would prevent it, in a sense, that would be like saying that I can't digest the hamburger I just ate because I didn't eat the whole cow. If Dementors can consume souls then they can certainly consume parts of souls. Souls are generally considered eternal, they do live forever. What Voldemort has done is prevented his soul from moving on. He has prevented it from leaving the mortal realm even after it has lost its mortal body. But the preferred location of Voldemort's, previously assumed immortal soul, is irrelavant if the Dementor is able to consume it. I'm not sure what this adds up to, or which characters it effects. I guess more than a Harry/Voldemort question, it is really a Dementor's Kiss question. Further, if this were the solution to the story, it continues the theme that Evil is never truly destroyed. Voldemort has been vanquished and defeated, but he is not really gone, assuming his soul it trapped in the Dementor, but it is functionally gone, and there is no logical means which would allow for any assistance or chance of escape. For what it's worth. Steve/bboyminn From bboyminn at yahoo.com Sat Apr 22 22:32:06 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 22:32:06 -0000 Subject: Timing Question In-Reply-To: <01ab01c66645$b97c5e70$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151297 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Kim" wrote: > > Perhaps this was dealt with before I joined the group or I've > missed it since but I wonder if anyone can help me with a timing > question that's been bothering me. > > When Voldemort attacked Harry's family in Godrick's Hollow ... > Surely Harry wasn't left alone in the ruins of his home for most > of the day while the wizarding world celebrated the destruction > of Voldemort? Hagrid and Sirius must have been there soon after > the explosion and Harry must have been quickly removed. > > ... and McGonnagal says she's been watching the Dursley home > all day. > > ... > > So from what I can tell, the incident at Godrick's Hollow > happened overnight or in the early AM. The placement of Harry > at the Dursley's happened after dark that night. > > So I finally get to my question: Why did it take all day for > Hagrid to get Harry to Dumbledore? ... So where have I messed up > in my working out the timing of this day? > > Thanks! > Kim bboyminn: This is referred to as the infamous 'Missing 24 Hours'. Indeed your assessment is correct, near midnight on the evening of Oct 31, the Potters were attacked. Near midnight on the evening of Nov 1, Harry was delivered to the Dursley. Sometime on the day of Nov 1 (or possibly Nov 2) Sirius and Peter had their confrontation, and Sirius was arrested. So, the first implication is that Harry falling asleep over Bristol on his way to Privet Drive is not necessarily an indication of the location of Godric's Hollow. It is an indication of the location Hargid was staying at before coming to Privet Drive. It could be Southern Wales, Southern Ireland, Cornwall, Devon, or Somerset. Flying from all those places using landmarks as guides would involve flying near (not over, but near) Bristol. And indeed where Hagrid was is the BIG QUESTION. Somewhere in the early hours of the morning of Nov 1, Hargid spoke to McGonagall. Where could McGonagall and Hagrid have run into each other? Hogwarts is 500 miles way, presumably. So, I don't see Hargid going to Hogwarts. I have always speculated on the thinnest of evidence, that Harry and Hagrid stayed with the Longbottoms, the /other/ Prophecy family, while waiting for Dumbledore to make the proper arrangements and put in place the proper protective enchantments. I further speculate that that prompted the later attack on the Longbottoms. Again, base on HUGE speculation and the scantest of evidence. This is one of the great mysteries of the series, but we really don't know whether it is significant or not. JKR could have simply written in this way assuming the basic in-book explanation would be adequate. Now however, JKR has detail obssessed fan who don't miss anything. It's possible that only now after the fact, she will make up an explantion for where Hagrid was. On the other hand, she could be keeping this information secret from us because it has some substantial relevance to the plot. Only another year and another book, and it's possible, though not guaranteed, we will know the answers. Just passing it along. Steve/bboyminn From c.john at imperial.ac.uk Sat Apr 22 23:08:41 2006 From: c.john at imperial.ac.uk (esmith222002) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 23:08:41 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151298 > Alla: > > Plan. I think the plan Dumbledore had is to keep Harry safe no > matter what and to help him prepare for the battles to come. I am > not sure Dumbledore had more detailed plans than that. > > And Dumbledore keeping Sirius out of action deliberately, degrading > him in Harry's eyes deliberately, I disagree completely. > Well, I guess I'm playing Devil's advocate to some extent. I'm not sure I really believe everything I have written!! However, I am not saying that DD is intentionally trying to make Harry think less of Sirius. I am just saying that it is possible that DD does not want Harry to heroworship Sirius too much. Sirius appears to be an 'all guns blazing' kind of guy' and I think it is possible that DD is very aware that this is not a tactic that will help Harry defeat Voldemort. DD often talks of 'love' as Harry's greatest weapon, and perhaps DD is worried that Sirius might unbalance this. Remember, Sirius is the variable that DD never considered. Now that DD has to consider Sirius' impact on HArry's development, it is possible that it worries him. I'm just saying that this is a possibility. Brothergib From irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com Sat Apr 22 23:34:52 2006 From: irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com (IreneMikhlin) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 00:34:52 +0100 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re:Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <196.5361f985.317a8f3e@aol.com> References: <196.5361f985.317a8f3e@aol.com> Message-ID: <444ABD9C.8020403@btopenworld.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151299 Sandy wrote: > It has been obvious from book one that there is some kind of > chemistry between Ron and Hermione, and a better example of opposites > attracting I have never seen. Yes, it has been obvious for me too. > But, since GoF, I have formed a totally negative > position towards Ron where Hermione is concerned. It has nothing, > however, to do with the above mentioned things. It has to do with the > fact that he shows no care, concern or respect for Hermione at all. My biggest problem with this relationship is exactly that, the lack of respect. Ron does not care at all for the things that are important to Hermione, namely learning and books. He keeps making fun of it at every opportunity. He keeps disparaging her interest all the time, and keeps trying to change her. "Hermione, you would be such fun if you only changed the core of your personality". That's the vibe I get off Ron all the time. The fact that Hermione has learned after 6 years just to shrug it off does not make it any better. Betsy Hp wrote: > but attended and spoke highly of a club from which Ron had > been excluded Exactly. If they are in a relationship, Hermione will have to keep Ron happy and his self-esteem high by not doing all the things that can exclude Ron. She can't invite guests and have intellectual discussion about the latest discoveries in Transfiguration, right? That will keep Ron excluded and miserable. She can't get a high-flying job, because Ron will be very upset if she earns more than he does. This whole relationship reads to me as a lifetime of Hermione keeping her head down and her heels low, not to appear taller than Ron. Figuratively speaking. > I think it's fairly clear that the books will end with Ron and > Hermione sitting in a tree (with church steeples and baby-carriages > dancing through their heads). I think you are right. Irene From belviso at attglobal.net Sat Apr 22 23:56:42 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 19:56:42 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re:Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). References: <196.5361f985.317a8f3e@aol.com> <444ABD9C.8020403@btopenworld.com> Message-ID: <01ef01c66668$67e9b800$f66c400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 151300 > Betsy Hp wrote: >> but attended and spoke highly of a club from which Ron had >> been excluded > > Exactly. If they are in a relationship, Hermione will have to keep Ron > happy and his self-esteem high by not doing all the things that can > exclude Ron. She can't invite guests and have intellectual discussion > about the latest discoveries in Transfiguration, right? That will keep > Ron excluded and miserable. She can't get a high-flying job, because Ron > will be very upset if she earns more than he does. This whole > relationship reads to me as a lifetime of Hermione keeping her head down > and her heels low, not to appear taller than Ron. Figuratively speaking. Magpie: Not seeing that at all. Hermione always makes it clear she's the height she is. I can't think of any time Ron has needed her to not belong to something because he's not in it. He doesn't demand she quit the Slug Club. He's a bit humilited about being left out and gets sulky about it, but there's never any question of Hermione not being in it because Ron isn't. I can't think of any time Hermione has dumbed herself down for Ron. On the contrary, sometimes she's a little slow to cover the opposite feeling. She's known to tell Ron to shut up or criticize his thinking when she disagrees with it. She gets higher marks than he does and he knows it. She corrects his homework without his getting angry. Has this sort of thing ever really happened between them in the books? It seems almost more like a riff on the abstract idea that they represent--easy-going normal guy, low-brow tastes, big family with a traditional mother vs. brainy over-acheiving girl. -m From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 00:16:20 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 00:16:20 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore can be alive, if you squint just right (long) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151301 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "david_krasnansky" wrote:> DD is PP and PP is DD. Basically Dumbledore has taken control of PP > and PP has the guise of Dumbledore using the polyjuice potion. > Dumbledore also masquerades as PP using polyjuice potion. zgirnius: How has he taken control? Do you believe he has Peter under the Imperius curse? From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 00:17:22 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 00:17:22 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: <01ef01c66668$67e9b800$f66c400c@Spot> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151302 Irene: This whole > > relationship reads to me as a lifetime of Hermione keeping her head down > > and her heels low, not to appear taller than Ron. Figuratively speaking. > > Magpie: > Not seeing that at all. Hermione always makes it clear she's the height she > is. I can't think of any time Ron has needed her to not belong to something > because he's not in it. He doesn't demand she quit the Slug Club. He's a > bit humilited about being left out and gets sulky about it, but there's > never any question of Hermione not being in it because Ron isn't. I can't > think of any time Hermione has dumbed herself down for Ron. On the > contrary, sometimes she's a little slow to cover the opposite feeling. > She's known to tell Ron to shut up or criticize his thinking when she > disagrees with it. Alla: Right, I am completely with you Magpie, I also don't see anywhere in canon Hermione dumping herself down to Ron and see plenty of Hermione criticising him left and right, just as Ron criticises her both fairly and unfairly. But I belong to those who in general do not see that Ron has to make himself worthy of Hermione and think that Hermione should be very proud to be with the boy like Ron. You know, smart, loyal, kind, ready to die for his friends, etc. I think just as Ron is learning plenty from Hermione and Harry, Hermione is also learning plenty from Ron and Harry and the gist of such learning is what she says in PS/SS about books not always being the most important thing in the world. Ron may not be just as interested in learning right now, although he IMO improved significantly and I also think that him being good in strategy as in PS/SS was there for a reason. Good chess players ARE intelligent by definition, so even if JKR did not develop it much, I would not surprised if in the epilogue Ron got high paying auror job or something like that. Alla, for whom books are very important things in the world :) From quick_silver71 at yahoo.ca Sun Apr 23 02:02:53 2006 From: quick_silver71 at yahoo.ca (quick_silver71) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 02:02:53 -0000 Subject: The Dementor Solution In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151303 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" wrote: > That is one of the dark and dreadfull things about the Dementor. It's > not that they leave the body soulless, but that they leave a soul with > no resolution, with no final rest, no eternal peace; a soul forever > cut off from heaven. And raises troubling questions about the mortality of allowing the Kisses...I'd rather kill a person for their crimes them hold myself worthy of destroying their immortal souls. > So, all Harry has to do is convince a Dementor to kiss Voldemort, > shouldn't be that difficult (he said with a great deal of sarcasm). > > On the other hand, if the Dementor-Kissed Soul is consumed and thereby > destroyed, how does that effect Voldemort if Horcruxes still exist? > Could the Dementor still digest that soul fragment contain in > Voldemort's body, or would the Horcrux soul pieces prevent that? And > if so, how would they prevent it? I can't see how they would prevent > it, in a sense, that would be like saying that I can't digest the > hamburger I just ate because I didn't eat the whole cow. If Dementors > can consume souls then they can certainly consume parts of souls. I'm thinking that Horcruxs would prevent a Dementor from devouring a soul...Horcruxs seem to prevent the soul from passing over in death and since the Dementor's kiss seems almost like an "alternate" death (since something happens to the soul in both processes) it seems to me the bounds that protect the Horcruxed person from dying would also stop a Dementor. This would also explain why the Dementors are the natural allies of Voldemort and the fact that didn't officially join him until the second war (unless I missed some info on the first war?). Voldemort is quite literally beyond the reach of the Dementors and thus worthy to be followed (since his "rebirth" proved that he had Horcruxs). Quick_Silver From noon_at_night at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 02:33:25 2006 From: noon_at_night at yahoo.com (noon_at_night) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 02:33:25 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore can be alive, if you squint just right (long) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151304 > In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "david_krasnansky" > wrote: > DD is PP and PP is DD. Basically Dumbledore > has taken control of PP > > and PP has the guise of Dumbledore using the polyjuice potion. > > Dumbledore also masquerades as PP using polyjuice potion. > > zgirnius: > How has he taken control? Do you believe he has Peter under the > Imperius curse? > Najwa here: I think that's a nice idea, but quite a stretch. I don't think DD would put Peter Pettigrew of all people in charge of Hogwarts, even if it was by force. If he was imperiused, then DD would be using an unforgivable, and that's not something I see DD doing. If DD was alive he pulled off some fancy footwork and a great sharade. I'd love to believe he still was, but I highly doubt it. On the other hand, he's got a portrait in Professor McGonagall's new office, so we haven't heard the last of him. Sure he can't do much but talk and sleep, but he can at least be there for advice and moral guidance, much like Sirius was when he used the floo network to contact Harry. From ananke_2 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 22 21:01:35 2006 From: ananke_2 at yahoo.com (ananke_2) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 21:01:35 -0000 Subject: What if the GH House Was the Intended Horcrux? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151305 If LV failed to place part of his soul in the house, as it was destroyed, what if that piece of soul went astray? What if Harry is a horcrux? Crazy, I know, but it just came to my mind. ananke_2 From tonks_op at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 03:24:26 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 03:24:26 -0000 Subject: The Dementor Solution In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151306 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" wrote: > > On the otherhand, again discounting Voldemort for a moment, if the > soul lives on in a kind of Dementor Purgatory, trapped inside the > Dementor while the Dementor feeds on the emotions of the soul. That > works better, because Voldemorts eternal soul would be trapped inside the Dementor. It wouldn't matter whether Harry found and destroyed all the Horcruxes, because their existance only keeps Voldemort's soul earth-bound, and that is exactly what being kissed by the Dementor would do. > >(Snip) > This would be away for Harry to destroy Voldemort without having to > become a killer himself. Further, in a dark and sad way, Voldemort > gets his wish, he will now live earth-bound forever, but sadly he will do so not with freewill and free volition, but eternally trapped in a Dementor. I'm sure that not what he had in mind. > (Snipped rest of very thought provoking post) Tonks: Before we can ponder how LV will be destroyed I think that we must first determine his essence. Is he a mortal who has prolonged his earthly existence, but still has an eternal soul? Is LV the only evil? Is he evil or Evil? If he is the personification of Ultimate Evil, does he have an end? Can Evil have an end? I think we must first determine this before we can discuss the possibility of the dementor's kiss. Then we must understand the nature of a Dementor. Are they a life form? If so, do they die? I don't think it is as easy as saying that a Dementor can just suck LV's soul until we know the essence of both. It would seem to me that LV is more powerful that even a group of Dementor's and that perhaps Dementor's have their existance because of his. But I have not thought this through completely. Any ideas folks? Tonks_op From foxmoth at qnet.com Sun Apr 23 04:22:54 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 04:22:54 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151307 > Alla: > I mean, if we were to argue that while in general Dumbledore was > right that it is necessary to tell the truth to Harry ( and I agree > with it), his mood prevented him from stopping himself and NOT to > talk that way about Sirius ( like what Kreacher did was Sirius > fault, and that basically it is Sirius fault that he died - of > course that is just the impression I got), I will buy it. > > I will buy it that Dumbledore being 150 old man had no clue how to > talk to grieving teenager, that he forgot the pain of loosing the > loved ones and only just recently experienced the scare of loosing > Harry and that is why he was not quite himself, but As I said I just > don't see self-doubting Dumbledore, unsure of himself Dumbledore, it > is like - yeah, I did not tell you about Prophecy in the past, so I > was wrong, but not QUITE so wrong, but now I am right totally right, > oh and of course it is your Godfather's fault that he died. ( Not > to mention that I think that Dumbledore got it wrong - I think > Kreacher would have hated Sirius no matter what, because Kreacher > loved Sirius' parents and Sirius left them behind at sixteen. I give > Kreacher's feelings enough respect for that. I mean, I am not > denying that Sirius did not treat him well, but no, I don't think > that Kreacher betrayed him because of that. I think I agree with > Magpie on this again, if I did not misinterpret her. Pippin: Okay, now I understand where you are coming from a little better. I guess I never expected Dumbledore to try and comfort Harry. It would have been like Susan Cooper's The Grey King, where Will tries to use his supernatural Old One's wisdom to comfort the grieving Bran. All it does is set Bran's teeth on edge. Dumbledore, who understands the human heart much better than young Will, is far too wise for that. No one could have consoled Harry. Harry did not *want* to be consoled. He wanted his beloved Sirius back, and failing that, to see him avenged. Harry is not the sort who could mourn a murdered friend in peace when the killers were still at large. *That* was what made the situation at the beginning of OOP so difficult for him to bear. He didn't want hugs or tea and sympathy, he wanted to do something about Voldemort. His spirit did not really begin to mend until he got involved with the DA. Learning that Dumbledore did see him as someone who could stop Voldemort was probably the most healing thing for him. That is why, IMO, he didn't fall apart over Sirius. It's not that he didn't feel anger and grief, it's that this time he knew what to do with them. He also knew that he had to stay on top of them or they would betray him -- the occlumency lessons did that much good at least. I like what was said about Dumbledore being angry at Sirius. It could be that he assumed Harry would be angry with Sirius as well when he'd learned what had happened. He may have thought that he needed to let Harry see that this was okay, that he could acknowledge this anger without guilt and without meaning that Sirius deserved to die. It could be part of his exhaustion and slowed reaction time that he didn't see at once that Harry didn't blame Sirius at all. Granted that it was a bit disarming for Dumbledore to say that Harry wasn't nearly as angry at him as he should be, I don't think that DD was being disingenuous. I think he really did want Harry to be angry. He was not making a clumsy attempt to comfort Harry by saying all those seemingly insensitive things, he was trying to provoke Harry to put his anger out where he and Dumbledore could deal with it. This is not the Star Wars universe, where all anger leads to the Dark Side. But I think Dumbledore was very concerned that Harry find the right path for his anger. It is chilling, in retrospect, to hear an angry wizard with all the power of Lord Voldemort screaming that he doesn't want to be human. Could Harry have escaped his pain by tearing his soul as an animal might chew its leg off to escape a trap? Maybe Dumbledore had a much more pressing reason that I thought to turn Harry's anger away from Kreacher. Consider those trophy heads at GP. Dumbledore must have already been aware that Harry could turn out to be Kreacher's next master. If so, who would have had the authority to protect Kreacher if Harry had decided to kill him? No one, I guess. Probably no one but Dumbledore would even have cared. The laws of the wizarding world would not have called it murder if Dumbledore had failed, but would the damage to Harry's soul, and ultimately to his power to defeat Voldemort, have been any less for that? I doubt it. Harry might have been far closer than he knew to making choices that could have turned him into another Voldemort -- or another Snape. IMO, DD wouldn't let Harry rant about Petunia because most of his anger was not about Petunia. It would have been impossible to separate his anger about her from his anger and distress over losing Sirius, and yet, whatever she was, she wasn't the murderer of Sirius Black. Grief and anger make it easy to be unjust. We will see now if Harry is able to choose what is right over what is easy without Dumbledore to guide him. It is to make those choices that Harry has to stand alone. Pippin From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 04:50:49 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 21:50:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060423045049.48498.qmail@web61321.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151308 Alla: Right, I am completely with you Magpie, I also don't see anywhere in canon Hermione dumping herself down to Ron and see plenty of Hermione criticising him left and right, just as Ron criticises her both fairly and unfairly. But I belong to those who in general do not see that Ron has to make himself worthy of Hermione and think that Hermione should be very proud to be with the boy like Ron. You know, smart, loyal, kind, ready to die for his friends, etc. I think just as Ron is learning plenty from Hermione and Harry, Hermione is also learning plenty from Ron and Harry and the gist of such learning is what she says in PS/SS about books not always being the most important thing in the world. Ron may not be just as interested in learning right now, although he IMO improved significantly and I also think that him being good in strategy as in PS/SS was there for a reason. Good chess players ARE intelligent by definition, so even if JKR did not develop it much, I would not surprised if in the epilogue Ron got high paying auror job or something like that. Joe: I have to agree with the above but I am going to go out on a limb and say that Hermione isn't really that much smarter than Harry or Ron. She gets much better marks because she is driven to work harder to do well. That doesn't translate into smarter even if it does translate to better educated. If Harry or Ron spent as much time studying as Hermione does they would be a lot closer to her in the marks range. I also wanted to point something else out. There are planty of people who wonder what Hermione sees in Ron. Well beyond those things people have listed we also have to take into account that we mostly see Ron mostly through Harry's eyes. But what we do know is that both Lavender, who I believe is JKR's "pretty popular girl archtype" and Hermione "The smart overachiever" were both very interested in Ron. That leads me to believe that there has to be something very likable about the lad. Joe From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 05:01:18 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 05:01:18 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151309 > Pippin: > Dumbledore, who understands the human heart much better than > young Will, is far too wise for that. No one could have consoled > Harry. Harry did not *want* to be consoled. He wanted his > beloved Sirius back, and failing that, to see him avenged. Harry is > not the sort who could mourn a murdered friend in peace when > the killers were still at large. *That* was what made the situation > at the beginning of OOP so difficult for him to bear. Alla: How do we know that Harry did not want both to be consoled AND to avenge the killers? You see, I think that while we do agree on Dumbledore not being a puppet master, I think we do diverge a great deal in evaluation of Dumbledore in this speech. You seem to be saying that Dumbledore was correct and right in saying all that he said in this speech. I completely disagree with it. I may buy Dumbledore not quite in control of his facilities, who while in generally doing the right thing - namely telling the truth about the Prophecy says plenty wrong things to Harry. I can buy this Dumbledore, I am NOT buying Dumbledore who as you say "too wise" to comfort Harry. I think that Dumbledore wants to comfort Harry, but really is not sure how, but who is Dumbledore to decide that Harry does not want comfort? I mean desire for avenge and desire to be comforted could go together, no? Pippin: > I like what was said about Dumbledore being angry at Sirius. It > could be that he assumed Harry would be angry with Sirius as > well when he'd learned what had happened. He may have thought > that he needed to let Harry see that this was okay, that he could > acknowledge this anger without guilt and without meaning that > Sirius deserved to die. It could be part of his exhaustion > and slowed reaction time that he didn't see at once that Harry didn't > blame Sirius at all. Alla: Since I am not buying at all that Dumbledore was angry at Sirius ( Angry for what? For loving Harry too much? If Harry's best weapon is love, I would think Dumbledore would be happy that there is one more person here to show what love means to Harry), it is basically impossible for me to see the extrapolations of this argument that you make, but my question to you would be whether you agree that what Dumbledore said about Sirius was not needed to be said at all or at least not at that time? Because really that would take away a lion share of my problems with Dumbledore's speech. THAT and cutting Harry when he complained about Petunia not loving him. Pippin: > Granted that it was a bit disarming for Dumbledore to say that Harry > wasn't nearly as angry at him as he should be, I don't think that DD > was being disingenuous. I think he really did want Harry to be angry. > He was not making a clumsy attempt to comfort Harry by saying > all those seemingly insensitive things, he was trying to provoke > Harry to put his anger out where he and Dumbledore could deal with > it. This is not the Star Wars universe, where all anger leads to the Dark > Side. But I think Dumbledore was very concerned that Harry find the > right path for his anger. Alla: Okay, so you are saying that Dumbledore was perfectly aware of what he was doing? He was not saying the wrong things because he was tired and exhausted, he was doing deliberate thing - provoking Harry into hurting more? Then no, I have no sympathy for this Dumbledore. Sorry if I am misunderstanding you here. Pippin: > Consider those trophy heads at GP. Dumbledore must have already > been aware that Harry could turn out to be Kreacher's next master. If > so, who would have had the authority to protect Kreacher if > Harry had decided to kill him? No one, I guess. Probably no one but > Dumbledore would even have cared. The laws of the wizarding world > would not have called it murder if Dumbledore had failed, but would > the damage to Harry's soul, and ultimately to his power to defeat > Voldemort, have been any less for that? I doubt it. Alla: That is not a bad reason indeed, but timing IS still horrible, because the only thing which IMO was important at that moment was Harry, NOT Kreacher, not Dumbledore, but Harry and protecting Kreacher when Harry is in such pain really does not make me respect Dumbledore more. Pippin: > IMO, DD wouldn't let Harry rant about Petunia because most of his anger > was not about Petunia. It would have been impossible to separate > his anger about her from his anger and distress over losing Sirius, > and yet, whatever she was, she wasn't the murderer of Sirius Black. Alla: And again, why cannot Harry be angry about MANY things. I think he has PLENTY of reasons to be angry with Petunia and as far as I can see he IS distressed over her not loving him. IMO Sirius has nothing to do with that, moreover IMO Dumbledore OWED Harry to hear him out. Don't you see? I will buy Dumbledore making a horrific choice to leave Harry with Dursleys to save Harry's life, but in order for me to buy that Dumbledore is not a Puppetmaster (and I really don't think that he is, unless I am rereading this speech) I have to see that Dumbledore IS sorry that he had to make this choice, that no matter what he is sorry for Harry's sufferings and cutting him across when Harry starts talking about those sufferings really really does not help me to do so. I mean, it is like every time in this speech Dumbledore starts saying that he is sorry, he finishes the sentence with justifying himself ( not as well-fed as I liked is a great example. Duh! He was starved several times, I so wanted to say get over your high horse, Headmaster. :)). I really loved Amiable Dorsai interpretation that Dumbledore's tragedy that he was not a bastard enough and the only thing I wanted is better expression of Dumbledore being sorry. And I don't mean him beating himself into the chest and starting being hysterical. I am trying to come up with better definition of what would have worked for me, but I cannot come up with anything better than Dumbledore being more humble, more apologetic and actually just talk less and letting HARRY talk more and indeed being upset more and not doing self-justification thingy and blaming the dead man thing. Amiable Dorsai: < HUGE SNIP> > I think when he talked to Harry that night, he was exhausted, > emotionally, physically, and morally, and was as sick of keeping > secrets as Harry was of being kept in the dark. Perhaps, as a result, > he said a little more about Sirius than he should have. Alla: Absolutely. I love this interpretation. As long as we agree that Dumbledore was not quite Okay and that he said things that he should not have said along the ride, I WANT to buy it. The thing is I am not quite seeing too exhausted Dumbledore in that speech. I am going to reread that speech again tomorrow, because I do want to buy your interpretation, I am just worried that it will make me angry at Dumbledore all over again. JMO, Alla, who apologises to Pippin if she sounds too emotional or does not make much sense. This speech makes me as angry as not many other parts in the books do, even angrier than Voldemort's appearances, because it casts the character I love in not a good light. From belviso at attglobal.net Sun Apr 23 04:53:22 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 00:53:22 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) References: Message-ID: <023601c66691$d9c81f60$f66c400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 151310 > Pippin: It > could be that he assumed Harry would be angry with Sirius as > well when he'd learned what had happened. He may have thought > that he needed to let Harry see that this was okay, that he could > acknowledge this anger without guilt and without meaning that > Sirius deserved to die.... > He was not making a clumsy attempt to comfort Harry by saying > all those seemingly insensitive things, he was trying to provoke > Harry to put his anger out where he and Dumbledore could deal with > it. ...Dumbledore must have already > been aware that Harry could turn out to be Kreacher's next master. If > so, who would have had the authority to protect Kreacher if > Harry had decided to kill him? No one, I guess. Probably no one but > Dumbledore would even have cared. Magpie: I have to say, these explanations for DD's words remind me of nothing more than the explanations of how Snape picks on Neville and Harry to make them strong for their own good, and he's only really thinking of his duty and what's best for them. I don't buy it. I prefer Dumbledore just being an ass. (But then, I don't think it's a big change in HBP either--he seems like the same guy there to me too.) I think both Dumbledore, like Snape, is showing his human weakness--but real weakness. Not being a little too tired to avoid a few faux pas as he makes all the best decisions for Harry and tries to protect everyone, but something a lot less flattering. Maybe it's the author who's doing that by putting these lines in DD's mouth and not thinking they sound the way I do, but in the end DD sounds very believable to me as he is--someone out of touch with many things about human nature (perhaps a lot more like Merriman in the Dark is Rising than Will. Will lacks experience, being only a boy, but he is the one who is "too close" too humans to think like an Old One). JKR says Dumbledore doesn't have any confidantes etc., and to me the way he comes across in this scene fits perfectly with seeing himself as the smartest guy in the universe for so long. It points out, imo, not just a flaw in Dumbledore but the flaw in the classic fantasy "wise man" (especially a wise man in a corrupt world) idea. -m From drednort at alphalink.com.au Sun Apr 23 05:31:07 2006 From: drednort at alphalink.com.au (Shaun Hately) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 15:31:07 +1000 Subject: [HPforGrownups] SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: <20060423045049.48498.qmail@web61321.mail.yahoo.com> References: Message-ID: <444B9DBB.26141.5DC85FA@drednort.alphalink.com.au> No: HPFGUIDX 151311 On 22 Apr 2006 at 21:50, Joe Goodwin wrote: > Joe: > I have to agree with the above but I am going to go out on a limb > and say that Hermione isn't really that much smarter than Harry or > Ron. She gets much better marks because she is driven to work > harder to do well. That doesn't translate into smarter even if it > does translate to better educated. If Harry or Ron spent as much > time studying as Hermione does they would be a lot closer to her > in the marks range. I have to say I disagree with you here, Joe. At least about Hermione. Hermione is genuinely extremely intelligent, not just hardworking - although she certainly is that as well. I work with exceptionally and profoundly gifted children and have for the last decade. These are children with IQs of 160 or better (at least on older tests - newer tests seem to be producing different results and we're still looking into this). In addition to working with these kids, I was one myself and have had a lot of contact with them over the years. Hermione presents to me as one of these children. Exceedingly intelligent. And not just to me. She's routinely cited as an example of such a child by many experts in the field. Not all these kids are hardworking, not all these kids are incredibly academic - but some are, and Hermione does seem to fit into that mould. Now - to a great extent, this is a matter of opinion, obviously - but I do actually think we have one very strong hard piece of evidence as to Hermione's actual level of intelligence as opposed to her level of education and knowledge. It comes near the end of the first book when the three children are trying to get to the Philosopher's (or Sorceror's) Stone. The puzzle involving the bottles. This puzzle is a classic logical puzzle. Knowledge and education has very little bearing whatsoever on the ability of a person to solve this puzzle (it can have a slight amount of relevance as a persons who has seen such a puzzle before at least understands the theory behind it - but it's slight). The puzzle presented is quite a complex one. For an 11 or 12 year old child to solve that type of puzzle *in her head* is, frankly, a quite spectacular display of raw intellectual power. I would expect a gifted 12 year old to have a reasonable chance of solving it on paper - but to do it in your head is frankly beyond the ability of many exceptionally gifted children of that age. I know. I've had them do it (you have to recreate the bottles or its pretty much unsolveable, but we've done that). It's only one test item - but it's a high level one. I actually happen to think that both Harry and Ron are also quite likely in the gifted range in terms of intellect, but down in what we refer to as the moderately gifted and highly gifted ranges rather than the higher levels. This is still very bright - a moderately gifted child is intellectually capable of just about anything in later life if they choose to work hard enough - but it is quantitatively and qualitatively different. The difference between moderately gifted and exceptionally gifted is the difference between 1 in 50 kids, and 1 in 10,000 kids. Ron, in particular, comes across to me as a fairly typical highly gifted child without a particularly strong work ethic - he can pass school with fairly limited effort and that's enough for him - he doesn't feel the need to excel. Harry - probably about the same, but I find it harder to get a handle on him. I always have some problem with elite level athletes, because they can be channelling intellectual giftedness into that and making it a little less apparent to someone looking primarily for cognitive signs. But - speaking as a minor expert in giftedness, this is how they present to me - especially Hermione. And in real life, I'm actually pretty good at picking these kids up. I miss some - but I'm rarely wrong about the ones I do ID. And while I'm a minor expert, a lot of major experts I know share my assessment. One of the reasons I first read the Harry Potter books is because they absolutely exploded onto the gifted community, even before their runaway success elsewhere. People saw massive analogies to giftedness in the books, and were especially impressed at what they saw as an accurate depiction of (one type of) a very gifted girl in Hermione. Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html (ISTJ) | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 "You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia From catlady at wicca.net Sun Apr 23 06:49:00 2006 From: catlady at wicca.net (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 06:49:00 -0000 Subject: baby TMR/Dark Arts DD/Prefect Ron/Erised DD/Gryff Vernon/Fanciable Ron/Angry@ Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151312 Jen Reese wrote in : << I often wonder why JKR presented boy Riddle the way she did, as not only unloved but unlovable from the start. Even as a baby he didn't ask for or likely receive much attention because he was 'odd'. Merope abandoning him may have started the process of Tom being unloved, but it didn't end there. The fault for being unloved as a baby cannot lie with a baby[.] >> 1) It does happen in real life; I believe psychologists have names for syndromes that cause babies to act unlovable. 2) Some listie once proposed that JKR presented Tom Riddle's evilness as a given because Riddle/Voldemort is not a character in this story, merely part of the background for the characters' stories. So his personality development doesn't need to be explained anymore than the personality development of a storm that kills several characters in a non-fiction book. Tonks_op wrote in : << I also think that DD was probably, at some point in his life, tempted just as Tom Riddle was tempted, as Snape was tempted, as Draco was tempted, and as Harry was, to use the Dark Arts. 'Oh, just once', you can hear a voice saying.. 'no one will know... You will be honored above all others...' And DD turned away. >> In my opinion, by the time we met Dumbledore, he was an old man, who had had lots of time to make mistakes and learn from them to behave differently from then on. I imagine that as a school boy, he was more like James than like Luna (Luna whom Harry, at least, should recognize as 'a young Dumbledore -- he says that same kind of mad thing'), and he may have used Dark Arts before rejecting them. Sandy October's Child wrote in : << By the end of OoP we are made to understand why Harry wasn't made Prefect, but I still have to ask what was JKR's intention by making Ron one? >> I thought Rowling / Dumbledore making Harry the Prefect was too predictable and therefore didn't expect it. I had expected Rowling / Dumbledore to make Neville the Prefect, as a way of forcing him to live up to his potential. I was so glad that she / he chose Ron -- one act of kindness for poor Ron, letting him get his mother's praise and a decent broomstick so he could try out for the Quidditch team, instead of the usual pattern where Ron doesn't get as good marks as Hermione and doesn't star in sport or heroic adventures like Harry so his mum is always criticising him for not being as good as his brothers. That always made me feel so sorry for Ron. Pippin wrote in : << But what makes it obvious that we're supposed to take Harry's line? [that Dumbledore knew what was going on and let Harry have his chance [to rescue the Stone], and this is a good thing,] >> That the obstacles were so easy that three first-years could get through them. Many listies have said it seems unlikely that the greatest wizard alive and five more professors's best efforts to block Voldemort are obstacles that *children* can get through. And that DD made sure that Harry found out in advance how the Mirror of Erised works. Najwa wrote in : << I see no Gryffindor or Ravenclaw qualities in [Uncle Vernon] at all >> Oh, isn't he the same kind of Gryffindor as Cormac MacLaggen? Joe Goodwin wrote in : << There are planty of people who wonder what Hermione sees in Ron. (snip) But what we do know is that both Lavender, who I believe is JKR's "pretty popular girl archtype" and Hermione "The smart overachiever" were both very interested in Ron. >> I think Lavender went from five years of viewing Ron as a nuisance to doting on him because she spent the whole summer holiday dwelling on that glorious save he made that won the QUidditch Cup for Gryffindor. Alla wrote in : << Since I am not buying at all that Dumbledore was angry at Sirius (Angry for what? For loving Harry too much? >> *MAYBE* Dumbledore was angry at Sirius for getting himself killed (despite all DD's attempts to protect him) and thus breaking Harry's heart. IIRC flashes of anger at the dead beloved, anger for having died thus deserted the bereaved, are considered to be a normal part of the grieving process. From talisman22457 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 10:46:30 2006 From: talisman22457 at yahoo.com (Talisman) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 10:46:30 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151314 Talisman draws back her black veil, to tell you the sad truth: Ah, fun theories about Slughorn or Pettigrew taking Dumbledore's place. I wish I could subscribe to them, but, let us face facts: there is only one surrogate with the mighty cahones required for the action of the cave and the tower, Severus Snape. Anyone who knows me from my old days here, or the other groups in which I've participated, knows I am an unqualified Snape-lover. For me, he is the absolute best thing in the series. I would much prefer he AK-ed that old meddler, Dumbledore, than the reverse. Unfortunately, I had an epiphany at the end of January. I shared it with family and friends, hoping to be talked out of it. I searched the web, and found a Slughorn theory at the Leaky Cauldron. Hhouyhnhnm raised Slughorn here, and now dkrasnansky posits Pettigrew. Alas, if only. No, tis Snape who is already dead. He's not exactly gone, though. There is little doubt that Book 7 will reveal him in all his dark and posthumus glory. What Harry doesn't uncover during the course of his last adventure, will be explained in DD's final debriefing. As for the greater WW, there is no hurry to convince them of Snape's integrity. There is nothing more they can do to him, now. >From a meta standpoint, this preserves Snape's ever-elusive nature. By the time Harry (and the average reader) comprehends the totality of Snape's heroism, he will be far beyond their effusive, and meaningless, regrets. Voyez, il est d?j?E comme il ?tait toujours. Certainly DD's death was a fake. The series explores and signals the ruse of death in nearly every book. In PS/SS Harry is a boy who should have died, but didn't; we learn about the possibilities of the Draught of Death; and we see that, though most thought LV was dead, he wasn't. In CoS, the Basilisk's victims appear dead, but are resuscitated. We later find out that the Diary was a Hx, a critical component of LV's ability to be *killed* and yet not die. In PoA we learn of Pettigrew's faked death. In GoF we find out about Barty Jr.'s faked Death. OoP is the book with the least (possibly no) faked death in it. But this is as it should be. For those who don't yet know the pattern of reversals between books, we'll just have to explore it another time. Sirius's authentic death sets up the pattern for faked death in HBP. DD's apparent death in HBP, sets up his return in Book 7. (Even if Stubby Boardman is Regulus Black, he still wouldn't have enough series significance to be the *big* faked death.) In HBP we see Slughorn's attempt at faked death and hear Switched! Snape's offer to fake the deaths of Draco and his family. This heightened focus on faked death brings us to the precipitous moment, and the fact that DD is represented by the phoenix completes the picture. IMO, the entire series cries out for a major faked death, and an arrangement where the *dying* is in book 6 and the *revelation* is in Book 7, is most felicitous. Then there is the matter of impersonation. Again, it's everywhere in the series, and I well expect it to play a continued role in the plot. Think of the anxiety that Rowling built into the scene where the Advanced Guard comes for Harry at the beginning of OoP. When Moody asks Harry to lower his wand, Harry hesitates to do so. Instead, he launches into a little meditation regarding how Moody had been impersonated throughout his relationship with Harry, the previous year (46). For his part, Moody isn't particularly confident that the boy at the top of the stairs is who he seems to be. "Are you quite sure it's him, Lupin? he growled. "It'd be a nice lookout if we bring back some Death Eater impersonating him. We ought to ask him something only the real Potter would know. Unless anyone brought some Veritaserum?" (48). This segues nicely into the imposter fears that are rampant in HBP, and the Ministry's protocols (however inept) for distinguishing family members from DEs who just happen to look like them. After Arthur forces Molly to go through the required question and answer series, Molly indicates her impatience with it and retorts: *I mean, a Death Eater might have forced the answer out of you before impersonating you!* (87). Rowling has intentionally underscored the feasibility of one wizard impersonating another. We know a certain DE, Barty Crouch Jr., who did a fair job of impersonating Mad-eye Moody. I would expect Snape to be even better at impersonating DD. Snape is not only a genius and a powerfully magical wizard, but he has the advantage when it comes to performances, by virtue of his considerable espionage experience. Snape also benefits from actually knowing DD quite well. He knows the Dark Lord, too, and his *style,* for that matter. In any event, the extant text provides such a surfeit of methods by which wizards can alter their appearances that it's more a matter of elimination than opportunity. Indeed, the series is a veritable treatise on things and people not being what they seem. The list of obvious methods have been recited in every Switch!Theory. Polyjuice is suggested, and may well have been used, for at least one of the participants. dkrasnansky's suggestion about dragon's blood fortification is interesting, an nice touch, and may even turn out to be true, though it's not strictly necessary. As has been mentioned, Harry and Switched!Snape *made their way down the drive in the gathering twilight* (553). Acording to www.sunrisesunset.com, Civil Twilight (defined as when the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon, the limit at which illumination is sufficient for clearly distinguishing terrestrial objects), for the first half of June 1986, in Scotland, was a bit after 11:00 PM As we are all agreed that events on the tower occurred at approximately midnight, Rowling may well have meant to demonstrate that it all took place within one hour. (It is *nearly midnight* when Flitwick comes for Switched!DD (619). "Switched!DD proceedes directly to the tower to AK Switched!Snape, and then withdraws with Draco, post haste.) Apparation is a lovely thing. Under the circumstances, Switched!Snape may well have been able to get through events on one swig. Mrs. Crouch was buried as Barty Jr., and--unless you believe she swigged at the last possible moment and was buried within the hour of her death--we have seen that someone who dies in polyjuiced form retains that appearance. Moreover, in the worst case scenario, Switched!Snape would have been gone for less than 2 hours (somewhat after 10 PM to ~ midnight), which would only necessitate one sip from a flask somewhere in a dark cave or while Harry had his back turned on the tower. Not so hard to pull off. Reread the cave and tower scenes and you'll see plenty of opportunities. As others have discussed, the oft mentioned (PS/SS 155, GoF 237, 338, HBP 714 ) but never satisfactorily explained, Switching Spell remains a possibility. I also considered the James/Lupin switch theory that circulated a few years back, which was predicated on the existence of just that spell. In her FAQ section, Rowling denied that James would do such a thing, but didn't deny it was magically feasible. While not conclusive, her response certainly leaves open that possibility. And, who knows, Switched!DD could well be a metamorphmagus. Rowling has suggested we explore DD's lineage, but other than Aberforth, we have no family to explore. We have, however, seen more of that Black family tree. There, along with the evidence that everyone (not just purebloods) in the Wizarding World seems to be related, we saw more of those interesting *black spots.* It could be fun to have DD somewhere up in the tree that leads to Tonks. He might be the spot next to Elladora, though I favor a (cheerfully speculative) construct where his family members blend in through marriage a step or two above Tonks. The idea that she got her morphing gene from his side of the family would provide a legitimate basis for Rowling to have given Tonks that attribute at all (it really hasn't otherwise played any role important enough to warrant introducing the surplusage of all that weirdness). Many people have noticed that JKR skips a book with evidence that will come into play. Book 5 was supposed to cover her clue bases for Book 7, and the metamorph business is definitely a candidate for one of the imposters, most likely Switched!DD. That would leave Switched!DD free to scamper with the DEs all through Book 7, without further ado about his disguise. Whether by polyjuice, switching spells, simple transfiguration, or metamorphing, clearly the details of *how* are the least of our worries. What about Slughorn? Houyhnhnm reminds us of the lines from Browning's poem: *Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set, And blew `Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.'* And with good reason. Slug-horns aren't particularly common things; Browning is pretty clearly the source. However, the slug-horn in Browning's poem merely signals that the hero has reached the tower. Indeed, our Slughorn may play a similar role in HBP, without being the hero, himself. (There are also some shared literary considerations regarding the subversion of the Romantic ideal, but that's another post.) The DADA professor whom DD chooses--or in Umbridge's case allows to be placed--is always selected for the purposes of that part of DD's plan that is to unfold in the given year. The DADA professor always has a role to play in the denouement. But, in all other books, the DADA professor has also been the new character to the book. In HBP, Snape and Slughorn split these roles (just as Snape/the HBP actually teaches Harry potions, and Sluggy teaches him a bit of Hx DADA). I'm perfectly willing to believe that Slughorn had some role to play in Book 6, beyond that tampered-memory business--which was obviously not necessary to DD`s understanding of the situation--or his ability to explain it all to Harry. But, IMO, the real Sluggy is the sweaty little guy in McGonagall's office--not the hero of the cave and tower. I will grant that the term *Oho* in the cave scene (563) fits Sluggy better than anyone else, but, this cannot prevail against my reading of Slughorn as too much the coward to handle the deadly adventure. He is all about saving his own fat behind. He would never be cavalier about a lake full of Inferi. He would never drink the goo. The theorist from the Leaky (gumshoe) suggests that Slughorn chugged Felix potion to get him through it. Now, Horace on Felix might have been *more* confident, but he would never have managed the sang-froid of the wizard in the cave. Moreover, he clearly isn't composed by the time he reaches McG's office. What? Did he drink just enough to get him through the battle? And how did he calculate that? Nah. And Pettigrew? Obviousy PP would have to be possessed/Imperio-ed to go to the cave, etc. The real PP would have shat bricks rather than worried about Draco on the tower. Ditto the points about cowardice, supra. Why would PP, not only be transformed, but have his whole personality and magical capability altered--an amazing feat of micro- management even under some form of control--and be used against his will for these critical events? To fake DD's death and take out a wretched DE rat at the same time? Efficient, but not, I think, probable or likely. I do like dkrasnansky's recognition of the connection between PP's sliver hand and Switched!DD's burnt one. It fits my Goblet Theory. But, unfortunately for my Dark Phoenix, DD isn't PP's antithesis: Snape is. Spy for LV / spy against LV. Acquire a fake hand in the effort to bring LV back / acquire a fake one in the effort to bring him down. It all comes back to Snape. Yes, indeed, Goblet Theory, the particulars of which I can't wedge into this post, asserts that every important series event is parodied/skewed in GoF. Switched!Snape is foreshadowed in GoF by the dying Mrs. Crouch who convinces Barty Sr. to allow her to take Jr.'s place. However, in HBP, it is the doomed Snape (no more worries about how to get out of the UV) who convinces DD to make the switch. Under Switched!Snape theory, this is part of that argument Hagrid overhears between DD and Snape. Now, like Barty Jr., Switched!DD is free to move behind enemy lines, in someone else's guise and--like Fake!Moody--he is doubly cloaked in the enemy's false belief in his demise. I also like the idea that this may not be the first time Snape and Dumbledore have switched places. Dumbledore's line from GoF has always intrigued me: *[Snape] is now no more a Death Eater than I am* (591). The old waffler just couldn't say * Snape is not a DE* could he? And of course, Snape IS a DE, albeit a traitorous one. Who's turn is it to visit the Dark Lord tonight, DD? This may well have been an old routine by the time Switched!Snape took Harry on the Hx field trip. On the other hand, I don't think Snape and DD were, or need to have been, switched the entirety of HBP. I expect it was Switched!Snape in the office, prior to the cave outing, ergo the blanching when Harry confronts him about Snape being the one who told LV about the Prophesy. The relevant times are from that pre-cave meeting in DD's office, to Switched!DD's retreat with Draco. It gives a whole new force to Switched!DD roaring at Harry not to call Snape a coward. Of course, Switched!DD will go on looking like Snape into Book 7. For general evidence, there is, of course, that oft-quoted line about how *...with the sudden agility of a much younger man, Dumbledore slid from the boulder, landed in the sea, and began to swim, with a perfect breaststroke, toward the dark slit in the rock face, his lit wand held in his teeth* (HBP 557). Nice touch, the wand in the teeth. Now Slughorn is younger than DD (67), but he is no spring chicken. Molly says Slughorn and DD began teaching at Hogwarts at the same time. We know DD was teaching by the time Riddle was 11 (~59 years before the end of HBP). Assuming Slughorn was 25-30 when he began to teach he is at least 84-90 by the cave scene. Could be more. I'll grant Slughorn enthusiasts DD's comments on Sluggie's alacrity in Chapter 4, but thirty-something Snape seems a more likely candidate. There is more evidence that it's Snape in the cave: The knife Switched!Snape uses in the cave is *a short silver knife of the kind Harry used to chop potion ingredients* (HBP 559). It's the kind specifically recommended by the HBP for smashing snarlgaluff pods. Slughorn may be a potions master, too, but the literary connotation is with Snape. Moreover, the incantation Switched!Snape uses to heal his arm is the same one Snape used earlier to heal Draco's wounds. *You are very kind, Harry," said Dumbledore, now passing his wand over the deep cut he had made in his own arm, so that it healed instantly, just as Snape had healed Malfoy's wounds* (HBP 560). I don't know how many have noticed all the corollaries between Books 2 and 6. They are rampant. In my own opinion, the memory potion is a symmetrical reversal of Lockhart's end of book memory loss. The symmetry requires that the person experiencing the potion induced surfeit of memory in HBP be Lockhart's opposite, and that would definitely be Snape. The fact that they are each DADA professors in the respective books completes the *butterfly effect.* I initially thought that Switched!Snape was experiencing his Godric' s Hollow remorse in the potion scene. But, on further reflection, I believe he is reliving the murder of his family as a penalty for his failure or refusal, as a young DE, do something the Dark Lord had ordered him to do. This also satisfies the intra-book symmetry: he protects Draco from what he then demonstrates he has suffered himself. This view fits well with the words *Don't hurt them, don't hurt them, please, please, it's my fault, hurt me instead...(572). Indeed, if Snape is reliving what he said to Voldemort (say, as Snape's parents were Crucio-ed to death to punish him for refusing an order) the repeated pleas to *make it stop,* the mea culpas: *It' s all my fault....I know I did wrong...I`ll never, never again...,* all make sense. I propose that the order had something to do with an earlier (pre- GH) Potter attack that Snape refused to effectuate. Evil, lethal, symmetry. There is more of it. Like when Snape toasts * [t]he Dark Lord* at Spinners End (24), and then toasts Harry while in the cave, as Switched!DD (570). But enough for now. When it comes to the tower scene, some folks find it jarring to think of DD pleading...for anything. I say a fortiori Snape. But, I think it is important to remember that the person we see slumping on the tower wall is the same person who drank the green potion. It seems apparent that the green potion causes anyone who consumes it to repeatedly experience their worst memory in the most vivid and unrelieved fashion. For someone with truly brutal memories, it is pure torture, and there may be no antidote for it. Under the circumstances, the person suffering these effects has shown a great deal of courage, and a remarkable mastery of their personal emotions. They have warded off the Inferi, they have persevered in the return to Hogwarts (to complete the plan), they have protected Harry, and they have offered Draco assistance, all while enduring psychological misery and deleterious physical consequences. If this person intended to be AKed in DD's stead, as part of a *faked death* scheme, they also knew that the time was right and no interest would be served by delay. All necessary parties were present: Invisible Harry, faltering Draco, DD, DE witnesses, and Snape. Indeed, the longer the tower scene was drawn out, the more danger for everyone at Hogwarts, including the general student population and the Order members battling downstairs. If this person were doomed by an Unforgivable Vow they had no intention of fulfilling; were suffering the ongoing heartache and remorse of a horrific memory, with no hope of respite; and had the best interest of The Plan, and everyone else, in mind; it really was not so undignified to say *...please... .* Finish it. And, it's a nice symmetry to Snape's being the recipient of Narcissa's pleading, in the beginning. (These proofs just keep bubbling up.) I'd prefer to think that Snape would be back teaching DADA in the epilogue. ::sigh:: At least until he takes over as Headmaster (I'd be obliged if someone would AK McGonagall, early on). But I unfortunately keep seeing all the evidence to the contrary. See it or not, don't say I didn't warn you. Talisman, assuring her Dusky Prince that neither Fiction nor Death can ever part us. From amiabledorsai at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 13:11:53 2006 From: amiabledorsai at yahoo.com (amiabledorsai) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 13:11:53 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: <20060422155434.49731.qmail@web61325.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151315 Joe: > Sorry but I think it would have been an unmitigated > disaster to tell a eleven year old boy who only > just found out about the magical world that he had > to save it by killing one of the most powerful > wizards on the planet. Either Harry would have > thought Dumbledore utterly mad and never had any > confidence in him or if he had believed it he would > have been crushed under the pressure. Amiable Dorsai: You may be right, though I think that you (and Dumbledore) have misread Harry's character. Harry seems to be happiest and/or work the hardest when he feels he has a purpose. Compare his normal attitude toward schoolwork with his devotion to learning spells to teach the DA, for example. Joe: > As anyone who knows anything about training > soldiers will tell you, you first give them the > basics, good food, exercise, and training with > their weapons. The first years at Hogwarts did > exactly that. Then you give them advanced training > to make them better soldiers. I' an certain any > other ex-military reading this will back me up > here. Dumbledore did the only thing he could do > compassion or not. Anything else would have been > sheer stupidity and Dumbledore wasn't stupid. Amiable Dorsai: But recruits know from day one what they're being prepared for. Joe: >He had to give Harry some happiness because otherwise Harry had no reason to fight for the wizarding world. If you have nothing then you have nothing to lose. Amiable Dorsai: I agree. I simply believe that Harry would have been happy to know that his life had a purpose other than being famous for the way his parents died and he didn't. Mind you, other than losing Sirius, I believe that what Dumbledore actually did probably worked out as well as what Dumbledore planned to do would have. Harry's had plenty of "live fire" exercises, and he has a pretty good idea of what he's up against. Joe: > Sirius wanted Harry to know more certainly but I > am unsure that he thought Harry was read to go to > war. I'm also not so certain how wise any councel > from someone driven half mad by prison would be. You misunderstood me (my fault, I used too many pronouns), I meant that Sirius himself was straining at the leash to go out and fight. This is the problem I have with the various puppet master scenarios. If Dumbledore wanted Sirius dead, he could simply have kept sending him out on increasingly dangerous missions until the inevitable happened. A martyred Sirius would have worked out very well for Puppetmaster!Dumbledore ("Harry, Sirius would have wanted you to do this"). No, I think Dumbledore wanted to keep Sirius safe for Harry's sake. I just can't see Dumbledore letting a valuable asset like Sirius languish otherwise. It's not like he has any trouble sending others (or himself!) into mortal danger. In that vein: Alla: > Since I am not buying at all that Dumbledore was > angry at Sirius (Angry for what? For loving Harry > too much? Catlady: > *MAYBE* Dumbledore was angry at Sirius for getting himself killed(despite all DD's attempts to protect him) and thus breaking Harry's heart. Amiable Dorsai: I have to agree, though I think a Dumbledore who was on top of his game would have refrained from expressing his feelings on the matter to Harry. That's one (of many) reasons I think Dumbledore was barely holding it together at that point. Betsy: >"You were not a pampered little prince, but as > normal a boy as I could have hoped under the > circumstances." (ibid p.837) > Anyway, I'm just curious as to what was so wrong > with what Dumbledore said about leaving Harry at > the Dursleys, what about it read as rationalizing > on Dumbledore's part? Amiable Dorsai: I don't think he was rationalizing, so much as trying to find some little nugget of good in Harry's suffering at the Dursleys'. Consider how frustrated Dumbledore must be by the whole thing--here is a man who is used to literally and figuratively pulling miracles out of his pocket, and the best solution he can find for protecting Harry is to board him with a couple of child-abusers. Objectively, it's the right thing to do, but emotionally, it must tear at him. I think his guilt over being unable to find a better way to protect Harry explains a lot of Dumbledore's behavior. Amiable Dorsai From BrwNeil at aol.com Sun Apr 23 13:22:23 2006 From: BrwNeil at aol.com (BrwNeil at aol.com) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 09:22:23 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron Message-ID: <38b.18b2782.317cd98f@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151316 In a message dated 4/23/2006 1:03:20 AM Eastern Standard Time, joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com writes: I also wanted to point something else out. There are planty of people who wonder what Hermione sees in Ron. Well beyond those things people have listed we also have to take into account that we mostly see Ron mostly through Harry's eyes. But what we do know is that both Lavender, who I believe is JKR's "pretty popular girl archtype" and Hermione "The smart overachiever" were both very interested in Ron. That leads me to believe that there has to be something very likable about the lad. In the case of Ron and Hermione, I feel that canon mirrors real life. There is no formula that says two people belong together. How often do we make the comments 'what does he see in her' or 'what does she see in him.' Life is like that. Sometimes the most unlikely people are attracted to each other. What is different about real life Vs a book is that couples don't have to justify to anyone else why they are together in real life? In literature, a writer owes it to their readers to show why she has placed people together and why they belong with each other. Here, I feel is where JKR has failed. As the books proceeded, Rowling dropped clue after clue that Ron and Hermione would eventually be together. Those clues had many of us saying, 'but why?' They constantly fight and bicker and seem to have nothing in common other than Harry. Meanwhile she wrote Harry and Hermione as much more compatible. Rowling has no one to blame other than herself that many people hate the coupling of Ron and Hermione. She could have easily solved this by showing a caring side to their relationship, but she seldom did. Instead she opted for another fight. Even after the greatest hint in GoF that they had feelings for each other, she went on to write OotP where they continue to fight. Even in HBP where we know R/Hr is going to happen, we keep asking ourselves why. Krum adored Hermione, even Neville thinks highly of her. Other than Draco, Ron seems the worst match for her in the book. The only really tender moment Ron and Hermione have ever shared is at the funeral. In my opinion, it is too little too late. I feel she just went too far with the bickering. She just had to get one more laugh out of their fighting and in doing so she made their relationship seem so unbelievable. A writer has to do more than decide that two people will end up together. The writer must also convince her readers that the couple belong together. I think even R/Hr shippers will admit that Rowling did a poor job of this. If she hadn't, than every one would be a R/Hr shipper. How many readers wanted Juliet with someone other than Romeo? Neil [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From estesrandy at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 14:48:06 2006 From: estesrandy at yahoo.com (Randy) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 14:48:06 -0000 Subject: ADMIN: Discussing Sensitive Cultural & Religious Topics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151317 IMO... You do not have to specify your religious beliefs, but you can still talk about life lessons that JKR has woven into these stories. When I read these stories, I saw some interesting themes. After all its all about our choices! 1. BEWARE THE MIRROR OF YOUR HEART'S DESIRES See yourself as you truly are and do not become conceited, but remain humble. 2. AVOID THE DEVIL'S SNARE: Do not keep you innermost self locked in your CHAMBER OF SECRETS Be who you are and do not try to be someone else like Lockhart who took credit for the deeds of others and Riddle who wanted to be famous and powerful like Salazar Slytherin. 3. GRAB THE WINGED KEY AND TAKE FLIGHT Do not become a prisoner by your inaction; take flight and free the prisoner within. Failing to act when necessary leads you to a life filled with regret. (I think this may also be part of Lupin's problem because I think he failed to act on something.) 4. CONTROL YOUR LUST FOR LIFE AND USE YOUR GOBLET OF FIRE TO DO GREAT THINGS IN THE CHESS GAME OF LIFE Be willing to make some sacrifices to get to where you must go in life. Your lust for life can be channeled to help you grab the egg , save your most treasured, and wind through the maze to victory. But beware what you might win. 5. DO NOT ALLOW YOUR ANGER TO BURST INTO FLAME LIKE A PHOENIX Learn to control your anger and keep the walk around the sleeping troll (Anger) that could become violent if awakened. 6. CHOOSE WISELY THE BOTTLE FROM WHICH YOU DRINK One leads you forward and another leads you back, others will kill you. Ron drank a bad potion that almost killed him.(IMO) Ron also may have gotten another love potion earlier which led to his overt infatuation with Lavender and his overindulgence with kissing in the hallways. Dumbledore drank an awful potion that was probably going to kill him. The Dursley's refused to drink any wine. Slughorn and Hagrid freely drank the wine. Like Harry, if you are LUCKY and drink the lucky bottle you will move forward with ease. But do not drink too much and overindulge like Trelawney. Notice that Harry only drank a little bit of Felix and shared it with his friends later. Some would trick you with their potions and cause you to love the wrong person or thing. Randy > we > congratulate you for continuing to maintain respect and open > discussion about cultural and religious topics related to your > interpretations of the Potter septology; we're all adult fans here > and we think that these topics can, as you've exemplified recently, > be discussed in a mature and engaging way. We hope that you will > continue to do so as these threads progress, and encourage you to > preface your replies to these intriguing topic threads with the > following tips in mind to avoid misunderstandings which might steer > the conversation in a not-so-productive direction: > > **Remember, your post is all your fellow HPfGU readers and posters > see of YOU. Since we're not all in the same physical room, we can't > see how you "mean" for your post to be interpreted by others. > > **If your post is an opinion piece, preface it with 'in my opinion'" > (IMO), because it IS your opinion, after all. :) It may not be > someone else's! > > ** Include questions in your replies which do not invite yes or no > answers. It's not important to be right all the time, but it's > important recognize others who may have viewpoints which differ from > your own as well as accept and respect them. It's totally cool to > agree to disagree. > > We appreciate your participation - and remember, there's plenty of > tea and cookies for everybody! > > Best Regards, > > The HPfGU List Elves > From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 14:49:49 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 14:49:49 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151318 Talisman wrote: > > Talisman draws back her black veil, to tell you the sad truth: > > Ah, fun theories about Slughorn or Pettigrew taking Dumbledore's > place. I wish I could subscribe to them, but, let us face facts: > there is only one surrogate with the mighty cahones required for the > action of the cave and the tower, Severus Snape. zgirnius: Well. Now THAT's a Dumbledore switch theory I had not encountered before. I agree that Slughorn has really not been shown to us as someone who would involve himself in such a plot, and ditto for Peter. Snape definitely makes more sense. However, I really find it hard to believe that the man in the Cave was not Dumbledore. He's an important figure in the story with a particular sort of relationship to Harry. And probably the single most beautiful, moving moment in that relationship occurs during the Cave sequence, when Dumbledore tells Hary, "I am not worried, Harry, because I am with you." I just can't quite bring myself to believe that Rowling would write this moment in for an impostor. (I can imagine her writing some moving scene between Snape and Harry, that's not a problem-but with Snape as Snape, if you see what I mean. At that point in the story the line as a line from SNAPE to Harry, just does not have the same impact). And on the other end--why would Dumbledore make such a point of revealing to Harry that Snape was the Half-Blood Prince (as the man who looks like Snape does in "Flight of the Prince"?) The COWARD moment, I will grant you, works. But the final reason I remain convinced that Snape was Snape and Dumbledore was Dumbledore in the climactic scene is that DADA curse. Under your scenario, Snape made a plan with Dumbledore, and it WORKED. From foxmoth at qnet.com Sun Apr 23 15:05:13 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 15:05:13 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151319 > Alla: > > How do we know that Harry did not want both to be consoled AND to > avenge the killers? You see, I think that while we do agree on > Dumbledore not being a puppet master, I think we do diverge a great > deal in evaluation of Dumbledore in this speech. You seem to be > saying that Dumbledore was correct and right in saying all that he > said in this speech. I completely disagree with it. I may buy > Dumbledore not quite in control of his facilities, who while in > generally doing the right thing - namely telling the truth about the > Prophecy says plenty wrong things to Harry. I can buy this > Dumbledore, I am NOT buying Dumbledore who as you say "too wise" to > comfort Harry. I think that Dumbledore wants to comfort Harry, but > really is not sure how, but who is Dumbledore to decide that Harry > does not want comfort? > Pippin: Aragorn said it better than I could: "I speak no comfort to you, for there is no comfort for such pain within the circles of the world." Do you think if her daughters had offered Arwen tea and cookies she'd have felt better? All that Harry has left of Sirius at that moment is the anger and the pain -- if he let go of those he wouldn't have anything, don't you see? > Alla: > > Since I am not buying at all that Dumbledore was angry at Sirius ( > Angry for what? For loving Harry too much? Pippin: For ignoring the instruction to stay behind and not trusting the rest of the Order to save Harry? For making choices that would take him away from Harry when Dumbledore had done all he could to prevent that? You see, I don't blame Kreacher or Snape for Sirius's decision to go to the ministry. They didn't make him do it. Sirius made, out of love for Harry, but also maybe out of eagerness and vainglory, a decision that would take him away from Harry for ever. Alla: If Harry's best weapon is love, I would think Dumbledore would be happy that there is one more person here to show what love means to Harry), Pippin: Sometimes love means trusting others to do things you can't. > Alla: > > Okay, so you are saying that Dumbledore was perfectly aware of what > he was doing? He was not saying the wrong things because he was > tired and exhausted, he was doing deliberate thing - provoking Harry > into hurting more? > > Then no, I have no sympathy for this Dumbledore. Sorry if I am > misunderstanding you here. Pippin: Why could it not be both? Dumbledore may have started out expecting Harry to be angry at Sirius, but felt that even if Harry wasn't angry at Sirius, it was all the more important that he not blame Kreacher for what happened. He could not provoke Harry into hurting more ::fingers shaking on keyboard:: Harry was hurting already as much as it is possible for a human being to hurt. What Dumbledore was doing, IMO, was making it easy for Harry to *express* his pain and anger so that it wouldn't fester inside him or pour itself out on the heads of people who didn't deserve it. If Harry started killing or hurting people to make himself feel better then the war would be lost and Harry along with it. > > Alla: > > That is not a bad reason indeed, but timing IS still horrible, > because the only thing which IMO was important at that moment was > Harry, NOT Kreacher, not Dumbledore, but Harry and protecting > Kreacher when Harry is in such pain really does not make me respect > Dumbledore more. Pippin: Don't you see that by protecting Kreacher, Dumbledore is protecting Harry too? Do you think Kreacher is worth Harry becoming a killer? > Alla: > > And again, why cannot Harry be angry about MANY things. I think he > has PLENTY of reasons to be angry with Petunia and as far as I can > see he IS distressed over her not loving him. IMO Sirius has nothing > to do with that, moreover IMO Dumbledore OWED Harry to hear him out. > Don't you see? I will buy Dumbledore making a horrific choice to > leave Harry with Dursleys to save Harry's life, but in order for me > to buy that Dumbledore is not a Puppetmaster (and I really don't > think that he is, unless I am rereading this speech) I have to see > that Dumbledore IS sorry that he had to make this choice, that no > matter what he is sorry for Harry's sufferings and cutting him > across when Harry starts talking about those sufferings really > really does not help me to do so. Pippin: No. It's not possible for Harry to separate his angry feelings from one another, not when he's as upset as he was just then. We saw that at the beginning of OOP where "he felt as though he was siphoning his own frustration into his cousin, the only outlet he had." Harry thinks he's getting revenge for fourteen years of mistreatment, but all his rage and helplessness over Cedric are going into it too. Alla: > I mean, it is like every time in this speech Dumbledore starts > saying that he is sorry, he finishes the sentence with justifying > himself ( not as well-fed as I liked is a great example. Duh! He was > starved several times, I so wanted to say get over your high horse, > Headmaster. :)). Pippin: "The Dursleys had never exactly starved Harry, but he'd never been allowed to eat as much as he liked. Dudley had always taken anything that he really wanted, even if it made him sick." That's canon. I suppose that if Harry had been so badly off that Dumbledore thought it was worse than death, he'd have let Harry take his chances elsewhere -- it would have been like pulling the plug on a life-support system. (And I speak as somebody who's had to make that decision.) Dumbledore did the best he could to keep Harry alive -- I just don't understand why he should be sorry for it. Sorry for what, for saving Harry from the most evil wizard who ever existed? Sorry that he's not an all powerful fairy godfather? Sorry that Petunia isn't a nicer person? Dumbledore isn't Petunia's parent -- he's not responsible for the way she behaves. But Dumbledore doesn't want to have to be ashamed of the way *Harry* acts. He doesn't want to see him blame Petunia or Kreacher for things that aren't their fault. Just because Harry has legitimate reasons to be angry at Petunia does not mean that he gets to pour out every angry feeling he has on her. Pippin From enlil65 at gmail.com Sun Apr 23 15:32:31 2006 From: enlil65 at gmail.com (Peggy Wilkins) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 10:32:31 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: <00ba01c66632$b6626ee0$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> References: <00ba01c66632$b6626ee0$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> Message-ID: <1789c2360604230832w12c850c0y7561bdbf40d9c3bf@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151320 On 4/22/06, Kim wrote: > > Kim: This post makes me think about the basilisk slinking through the > pipes of the castle. I've always wondered why the other students and > teachers couldn't even hear the snake hiss, though Harry wasn't always alone > when he heard it. While Harry could hear it plainly enough to understand > the words he was saying. Now I also wonder why a very observant Dumbledore > didn't hear the snake hiss and understand the language, as well. He's all > through the castle all the time. Or maybe it's just that the trio, and > especially Harry, are very "lucky" and always in the right place at the > right time. Or it's just an oversight by the author who's trying to get a > gazillion elements of a long and wonderful story all packed into 7 books and > sometimes has to just ask us to overlook some inconsistencies. > Kim My interpretation is that Harry could hear it but others (including Dumbledore) didn't because it was part of Harry's specific connection, through Voldemort's failed curse, to the Heir of Slytherin. Regarding the topic of this thread, this doesn't say anything one way or another about whether or not Dumbledore could understand or speak Parseltongue; it only underlines that Harry is connected to the Heir of Slytherin, while Dumbledore is not. COS seems pretty clear (I think so, anyway) that the only reason the Chamber couldn't be found or opened was because no one seeking it was related to Salazar Slytherin. -- Peggy Wilkins enlil65 at gmail.com From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 16:13:54 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 16:13:54 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151321 > > Alla: > > > > How do we know that Harry did not want both to be consoled AND to > > avenge the killers? I think that Dumbledore wants to comfort Harry, but > > really is not sure how, but who is Dumbledore to decide that Harry > > does not want comfort? > > > > Pippin: > Aragorn said it better than I could: "I speak no comfort to you, for there > is no comfort for such pain within the circles of the world." Do you > think if her daughters had offered Arwen tea and cookies she'd have felt > better? > > All that Harry has left of Sirius at that moment is the anger and the pain -- > if he let go of those he wouldn't have anything, don't you see? Alla: No, I really don't see that. Harry is not Arwen, Aragorn is not Dumbledore. Let me ask you again, what right Dumbledore has to decide that Harry does not want comfort? If Dumbledore does not know how to offer it, that is one story, if Dumbledore decided that Harry does not want it and proceeded with it, and then well, his offense is worse in my book than I thought. > > Alla: > > > > Since I am not buying at all that Dumbledore was angry at Sirius ( > > Angry for what? For loving Harry too much? > > Pippin: > For ignoring the instruction to stay behind and not trusting the rest of the > Order to save Harry? For making choices that would take him away from > Harry when Dumbledore had done all he could to prevent that? Alla: Oh, that I buy. Because multiple reasons that were expressed for Dumbledore being angry at Sirius were quite different. I mistakenly assumed that you share them. Those were Sirius showing up in Harry's life, being his father figure, etc. Pippin: You see, > I don't blame Kreacher or Snape for Sirius's decision to go to the ministry. > They didn't make him do it. Sirius made, out of love for Harry, but also > maybe out of eagerness and vainglory, a decision that would take him > away from Harry for ever. Alla: Erm... you know I also don't blame Kreacher or Snape for Sirius desire to go to the ministry. I blame Kreacher for betraying Sirius, that's for sure and I think by that I award his feelings much more respect than Dumbledore, who claims that Kreacher is what wizards made him, but I don't blame Kreacher for Sirius' decision, except for instigating the chain of events, same thing with Snape - if Snape did not produce the information to Voldemort and or/Malfoys (namely if he lies in Spinner End), I don't blame him for Sirius going to MoM either. If he DID produce that information, I definitely blame him, but even in that situation only for that part. > Pippin: > Why could it not be both? Dumbledore may have started out expecting > Harry to be angry at Sirius, but felt that even if Harry wasn't angry at > Sirius, it was all the more important that he not blame Kreacher for > what happened. Alla: Pippin I am afraid I don't follow you. Please answer me one question and then it will be much easier for me to understand how much we differ. In your opinion did Dumbledore have a right to say what he said about Sirius or not? Was it a morally right thing to do or was it a wrong thing to do, but not maliciously, or was it something else? Because if you say that Dumbledore was right to say what he said about Sirius, that he was not saying it because he was too tired and upset, but because he wanted to do it, then it is not Dumbledore who in my book deserves respect AT ALL. I can FORGIVE what Dumbledore said to Harry, I can never ever rationalize what he said. We all make mistakes, but if you argue that what Dumbledore said about Sirius was not a mistake, but an act that deserves respect, then I have to agree to disagree, because it is a great offense to Harry in my book at least. Pippin: > He could not provoke Harry into hurting more ::fingers shaking on > keyboard:: Harry was hurting already as much as it is possible for > a human being to hurt. What Dumbledore was doing, IMO, was making > it easy for Harry to *express* his pain and anger so that it wouldn't fester > inside him or pour itself out on the heads of people who didn't deserve it. Alla: Still don't follow you. Was Dumbledore really thinking that Sirius is to blame for his death and Kreacher is not to, or was Dumbledore pretending to think that in order to make easier for Harry to express his pain and anger? Pippin: > If Harry started killing or hurting people to make himself > feel better then the war would be lost and Harry along with it. Alla: Yes, indeed, I just don't see Harry in this scene going out to start killing people to make himself feel better. > Pippin: > Don't you see that by protecting Kreacher, Dumbledore is protecting > Harry too? Do you think Kreacher is worth Harry becoming a killer? Alla: Of course Kreacher is not worth it, but if choosing between the two, at that moment Harry was the one who needed Dumbledore, who needed his comfort and to choose that moment to protect a traitor and put a blame on Sirius shoulders for his death, was, well not a good strategy in my book. It would have been SO easy in my book to approach Harry later and explain to him that Kreacher is not worth all the blame, but not that night, nothing can convince me that it was necessary that night, except of course JKR needing to explain it to us. Alla: I have to see > > that Dumbledore IS sorry that he had to make this choice, that no > > matter what he is sorry for Harry's sufferings and cutting him > > across when Harry starts talking about those sufferings really > > really does not help me to do so. > > Pippin: > No. It's not possible for Harry to separate his angry feelings from > one another, not when he's as upset as he was just then. > > We saw that at the beginning of OOP where "he felt as though he was > siphoning his own frustration into his cousin, the only outlet he had." > Harry thinks he's getting revenge for fourteen years of mistreatment, > but all his rage and helplessness over Cedric are going into it too. Alla: Pippin, it is NOT up to Dumbledore to decide that Harry cannot express his feelings about Petunia, IMO. Whether Harry can separate his feelings or not, the text IMO is clear . Harry IS angry about Petunia. Dumbledore is the one who put him there. Put him there to save his life, yes, but also put him there to suffer, to experience dark years as Dumbledore himself says. If you don't think that Dumbledore owes Harry to AT LEAST hear him out, our positions are very very different then. I take it you argue that Harry is not angry about Petunia at all? Is that correct? Are you arguing that Harry is really angry about Sirius and Sirius only and he is perfectly fine with how Petunia treated him? I don't buy it at all. I think Harry has plenty of legitimate reasons to be angry with Dursleys and that it all was there and exploded at the end of OOP. > Alla: > > I mean, it is like every time in this speech Dumbledore starts > > saying that he is sorry, he finishes the sentence with justifying > > himself ( not as well-fed as I liked is a great example. Duh! He was > > starved several times, I so wanted to say get over your high horse, > > Headmaster. :)). > > Pippin: > "The Dursleys had never exactly starved Harry, but he'd never been > allowed to eat as much as he liked. Dudley had always taken anything > that he really wanted, even if it made him sick." > > > That's canon. Alla: "Three days later, the Dursleys were showing no sign of relenting and Harry couldn't see any way out of his situation. He lay out on the bed watching the sun sinking behind the bars on the window and wondered miserably what's going to happen to him. ****** Dobby might have saved Harry from horrible happenings at Hogwarts, but the way things were going, he'd probably starve to death anyway. The cat-flap rattled and Aunt petunia hand appeared, pushing a bowl of canned soup into the room. Harry, whose insides were aching with hunger, jumped off his bed and seized it" - CoS, paperback, p.22. One bowl of soup in THREE days is starving in my book and THAT is also canon. "....after last summer Harry had not forgotten what it felt like to be continuously hungry" - GoF, p.348. Pippin: Dumbledore did the best he could to > keep Harry alive -- I just don't understand why he should be sorry > for it. Sorry for what, for saving Harry from the most evil wizard > who ever existed? Sorry that he's not an all powerful fairy godfather? > Sorry that Petunia isn't a nicer person? Dumbledore isn't Petunia's > parent -- he's not responsible for the way she behaves. Alla: Not for trying to keep Harry alive, but for what Harry had to endure because Dumbledore made that choice. And in my book Dumbledore became responsible for how Petunia behaves the moment he entrusted a human being to her care. With the best intentions, yes, or at least I hope so, but the moment Dumbledore made that decision he is fully responsible IMO. Pippin: Just because Harry has legitimate > a reason to be angry at Petunia does not mean that he gets to pour > out every angry feeling he has on her. Alla: Erm... why is that? IMO it is Harry absolute right to pour out his very legitimate reasons to be angry at Petunia AND Kreacher. As I said even though Kreacher cannot be blamed for all that occurred, surely Kreacher is not a robot and responsible at least for his part? > Magpie: > I have to say, these explanations for DD's words remind me of nothing more > than the explanations of how Snape picks on Neville and Harry to make them > strong for their own good, and he's only really thinking of his duty and > what's best for them. I don't buy it. I prefer Dumbledore just being an > ass. (But then, I don't think it's a big change in HBP either--he seems > like the same guy there to me too.) > > I think both Dumbledore, like Snape, is showing his human weakness- -but real > weakness. Not being a little too tired to avoid a few faux pas as he makes > all the best decisions for Harry and tries to protect everyone, but > something a lot less flattering. Alla: Hehe. You are right and if Dumbledore does that for the reasons Pippin argues, I would say that he is being an absolute ass, just as I always say that Snape is an ass for treating Harry and Neville this way, you know. :) But that is why I would much prefer Dumbledore being too tired and upset and not making much sense and showing THAT kind of sense, because otherwise he IS shown in a very bad light indeed IMO. JMO, Alla From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 14:05:37 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 07:05:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: <38b.18b2782.317cd98f@aol.com> Message-ID: <20060423140537.311.qmail@web61312.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151322 Neil: In literature, a writer owes it to their readers to show why she has placed people together and why they belong with each other. Here, I feel is where JKR has failed. Joe: Well you certainly have the right to feel she failed though there are obviously lots of people who disagree. Neil: As the books proceeded, Rowling dropped clue after clue that Ron and Hermione would eventually be together. Those clues had many of us saying, 'but why?' They constantly fight and bicker and seem to have nothing in common other than Harry. Meanwhile she wrote Harry and Hermione as much more compatible. Joe: No offense but that seems like purely personal opinion. I can go back and find many instances where both Ron and Harry bicker with Hermione a great deal. Neil: Even after the greatest hint in GoF that they had feelings for each other, she went on to write OotP where they continue to fight. Even in HBP where we know R/Hr is going to happen, we keep asking ourselves why. Krum adored Hermione, even Neville thinks highly of her. Other than Draco, Ron seems the worst match for her in the book. The only really tender moment Ron and Hermione have ever shared is at the funeral. Joe: No, the only tender moment Harry's sees is at the funeral and there is the issue. We see only what Harry sees for the most part and I don't think any of us want to read a book that focuses on Ron and Hermiones relationship or lack there of. Not to mention we don't really know that Krum adored Hermione. We do know she was the thing he would miss the most. That could however have simply been because she didn't follow him around because he was a Quidditch player. While we are on the subject did anyone else think it was really creepy that she was the thing he would miss the most? Fluer ,who people like to discount as shallow, would miss her little sister the most. Harry would miss Ron the most which also makes sense. Krum though would miss a girl he barely knew. Not his family, not his friends back at Durmstrang, not any of his Quidditch teammates. That struck me as very creepy. Neil: In my opinion, it is too little too late. I feel she just went too far with the bickering. She just had to get one more laugh out of their fighting and in doing so she made their relationship seem so unbelievable. A writer has to do more than decide that two people will end up together. The writer must also convince her readers that the couple belong together. I think even R/Hr shippers will admit that Rowling did a poor job of this. If she hadn't, than every one would be a R/Hr shipper. How many readers wanted Juliet with someone other than Romeo? Joe: Speaking for my self I thought Romeo was a whiney little snot. I also don't think that a writer must convince their reader that a couple belong together. Let's be honest we could have had long scenes where Ron and Hermione(or any other pairing) have long tender scenes of undying devotion and people would still say the pairing was flawed. This is because shipping is based on emotion. People see something they indentify with in a pairing then they pick evidence from the books to support their belief and to pick apart other people's beliefs. Even if they have to misquote or distort the evidence. I think JKR is going to put R/Hr together but it isn't important to the books. The books are about the fight against Voldemort and everything else is secondary at best. Shipping is (IMHO) the very worst part of HP fandom. Joe From spirittalks at gmail.com Sun Apr 23 00:31:20 2006 From: spirittalks at gmail.com (Kim) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2006 20:31:20 -0400 Subject: The Dementor Solution References: Message-ID: <027001c6666d$3f39aa50$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> No: HPFGUIDX 151323 First Steve, thanks for the answer to the timing question. For some reason I wasn't equating the 24 hour period of Harry and Hagrid's journey as the same as the Sirius/Peter incident. I need to clean out some cobwebs in myself as well as the house during this spring cleaning bash I'm working on. About the Dementors... I loved your post about the destruction of evil. It also made me think of whether a dementor would "kiss" Voldemort. What would it gain? It wouldn't gain that happiness that it seems to feed on, I don't think. I'd imagine it would be like me eating a plain chunk of tofu. For me there's no flavor, no gain, in such an action so I wouldn't bother (or force myself). I wonder if the Dementors would have a similar distaste for something so purely evil when it may not nourish them. Dementors = Tofu. Yes, I can see it. Kim From kchuplis at alltel.net Sun Apr 23 16:25:43 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 11:25:43 -0500 Subject: Timelines Re: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5ED6EEB5-A3BB-40E4-A621-CB8F7BDECF84@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151324 On Apr 23, 2006, at 11:13 AM, dumbledore11214 wrote: > Alla: > > "Three days later, the Dursleys were showing no sign of relenting > and Harry couldn't see any way out of his situation. He lay out on > the bed watching the sun sinking behind the bars on the window and > wondered miserably what's going to happen to him. > ****** > Dobby might have saved Harry from horrible happenings at Hogwarts, > but the way things were going, he'd probably starve to death anyway. > The cat-flap rattled and Aunt petunia hand appeared, pushing a bowl > of canned soup into the room. Harry, whose insides were aching with > hunger, jumped off his bed and seized it" - CoS, paperback, p.22. > > One bowl of soup in THREE days is starving in my book and THAT is > also canon. > > > "....after last summer Harry had not forgotten what it felt like to > be continuously hungry" - GoF, p.348. kchuplis: Yeah, I think they were pretty much starving him but to me that passage does not say that was the first time in three days they had shoved food through the flap. To me it is ambiguous how often that had happened other than he wasn't getting enough food. Just needed to point that out. Things like this bother me. Like I don't believe that we have a fix that the Pettigrew/Sirius incident needed to happen in the first 24 hours after LV's attack. I still read nothing that tells us that *for certain*. I think it could have been up to a month later. It's as though the MoM, of course, tracked him down immediately. He's an unknown animagi. He didn't need the bike to track down Pettigrew. He knew him well, the bike would have drawn attention. The MoM, IMO, only found Black because he didn't leave the scene of a highly disastrous and well noted incident (by both muggles and WW), because, well, he was unhinged. I have been rereading and I just see no specific reason to believe it happened the same day. Lots of these things can be read more than one way. Maybe Harry got one or two cans of soup a day....he'd still be starving (I mean, that's like maybe 300 calories.) but it doesn't mean that was the first food in three days. Sirius gave his bike to Hagrid on the day of the murders saying he didn't need it anymore, but it doesn't mean he immediately found and confronted Pettigrew. From kchuplis at alltel.net Sun Apr 23 16:28:13 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 11:28:13 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: <20060423140537.311.qmail@web61312.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060423140537.311.qmail@web61312.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <783CD1B9-78D5-44E2-BA2B-98E0353C979E@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151325 On Apr 23, 2006, at 9:05 AM, Joe Goodwin wrote: > Joe: > No, the only tender moment Harry's sees is at the funeral and there > is the issue. We see only what Harry sees for the most part and I > don't think any of us want to read a book that focuses on Ron and > Hermiones relationship or lack there of. Not to mention we don't > really know that Krum adored Hermione. We do know she was the thing > he would miss the most. That could however have simply been because > she didn't follow him around because he was a Quidditch player. > While we are on the subject did anyone else think it was really > creepy that she was the thing he would miss the most? > > Fluer ,who people like to discount as shallow, would miss her > little sister the most. Harry would miss Ron the most which also > makes sense. Krum though would miss a girl he barely knew. Not his > family, not his friends back at Durmstrang, not any of his > Quidditch teammates. That struck me as very creepy. kchuplis: From what we saw of Durmstrang, I'm willing to be that Hermione was the first "real" girl Krum ever knew and who actually talked to him. Maybe she was the first person ever that saw him "sans" quidditch and that could have meant an awful lot to him, even if he wasn't "in love" with her. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 16:39:42 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 16:39:42 -0000 Subject: Timelines Re: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: <5ED6EEB5-A3BB-40E4-A621-CB8F7BDECF84@alltel.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151326 > > Alla: > > > One bowl of soup in THREE days is starving in my book and THAT is > > also canon. > > > > > > "....after last summer Harry had not forgotten what it felt like to > > be continuously hungry" - GoF, p.348. > > kchuplis: > > Yeah, I think they were pretty much starving him but to me that > passage does not say that was the first time in three days they had > shoved food through the flap. To me it is ambiguous how often that > had happened other than he wasn't getting enough food. Just needed to > point that out. > Lots of these things can be read more than one way. Maybe Harry got > one or two cans of soup a day....he'd still be starving (I mean, > that's like maybe 300 calories.) but it doesn't mean that was the > first food in three days. Alla: You know, I accept your correction in a sense that it could be read both ways and maybe it was not the first boul of soup, but maybe it was since in the part I snipped ( the quote) Harry tells Hedwig that this is all food they have ( paraphrase). In any event, what is the most important to me is that IMO it is clear from this quote that Harry was feeling very hungry, so hungry that he was afraid to die ( even if it is a mataphor on his behalf, I read it as starving). So, yes, I agree with you in a sense that timelines are often ambiguous, but I think we agree that this quote shows that Harry was starved whether it was first or second boul of soup in three days. JMO, Alla From Koinonia2 at hotmail.com Sun Apr 23 17:26:09 2006 From: Koinonia2 at hotmail.com (koinonia02) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 17:26:09 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151327 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Talisman" Message 151314 wrote: > Anyone who knows me from my old days here, or the other groups in > which I've participated, knows I am an unqualified Snape-lover. > For me, he is the absolute best thing in the series. "K": I agree. Talisman: > No, tis Snape who is already dead. He's not exactly gone, though. > There is little doubt that Book 7 will reveal him in all his dark > and posthumus glory. "K": The problem I have with Snape already being dead is due to comments made by JKR after the release of HBP (emphasis added). ---------- JKR: Well, okay, I'm obviously ? Harry-Snape is now as personal, if not more so, than Harry-Voldemort. I can't answer that question because it's a spoiler, isn't it, whatever I say, and obviously, it has such a huge impact on *** what will happen when they meet again *** that I can't. And let's face it, it's going to launch 10,000 theories and I'm going to get a big kick out of reading them so [laughs] I'm evil but I just like the theories, I love the theories. The Leaky Cauldron and MuggleNet Interview Part 1 2005 http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2005/0705-tlc_mugglenet- anelli-1.htm ---------- Talisman: > Certainly DD's death was a fake. The series explores and signals > the ruse of death in nearly every book. snip > Then there is the matter of impersonation. Again, it's everywhere > in the series, and I well expect it to play a continued role in the > plot. "K": While I agree with the fake death hints, I don't believe it's Snape who is dead. Especially after the JKR interview remarks. Talisman: > And, who knows, Switched!DD could well be a metamorphmagus. > Rowling has suggested we explore DD's lineage, but other than > Aberforth, we have no family to explore. > > We have, however, seen more of that Black family tree. There, along > with the evidence that everyone (not just purebloods) in the > Wizarding World seems to be related, we saw more of those > interesting *black spots.* > > It could be fun to have DD somewhere up in the tree that leads to > Tonks. He might be the spot next to Elladora, though I favor a > (cheerfully speculative) construct where his family members blend in > through marriage a step or two above Tonks. "K": My bet is on a link between Dumbledore and Gryffindor. As for the Black family/metamorphmagus angle, I surely see that making an appearance again, if it already hasn't happened. Talisman: > I also like the idea that this may not be the first time Snape and > Dumbledore have switched places. Dumbledore's line from GoF has > always intrigued me: > *[Snape] is now no more a Death Eater than I am* (591). snip > I initially thought that Switched!Snape was experiencing his >Godric's Hollow remorse in the potion scene. > But, on further reflection, I believe he is reliving the murder of > his family as a penalty for his failure or refusal, as a young DE, > do something the Dark Lord had ordered him to do. > This also satisfies the intra-book symmetry: he protects Draco from > what he then demonstrates he has suffered himself. > This view fits well with the words *Don't hurt them, don't hurt > them, please, please, it's my fault, hurt me instead...(572). > Indeed, if Snape is reliving what he said to Voldemort (say, as > Snape's parents were Crucio-ed to death to punish him for refusing > an order) the repeated pleas to *make it stop,* the mea culpas: >*It' s all my fault....I know I did wrong...I`ll never, never >again...,* all make sense. "K": It would seem possible for the above words to come from Snape. However, could not Dumbledore, the great giver of second chances, have a spotted past(now no more a DE quote)? I'm not saying Dumbledore was ever a DE, just saying it's possible at one time in his life he was not exactly clean and hence suffered in some way due to his own actions, as seen by his statements in the cave. zgirnius Message 151318 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151318 >However, I really find it hard to believe that the man in the Cave >was not Dumbledore. He's an important figure in the story with a >particular sort of relationship to Harry. And probably the single >most beautiful, moving moment in that relationship occurs during >the Cave sequence, when Dumbledore tells Hary, "I am not worried, >Harry, because I am with you." I just can't quite bring myself to >believe that Rowling would write this moment in for an impostor. (I >can imagine her writing some moving scene between Snape and Harry, >that's not a problem-but with >Snape as Snape, if you see what I >mean. At that point in the story the line as a line from SNAPE to >Harry, just does not have the same impact). "K": Once again I agree. I just can't see Snape telling Harry *I'm not worried, I'm with you* (A terribly corny scene, btw. Am I the only one who disliked this part?) The thing is, if you go back and read Chapter 28, Flight of the Prince, it's hard to picture the Snape in this chapter being anyone but Snape. The anger, the mention of James once again, the white-hot, whiplike hex(?)against Harry' face...all these are very much Snape-like. The acknowledgement that *he* is the HBP. Sort of takes away from such a climatic scene if this is truly Dumbledore, IMO. ---------- "I've got to find them and destroy them, and then I've got to go after the seventh bit of Voldemort's soul, the bit that's still in his body, and I'm the one who's going to kill him. ***And if I meet Severus Snape along the way," he added, "so much the better for me, so much the worse for him."*** (emphasis added) HBPpg 651 ---------- The above statment by Harry, combined with JKR's interview statement of *when they meet again*, has me pretty well convinced Snape is still alive. :-) "K" From annemehr at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 17:32:29 2006 From: annemehr at yahoo.com (annemehr) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 17:32:29 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151328 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Talisman" wrote: > Unfortunately, I had an epiphany at the end of January. I shared it > with family and friends, hoping to be talked out of it. I'm sorry, I'm not going to be much help talking you out of it. Maybe more the opposite. Because this is *working* for me. Talisman: > Then there is the matter of impersonation. Again, it's everywhere > in the series, and I well expect it to play a continued role in the > plot. > > This segues nicely into the imposter fears that are rampant in HBP, > and the Ministry's protocols (however inept) for distinguishing > family members from DEs who just happen to look like them. I came across this little tidbit just the other day: it's in HBP ch. 4 (61-62 US), after Harry asks DD about the Ministry leaflet -- "Yes, I received one myself," said Dumbledore, still smiling. "Did you find it useful?" "Not really." "No, I thought not. You have not asked me, for instance, what is my favorite flavor of jam, to check that I am indeed Professor Dumbledore and not an impostor." "I didn't..." Harry began, not entirely sure whether he was being reprimanded or not. "For future reference, Harry, it is raspberry... although of course, if I were a Death Eater, I would have been sure to research my own jam preferences before impersonating myself." *For future reference, it is raspberry...* That's for bk7, that is. And there's that nice irony, that DD and Molly both observe that a Death Eater will have ascertained these things -- as Talisman notes: > After Arthur forces Molly to go through the required question and > answer series, Molly indicates her impatience with it and retorts: > *I mean, a Death Eater might have forced the answer out of you > before impersonating you!* (87). It's a twist: DD will use the signal, not because he is not a DE disguised as DD, but because he is DD disguised as a DE. Talisman: > Rowling has intentionally underscored the feasibility of one wizard > impersonating another. > Whether by polyjuice, switching spells, simple transfiguration, or > metamorphing, clearly the details of *how* are the least of our > worries. Allow me to muse a little more on the various methods -- Clearly, if Switched!DD has been/will be passing as Snape to LV and the DEs, he needs a fuctional Dark Mark. Well, with polyjuice, transfiguration, and metamorphing, one will have had to be provided. No problem -- I'm sure DD and Snape were well up to it. And then, should DD want to reappear as himself, it's a very simple process to change back. A switching spell, if it means the two of them actually switch bodies, is simplest as far as the working Mark goes -- it's part of the package. The switching option has much deeper implications besides: It's a bit boggling to think that DD not only looks like Snape, but he is walking around in Snape's actual body. It also makes a definite echo or parallel with the theme of possession. In the Ministry of Magic, Voldemort possessed and tortured Harry's body and they dared/pleaded "Kill me now, Dumbledore..." "Let him kill us...End it, Dumbledore." On the tower, Snape inhabits -- by mutual consent -- DD's body, is tortured by Voldemort, and pleads. It's as if possession is a perversion of what Snape and DD have done. Now (still considering the switching spell), what of DD's body? Is it burned? Or is it saved somewhere for when DD actually wants it back? Here I'm very uncertain. I think a dead body is a dead body, and if DD's was truly AKed, then he can no longer inhabit it. But on the other hand, I believed that DD's "death" was faked before I ever saw any switched!DD theories -- and if I can believe the body that fell from the tower was not really killed then, I can still believe it now. Can I? I can't lay my finger on it, but something bothers me about that, whether Snape is living in DD's body now or actually dead (maybe it's a thematic consideration). So is DD stuck in Snape's body for life -- which could be expected to go for another forty, sixty, one hundred years, barring an untimely demise? Not that I think the untimely demise is at all unlikely or unforeseen... Talisman: > I initially thought that Switched!Snape was experiencing his Godric' > s Hollow remorse in the potion scene. > > But, on further reflection, I believe he is reliving the murder of > his family as a penalty for his failure or refusal, as a young DE, > do something the Dark Lord had ordered him to do. This is chilling. It would also be a very good candidate for at least part of the reason DD trusts Snape. And there could be more to it, because surely even LV wouldn't be short-sighted enough to turn Snape into a man with *nothing* (i.e., no one) left to lose. True, LV may merely assume Snape is as afraid of death as he is himself, but -- what if after this ordeal, LV threatened someone else to assure Snape's future compliance? Narcissa, perhaps? Or -- did he take a hostage? Someone we don't know of yet, or don't know that we know? Sorry to wander off the subject like that, but you start these ideas like hares that run in all directions... [And I'd like to take credit for that simile, but I think I read it somewhere once...] ----------------------------------------------------------- I see that zgirnius has posted, so I will add my response here: zgirnius: >>> However, I really find it hard to believe that the man in the Cave was not Dumbledore. He's an important figure in the story with a particular sort of relationship to Harry. And probably the single most beautiful, moving moment in that relationship occurs during the Cave sequence, when Dumbledore tells Hary, "I am not worried, Harry, because I am with you." I just can't quite bring myself to believe that Rowling would write this moment in for an impostor. (I can imagine her writing some moving scene between Snape and Harry, that's not a problem-but with Snape as Snape, if you see what I mean. At that point in the story the line as a line from SNAPE to Harry, just does not have the same impact). <<< Annemehr: I see what you mean. I had the same trouble with the "COWARD" moment at the end which you mention was not a problem for you. I found it very rewarding to let go of my own preferences for a while and just read the passages as if the switch were true. It took some time (the old assumptions just kept popping up), but eventually the other reading came into focus. The price I paid in losing DD's or Snape's utterances of certain lines is more than made up for the gains when said by the other. At the very *least,* I now have two very stimulating ways to read the book. :) Okay, now let's look at that scene in the cave. Well, okay. In Talisman's theory, Snape is an impostor -- but he's an impostor like Sydney Carton is an impostor, and it doesn't bother me. All will be revealed to the people most concerned in the end. "I am not worried, Harry, because I am with you" is *easier* for Dumbledore to say. Snape on the other hand has to overcome his emotions about Harry to utter it. And, mind, he could still have meant it. Whatever Snape feels about Harry, I am quite sure he agrees with DD that Harry must face LV in the end. And he does it out of faith in Dumbledore. I am reminded of when Harry's down in the Chamber facing Diary!Riddle and he asserts his loyalty to Dumbledore against all reasonable hope. This is Snape's trip to another chamber, and he's facing LV's green potion, and he puts his faith in Harry *through* his faith in DD. Furthermore, here Snape prefigures in a smaller way what Harry must eventually do for Snape: to acknowledge the other's part in the battle. (I think Snape most likely had come to terms with this to himself long ago, only he had never allowed Harry to see it, and it's still disguised here. Harry, on the other hand, still has no clue what Snape has done.) That's how it works for me, anyway. zgirnius: >>>And on the other end--why would Dumbledore make such a point of revealing to Harry that Snape was the Half-Blood Prince (as the man who looks like Snape does in "Flight of the Prince"?) The COWARD moment, I will grant you, works.<<< Annemehr: I think Harry needs to know, respect, and remember all that Snape has taught him. He will be using that book again, and Hermione at least will have many useful notes from Potions and DADA classes. It's the first lesson in who Snape really is. And anyway, I can't imagine Switched!DD could take hearing Harry hurl insults about Snape just then. zgirnius: >>>But the final reason I remain convinced that Snape was Snape and Dumbledore was Dumbledore in the climactic scene is that DADA curse. Under your scenario, Snape made a plan with Dumbledore, and it WORKED.<<< Annemehr: It all depends on exactly what the curse *is.* The most we know is that it causes DADA professors to only last one year. I'm not sure it means that DD and Snape, with eyes wide open, could not use the DADA position to form and execute a plan successfully during that year. Annemehr mildly surprised at having typed all this From sherriola at earthlink.net Sun Apr 23 17:52:26 2006 From: sherriola at earthlink.net (Sherry Gomes) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 10:52:26 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151329 Talisman wrote: Ah, fun theories about Slughorn or Pettigrew taking Dumbledore's place. I wish I could subscribe to them, but, let us face facts: there is only one surrogate with the mighty cahones required for the action of the cave and the tower, Severus Snape. Sherry now: Sorry to snip all the rest of the post, but I'm replying to the overall theory. I had a visceral *NO* reaction to this. For the same reasons I can't accept Snape murdering Dumbledore for some noble cause. It would make Dumbledore a murderer, and I simply cannot even contemplate the possibility. The supposed epitome of good in the series becoming a murderer is too horrible to consider. Also, in the end it would make Snape too much the hero, Dumbledore the ultimate baddie worse than Voldemort, and diminish Harry, who is the hero of the story. I was absolutely fascinated reading your theory, however. Wow! Sherry From rgcandelet at aol.com Sun Apr 23 18:20:34 2006 From: rgcandelet at aol.com (rach9112000) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 18:20:34 -0000 Subject: What if the GH House Was the Intended Horcrux? In-Reply-To: <01b201c665b0$841620d0$6501a8c0@MITRE.ORG> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151330 Rebecca wrote: > In the first book, Hagrid makes a statement to Dumbledore that I have wondered about: > > "No, sir -- house was almost destroyed, (Snip)> Could the GH house itself have been Godric Gryffindor's actual home at one time? Couldn't the house have been the intended Horcrux and subsequently failed to keep that fragment of LV's soul inside? Wouldn't it be like Lord Voldemort to covet it if he knew it were Godric Gryffindor's ancestral home? And wouldn't it be like JKR to put a major Horcrux in plain sight? Rachel: I think this is a really good idea. There are not many items that JKR has referred to which can have belonged to Godric Gryffindor. Godric's Hollow would be something that JKR would have Voldemort use as the horcrux because it's not as obvious as Godric Gryffindor's sword, but it's still a clue which she has laid out for us to pick up in the books. Rachel. From yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com Sun Apr 23 16:40:05 2006 From: yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com (stevemac) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 11:40:05 -0500 Subject: Timing Question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <701101FF-E92A-43A1-B0EB-C25CFD43554E@stevenmcintosh.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151331 > bboyminn: > > This is referred to as the infamous 'Missing 24 Hours'. Indeed your > assessment is correct, near midnight on the evening of Oct 31, the > Potters were attacked. Near midnight on the evening of Nov 1, Harry > was delivered to the Dursley. Sometime on the day of Nov 1 (or > possibly Nov 2) Sirius and Peter had their confrontation, and Sirius > was arrested. > > So, the first implication is that Harry falling asleep over Bristol on > his way to Privet Drive is not necessarily an indication of the > location of Godric's Hollow. It is an indication of the location > Hargid was staying at before coming to Privet Drive. It could be > Southern Wales, Southern Ireland, Cornwall, Devon, or Somerset. Flying > from all those places using landmarks as guides would involve flying > near (not over, but near) Bristol. > > And indeed where Hagrid was is the BIG QUESTION. Somewhere in the > early hours of the morning of Nov 1, Hargid spoke to McGonagall. Where > could McGonagall and Hagrid have run into each other? Hogwarts is 500 > miles way, presumably. So, I don't see Hargid going to Hogwarts. stevemac: If it was Halloween Night 1981, it would have been a Saturday, and Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Hagrid would have had responsibilities at the school (what with the feast and all). There are several holes to be dealt with, but I would imagine that DD, as usual, would have been the first, and possibly the only, one to leave or be summoned because of the event at Godric's Hollow. Later, he would have called upon the services of McGonagall and Hagrid (who, both being at the school) would probably have come to the OotP base or some other meeting point. At which point, would have been given orders... McGonagall to watch the Dursleys, and Hagrid to fetch Harry (from where?). This is when Hagrid might have received Sirius' motorcycle, and when Sirius might have gone looking for Pettigrew (or the unnamed mole if he did not know it was Pettigrew), probably not by order, but distraught and looking for revenge. From HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com Sun Apr 23 18:59:25 2006 From: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com (HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com) Date: 23 Apr 2006 18:59:25 -0000 Subject: Weekly Chat, 4/23/2006, 1:00 pm Message-ID: <1145818765.23.76831.m34@yahoogroups.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151332 Reminder from the Calendar of HPforGrownups http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/cal Weekly Chat Sunday April 23, 2006 1:00 pm - 1:00 pm (This event repeats every week.) Notes: Don't forget, chat happens today, 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern, 7 pm UK time. Chat times do not change for Daylight Saving/Summer Time. Chat generally goes on for about 5 hours, but can last as long as people want it to last. To get into Chat, just go to the group online: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups and click on "Chat" in the lefthand menu. If you have problems with this, go to http://www.yahoo.com and in the bottom box on the left side of the page click on "Chat". Once you're logged into any room, type /join *g.HPforGrownups ; this should take you right in. If you have an Set up birthday reminders! http://us.rd.yahoo.com/cal_us/rem/?http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/cal?v=9&evt_type=13 Copyright 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.yahoo.com Privacy Policy: http://privacy.yahoo.com/ Terms of Service: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ejblack at rogers.com Sun Apr 23 19:45:48 2006 From: ejblack at rogers.com (Jeanette) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 19:45:48 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151333 I think the orignal post was brilliantly thought out and have enjoyed the answering posts. The case for switched DD/SS is compelling but I do have a problem. I thought the AK curse not only had to be said, but truly meant with the deepest, darkest urge to kill. It is hard to see DD saying that curse with murderous hatred to kill Snape who he trusts, and if indeed it all has been planned, who is laying down his life to save the whole wizarding world. Jeanette From steven1965aaa at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 19:56:39 2006 From: steven1965aaa at yahoo.com (steven1965aaa) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 19:56:39 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151334 > Talisman wrote: > > Ah, fun theories about Slughorn or Pettigrew taking Dumbledore's place. I wish I could subscribe to them, but, let us face facts: > there is only one surrogate with the mighty cahones required for the action of the cave and the tower, Severus Snape. Steven1965aaa: I really like this theory, a lot of cool and very interesting thoughts. I don't believe it, though. For starters, too many problems (the portrait, Fawkes' lament, can't imagine DD as Snape attacking Harry w/that slashing spell at the end, etc.) And what I really don't get is the "why" of it --- why do it? How would it help defeat LV? Would having disguised DD with the Death Eaters be much better than having DDM Snape embedded w/ the Death Eaters? From dontask2much at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 20:21:32 2006 From: dontask2much at yahoo.com (rebecca) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 16:21:32 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix References: Message-ID: <026301c66713$83c3e1d0$6501a8c0@MITRE.ORG> No: HPFGUIDX 151335 > Talisman wrote: > > Ah, fun theories about Slughorn or Pettigrew taking Dumbledore's place. I > wish I could subscribe to them, but, let us face facts: > there is only one surrogate with the mighty cahones required for the > action > of the cave and the tower, Severus Snape. > > > > Sherry now: > > Sorry to snip all the rest of the post, but I'm replying to the overall > theory. I had a visceral *NO* reaction to this. For the same reasons I > can't accept Snape murdering Dumbledore for some noble cause. It would > make > Dumbledore a murderer, and I simply cannot even contemplate the > possibility. > The supposed epitome of good in the series becoming a murderer is too > horrible to consider. Also, in the end it would make Snape too much the > hero, Dumbledore the ultimate baddie worse than Voldemort, and diminish > Harry, who is the hero of the story. I was absolutely fascinated reading > your theory, however. Wow! > Rebecca: There is a decription on the Tower that has always (like everything else Snape) had me wondering, specifically this snippet: "But someone else had spoken Snape's name, quite softly. 'Severus .' The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading. Snape said nothing, but walked forwards and pushed Malfoy roughly out of the way. **The three Death Eaters fell back without a word. Even the werewolf seemed cowed.**" My question is who is Snape in the LV Death Eater World that other DE's would either respect or fear him? And why would the werewolf be "cowed"? Rebecca From miles at martinbraeutigam.de Sun Apr 23 20:36:03 2006 From: miles at martinbraeutigam.de (Miles) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 22:36:03 +0200 Subject: Weekly Chat, 4/23/2006, 1:00 pm References: <1145818765.23.76831.m34@yahoogroups.com> Message-ID: <00e001c66715$8b82b110$14b2a8c0@rechnerchen> No: HPFGUIDX 151336 There is no Java Chat available at the group homepage anymore. Please use the Yahoo Messenger or YahElite http://www.yahelite.org/ - I recommend the latter - to join the Chat. The exact name of the room is *g.HPforGrownups Miles From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 20:39:32 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 20:39:32 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151337 > Sherry now: > > Sorry to snip all the rest of the post, but I'm replying to the overall > theory. I had a visceral *NO* reaction to this. For the same reasons I > can't accept Snape murdering Dumbledore for some noble cause. It would make > Dumbledore a murderer, and I simply cannot even contemplate the possibility. > The supposed epitome of good in the series becoming a murderer is too > horrible to consider. Also, in the end it would make Snape too much the > hero, Dumbledore the ultimate baddie worse than Voldemort, and diminish > Harry, who is the hero of the story. I was absolutely fascinated reading > your theory, however. Wow! zgirnius: I could be wrong, of course, because I do not subscribe to the view that DDM!Snape is a murderer...but I think Talisman's theory puts an interesting twist in the scenario. Because if Unbreakable Vows are truly Unbreakable, and act quickly once broken, Snape (who looks like Dumbledore) is about to die anyway, at any moment, when Dumbledore (who looks like Snape) shows up. And Dumbledore knows this. (There's no way they would have cooked up this plan between them if Dumbledore did not know ALL about Snape's Unbreakable Vow, right?) The ONLY way Dumbledore could actually save Snape at this moment would be to have himself killed (by either Snape or Draco). SO I really don't see how this makes Dumbledore a murderer. In the DDM!Snape scenario where it is Snape who kills Dumbledore, there are all these doubts that can be thrown up against defenses of Snape: The potion-maybe Slughorn could have made an antidote, it didn;pt have to be Snape. The other death eaters-maybe Snape could have killed or disabled enough of them to save Dumbledore. But there REALLY is no way out of Snape dying by Unbreakable Vow alomst imeediately, if Snape does not kill Dumbledore. From sherriola at earthlink.net Sun Apr 23 21:13:56 2006 From: sherriola at earthlink.net (Sherry Gomes) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 14:13:56 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151338 zgirnius: I could be wrong, of course, because I do not subscribe to the view that DDM!Snape is a murderer...but I think Talisman's theory puts an interesting twist in the scenario. Because if Unbreakable Vows are truly Unbreakable, and act quickly once broken, Snape (who looks like Dumbledore) is about to die anyway, at any moment, when Dumbledore (who looks like Snape) shows up. And Dumbledore knows this. (There's no way they would have cooked up this plan between them if Dumbledore did not know ALL about Snape's Unbreakable Vow, right?) The ONLY way Dumbledore could actually save Snape at this moment would be to have himself killed (by either Snape or Draco). SO I really don't see how this makes Dumbledore a murderer. But there REALLY is no way out of Snape dying by Unbreakable Vow alomst imeediately, if Snape does not kill Dumbledore. Sherry: I don't consider that an excuse to commit murder. Snape knew what an unbreakable vow was, but he still took it. When the time came, he could have died, rather than kill the one person we know who absolutely had full confidence in him. Yeah, I know, then the death eaters, and the werewolf ... but I don't believe Dumbledore couldn't have done something. Of course, that isn't how it happened, so we will never know what Dumbledore could have done. But then, neither do we have proof that Dumbledore, Harry, Draco and countless others would have died if Snape hadn't killed Dumbledore. Sherry From bboyminn at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 21:33:09 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 21:33:09 -0000 Subject: The Dementor Solution In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151339 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tonks" wrote: > > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" wrote: > > > > On the other hand, ..., if the soul lives on in a kind of > > Dementor Purgatory, trapped inside the Dementor while the > > Dementor feeds on the emotions of the soul. That works > > better, because Voldemorts eternal soul would be trapped > > inside the Dementor. ... > > > >(Snip) > > This would be a way for Harry to destroy Voldemort without > > having to become a killer himself. Further, ..., Voldemort > > gets his wish, he will now live earth-bound forever, but > > sadly he will do so not with freewill and free volition, ... > > > (Snipped rest of very thought provoking post) > > Tonks: > Before we can ponder how LV will be destroyed I think that we must > first determine his essence. Is he a mortal who has prolonged his > earthly existence, but still has an eternal soul? bboyminn: I think first we must evaluate the Dementors as potential weapons in the theoretical destruction of Voldemort. If we don't understand their nature and what happens to the souls they ingest, then we can't begin to understand their effectiveness against Voldemort. But I agree, what generally happens to souls ingested by Dementor, doesn't necessarily apply to Voldemort, but it's a starting point. For the record, I think Voldemort now has a mortal body, and an immortal soul, just like any other, that is also protected in a way that keeps his soul earth-bound in the event of his physical death. Other than the efforts to keep his soul earth-bound, I don't see Voldemort as being any different than any other person on earth. He can die; he can be killed, just not as easily as other mortals. In a sense, it is not death that Voldemort fears, it is what comes after death. In Dumbledore's words, Voldemort fears 'the next great adventure'. He is so attached to his /known/ earthly life that he can bear the thought of the next great /unknown/ adventure. He does not control that next adventure, and he fears what he can not control; typical tyrannt and evil overlord. I believe that Voldemort's soul is a soul like any other with the exception that he keeps his in several pieces in several places. I don't think that prevents the Dementors from removing his soul from his current mortal body. Though exactly what happens next is a little unclear. If the core soul /piece/ is destroyed by the Dementor, then my personal opinion is that that will happen independant of the remote soul piece. In a sense, that make the remote piece orphaned spiritual essense. If that were to happen, then I assume that the orphaned spiritual essense, lacking a core soul, would simply move on to the spiritual realm. If the core soul piece continues to exist, then I personally believe it is trapped in the Dementor; permanently trapped. Now that last scenario raises further questions about Dementors; do they live, do they die? Enquiring minds want to know. JKR in a sense implied that Dementors live, but that they aren't necessarily alive. That is, in the truest sense they are not born of parents, they grow like mold in the decay, destruction, and desperation of life. They, I suspect, are being of form and essense, but without souls. It is this lacking of an independant soul that makes me say that they live, but are not alive. Since they are form and essense, since they are not truly born, they can not die but I conceive that they can be destroyed, though I don't see it as an easy task. Note Lupins words to Harry, that since a Dementor is not truly alive, it can't be killed. If the Dementor who ate Voldemort's now destroyed soul were destroyed, I don't think it would matter, Voldemort would be completely gone. On the other hand, if the Dementor who ate Voldemort still remaining trapped core soul were destroyed, then it gets a bit sticky. My instinct tells me, if the Dementor is destroyed then Voldemort's soul is also destroyed, but I admit that is likely a great deal of wishful thinking. Still, the actual destruction of a Dementor seems EXTREMELY difficult. It would be very rare and very unlikely circumstances that would allow Voldemort to escape his Dementor Prison. Even if Voldemort did escape upon the destruction of the Dementor, where would he go, what would he do? I suspect a great deal of time would have passed, all his followers would be dead. He would be a footnote in history. I don't think in his bodiless form he would have much power to compell people to do his bidding. He would simply be a ghostly specter who roamed the dark forests. A fairytale to scare little children. > Tonks: > > Is LV the only evil? Is he evil or Evil? If he is the > personification of Ultimate Evil, does he have an end? Can Evil > have an end? I think we must first determine this before we can > discuss the possibility of the dementor's kiss. > bboyminn: Voldemort is one manifestation of evil. While Voldemort exist, evil is occurring in other parts of the world that have nothing to do with him, so he is not the /only evil/, simply one manifestion of the nature of evil. Is he evil or Evil? In some sense I think he is both. He is an evil man, but he also is a reflection of the greater evil the exists on earth. He is that classic 'evil overlord'. He has classic /tyrannt/ philosophy, he spouts classic doctrine that plays on people desired beliefs, he raise his follower up by pushing other people down, that is he doesn't attempt to prove his own superiority but the inferiority of others, he is in every way, every tyrannt, oppressor, and dictator who ever lived. He is Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Sadam Hussin, and Hitler who are all in turn a reflection of the evil that is spawned by those who place power and wealth above all things. In this sense, Voldemort is a reflection of the eternal evil that plagues the earth, but wouldn't say he IS that evil, only that he is a reflection of that evil. Nor would I say that Harry IS the eternal good on earth, he is merely a reflection of the good. > Tonks: > > I don't think it is as easy as saying that a Dementor can just suck > LV's soul until we know the essence of both. It would seem to me > that LV is more powerful that even a group of Dementor's and that > perhaps Dementor's have their existance because of his. But I have > not thought this through completely. > > Any ideas folks? > > Tonks_op bboyminn: Interesting point, and this whole idea is admittedly complicated. Though I do agree, that we must no the nature of both Voldemort and the Dementors to determine if the Dementors are a potential weapon against Voldemort. We can assume that the Dementors follow Voldemort because he will let them run free through society feeding off of emotions on the condition that they leave Voldemort and his DE's alone. Whereas, the Ministry felt compelled to keep the Dementors contained at Azkaban. Could perhaps the obviously cruel and unusual punishment of sending prisoner to the Dementors for minor crimes be part of the Ministry's effort to keep the Dementors under control? In a sense, sacrificing their own citizens to keep the Dementors from preying on the world at large? The next question was raise by another responder in this thread. Would Voldemort have an appealing soul? Would it be a soul that would draw Dementors to it? Again, this comes down to the confusing nature of Dementors. Do Dementors strip away good feelings so they can feed on the perpetually remaining bad feelings, or is it actually the good feelings they feed on, or is it both? Think carefully about what you read in the books before you attempt to answer that. The books seem to imply that they feed on good feelings, but there is plenty of evidence to say it is the bad feelings that sustain them. Or perhaps, they strip of the good feeling to keep their victims helpless, thereby allowing them to sustain themselves of the resulting bad feelings. I think we can all agree that the Dementor, while their basic nature is clear, the details of who and what they are, their nature and how they function, is very unclear. I think it is in that unclear aspect of their nature that we will be able to determine their potential as a weapon in the final book. Not sure what it adds up to other than a whole lot of speculation, but there it is. Steve/bboyminn From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Sun Apr 23 21:48:14 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 17:48:14 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] "Go get your invisibility cloak" In-Reply-To: <019001c664e4$3e4f18d0$6401a8c0@Kernputer> Message-ID: <20060423214814.23010.qmail@web37013.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151340 Peggy Kern wrote: So why would Dumbledore ask Harry to go get something he'd already been told to keep with him, and which he apparently had with him anyway? Was there something else going on behind the scenes, or in Dumbledore's mind, that we don't know about? Catherine now: I had thought he told him to go get the cloak as an excuse to give Harry the time to talk to Ron and Hermione. But now, after reading all the wonderful theories of switching places, maybe this would be a time when the switch would happen. Between Harry leaving DD's office and meeting up with him at the entrance would give DD and the switchee ample time without Harry to make the switch.... Catherine (not knowing what to think about all the theories, but I do think that Draught of the Living Dead will come up in Book 7 in a very important way....) --------------------------------- Enrich your life at Yahoo! Canada Finance [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 21:52:21 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 21:52:21 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151341 > >>Alla: > > Maybe Dumbledore IS upset, what I don't see is self-doubting > Dumbledore, Dumbledore who is not sure again whether he does a > right thing, etc. What I do get out of this speech is Dumbledore > indeed being JKR's mouthpiece and doing the explanation of the > plot points, one by one. Betsy Hp: I think that it's very in character for an upset Dumbledore to fall back into speaking a bit pendantically. Hence his rather long build up to the prophecy reveal, where he walks Harry through his mistake like it's a lesson of some sort. (Do you see my mistake, Harry? Do you see the lesson in this?) Because Dumbledore is trying to *not* express his emotions here. And that's for Harry's sake. To indulge in a fit of apologizing or agonizing over past mistakes made would be considered very selfish behavior by Dumbledore, I'd think. So he escapes into "professor" mode. And actually, Harry expresses his need for Dumbledore to remain unemotional and distant in this passage here: "Dumbledore closed his eyes and buried his face in his long-fingered hands. Harry watched him, but this uncharacteristic sign of exhaustion, or sadness, or whatever is was from Dumbledore, did not soften him. On the contrary, he felt even angrier that Dumbledore was showing signs of weakness. He had no business being weak when Harry wanted to rage and storm at him." (OotP scholastic hardback p.834) > >>Alla: > I mean, if we were to argue that while in general Dumbledore was > right that it is necessary to tell the truth to Harry (and I > agree with it), his mood prevented him from stopping himself and > NOT to talk that way about Sirius (like what Kreacher did was > Sirius fault, and that basically it is Sirius fault that he died - > of course that is just the impression I got), I will buy it. Betsy Hp: It's beyond a "mood" in my opinion. I feel like you're mistaking Dumbledore for a disinterested party here. That he's attending the funeral of a person he barely knew, speaking to the deceased's son. But Dumbledore is not disinterested. He's had quite a past with Sirius, who was not only a student under his care, but also an Order member, *and* someone he misjudged so badly that he left him rotting in Azkaban for over a decade. Sirius and Dumbledore have a past. Dumbledore is dealing with his *own* grief here. And while he's loving enough to try and keep it from Harry, his own pain does come out. That's what brought up the Kreacher bit, IMO. He's the parent, sitting in the emergency room at the hospital, trying to get a handle on the reason his child has died and falling into the "if only he'd listened!" speech. An example: The son of a friend of mine got into a car accident. It was quite minor (at least for the boy, the car was totalled) and he walked away with only a hurt wrist. But my friend kept going over and over the fact that he'd taken a road she'd told him not to take. Even though the reason she'd forbidden that particular road was the amount of traffic and the accident occured because he'd taken a curve too fast, she kept going back to him ignoring her order and taking the road in the first place. I think Dumbledore is going through a similar experience. Only in his case, the boy died. Would Sirius following Dumbledore's advice and treating Kreacher well have changed the ending of OotP? I doubt it. Kreacher had been twisted by Mrs. Black many years ago. But this is something Dumbledore can cling to. Of course it's not helpful to Harry. And I doubt Dumbledore would have spoken about it to him except that Harry starts to set Kreacher up as a scapegoat. It was important, I think, that Dumbledore keep Harry from fixating on Kreacher. But once that door was opened, Dumbledore was human enough, hurt enough, to express the "if only he'd listened!" stuff. > >>Alla: > I will buy it that Dumbledore being 150 old man had no clue how to > talk to grieving teenager, that he forgot the pain of loosing the > loved ones and only just recently experienced the scare of loosing > Harry and that is why he was not quite himself... Betsy Hp: Again, I don't think the problem was Dumbledore being too disconnected. Dumbledore was too *connected*. Not only does he remember the pain of losing loved ones, he's in the middle of feeling that pain himself. But he's trying his damndest to hide that pain from Harry. Because Harry doesn't need or want a weak and grieving Dumbledore at the moment. > >>Amiable Dorsai: > I liked the scene quite a bit, I thought it showed us a new side of > Dumbledore--one I found quite believable. > Up until this moment, we've seen a Dumbledore who was on top of his > game--even when confronted by Fudge and Umbridge in his ofice, he > was in command of himself and the situation. In the scene with > Harry at the end of OotP, I think we're seeing something else > entirely. we're seeing a man whose good intentions have just blown > up in his face, a man who is feeling every one of his 150 years. > Betsy Hp: I love the juxtaposition of those two scenes. The confrontation scene showed Dumbledore at his finest, analytical and adaptable. While this scene showed Dumbledore at his lowest (and still responding to it analytically, interestingly enough). OotP is the book that shows Harry really acheiving adulthood. It's what sets him up to truly learn from Dumbledore in HBP. And I think one of the most painful moments in the path from childhood to adulthood is the realization that those elders around you are just winging it. That there isn't some sort of secret key to everything that you get at reaching your majority. Only by Harry and Dumbledore having this scene together is it possible for the "I'm not worried, I'm with you" scene in HBP, in my opinion. If Dumbledore had said something of that sort to Harry in OotP, Harry would probably be scared of the responsibility being foisted on him by such a statement, and angry that Dumbledore was suddenly dumping it all on him. > >>BetsyHP: > > But this does raise a question for me, especially for those who > > disliked the scene: Did Dumbledore seem out of character here? > >>Magpie: > Not to me. He seemed perfectly in character and very human, but > this is the bad aspect of Dumbledore's character coming through in > technicolor. Betsy Hp: Good! Because one thing I disagree with is that the scene itself was badly written: that JKR sort of twisted the character of Dumbledore to make plot points. Rather, I think it tells us a lot about Dumbledore's character, and can be used to explain what you like about the character or dislike about him. (Honestly, I've gotten to the point of cringing whenever JKR discusses one of her characters in interviews. I think it ties the reader's hands when she calls Dumbledore "the epitome of goodness" rather than providing insight. Just as I think I'd have had a better chance of getting a handle on Ginny's character if JKR hadn't come out and proclaimed her "Harry's perfect girlfriend" or words to that effect. It's the paragon problem, again.) > >>Amiable Dorsai: > > > > The tragedy of Dumbledore, as I see it, was that he couldn't > > bring himself to be enough of a bastard. > > > >>Joe: > Sorry but I think it would have been an unmitigated disaster to > tell a eleven year old boy who only just found out about the > magical world that he had to save it by killing one of the most > powerful wizards on the planet. > Betsy Hp: I think Dumbledore realized he should have followed the same rule of thumb that I've heard applied to the question of when to talk to your kids about the birds and the bees: When they start asking questions. Harry asked about his connection to Voldemort at the end of PS/SS, and I think Dumbledore in OotP realizes that he probably should have answered Harry's question at that time. Betsy Hp (forgive me for the really, really, really long post ) From bawilson at citynet.net Sun Apr 23 21:52:08 2006 From: bawilson at citynet.net (Bruce Alan Wilson) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 17:52:08 -0400 Subject: Killed vs. Defeated Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151342 "Amiable Dorsai: Unless, of course, the leader of the Order of The Phoenix and the man who killed Grindelwald is more impressed by a kid who tries to stop the theft of the Philosopher's Stone, who charges into the Chamber of Secrets to rescue his sister knowing that there's a Basilisk waiting for him, and who, unarmed, stands up on a broken leg to defy a mass-murderer, than he is by students who quietly keep their noses clean." Where does it say that DD killed Grindlewald? We know that he 'defeated' him, but that doesn't mean the same thing at all. BAW From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 22:24:50 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 22:24:50 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151343 > zgirnius: > Because if Unbreakable Vows are truly Unbreakable, and act quickly once > broken, Snape (who looks like Dumbledore) is about to die anyway, at any > moment, when Dumbledore (who looks like Snape) shows up. And Dumbledore > knows this. (There's no way they would have cooked up this plan between them > if Dumbledore did not know ALL about Snape's Unbreakable Vow, right?) The > ONLY way Dumbledore could actually save Snape at this moment would be to > have himself killed (by either Snape or Draco). SO I really don't see how > this makes Dumbledore a murderer. > > But there REALLY is no way out of Snape dying by Unbreakable Vow alomst > imeediately, if Snape does not kill Dumbledore. > > > Sherry: > > I don't consider that an excuse to commit murder. Snape knew what an > unbreakable vow was, but he still took it. When the time came, he could > have died, rather than kill the one person we know who absolutely had full > confidence in him. Yeah, I know, then the death eaters, and the werewolf > ... but I don't believe Dumbledore couldn't have done something. Of course, > that isn't how it happened, so we will never know what Dumbledore could have > done. But then, neither do we have proof that Dumbledore, Harry, Draco and > countless others would have died if Snape hadn't killed Dumbledore. > > Sherry zgirnius: The stuff you kept from my post, and seem to be arguing against, is a defense of *Dumbledore* under the assumptions of Talisman's theory. NOT a defense of Snape, assuming HE killed Dumbledore. (Snape needs no defense, under Talisman's theory). I'm saying that (regardless of what you believe about the more usual Snape killed Dumbledore theory we've all discussed to death) under Talisman's theory, Snape is acting as you would have him act, by impersonating Dumbledore and dying in his place. But because of this decision of Snape's, Dumbledore is in a different position when HE kills Snape than Snape would be, killing Dumbledore. Snape's decision to die rather than kill Dumbledore in my view rather clears Dumbledore of murder. Because HOW can Dumbledore save Snape from the Unbreakable Vow? He knows very well that the only way Snape might live is if he (Snape) suddenly kills Dumbledore, or Draco does. Neither of which is going to happen, because in Talisman's theory Snape has made his choice and he's planning to die. While Draco certainly harbors no thoughts of killing (the real) Dumbledore, because he thinks it is Snape. The Unbreakable Vow makes it a certainty along the lines of a logical or mathematical proof that Snape is about to die. (Unlike, as you point out, the arguments I and others have made elsewhere defending Snape, which are more probabilistic in nature.) If the Avada Kedavra bothers you, the theory easily modifies to "Dumbledore lifts Snape off the Tower with a nonverbal spell and a green flash of light, and then Snape dies shortly thereafter for breaking his Vow." Though, given Talisman's further elaborations on the green potion and the murders of Snape's family, I'd consider the straight Avada Kedavra the more merciful act. Which is not to say you have to believe the theory (goodness knows, *I* don't). I just do think Dumbledore's killing of Snape (as Talisman suggests happened) is different in an important way from Snape's killing Dumbledore, precisely because, as you say, it is Snape who took the Unbreakable Vow. From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 22:26:28 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 22:26:28 -0000 Subject: ...Erised DD.... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151344 > >>Pippin wrote in > : > > << But what makes it obvious that we're supposed to take Harry's > line? [that Dumbledore knew what was going on and let Harry have > his chance [to rescue the Stone], and this is a good thing,] >> > >>Catlady: > That the obstacles were so easy that three first-years could get > through them. Many listies have said it seems unlikely that the > greatest wizard alive and five more professors's best efforts to > block Voldemort are obstacles that *children* can get through. And > that DD made sure that Harry found out in advance how the Mirror of > Erised works. Betsy Hp: But the obstacles *weren't* that easy. Harry and Ron nearly died at the very start when they hit the Devil's Snare. And even Hermione completely lost her head at that moment. Ron very nearly died when he sacrificed himself on the chess board. Remember, the Queen struck him in the head. And any decent chess player knows that a win generally requires a sacrifice of some sort. And at the end, Harry not only very nearly died, his very presence combined with his knowledge of the Mirror of Erised, very nearly put the Stone into Voldemort's hands. What the obstacles did strike me as was a very neat trap for a very clever wizard. Difficult enough to provide a modicum of effort (especially since there were different skill sets involved) but not so difficult as to require extra help or to cause the wizard to give up. Until, that is, the wizard reached the Mirror. Just like trapping a raccoon, actually. (At least according to folk lore.) Where you put something shiny in a large object with a narrow opening. The raccoon can reach into the opening with an opened hand, but once he grasps the object within, his closed fist won't fit back out. The only way the raccoon can escape is to let the object go. The idea is that the raccon is incapable of letting go and is thereby trapped. I think that was Dumbldore's plan all along. Which is why he was so open about where the Stone was hidden and why he involved so many people, including the not so good at keeping secrets, Hagrid. (Plus the already under suspicion, Quirrell.) I think Harry really did just stumble across the Mirror. It wasn't until after he and Ron discussed the Mirror at dinner with the staff (when Harry was already loosing sleep and probably looking like it) that Dumbledore intervened. I really, really have a hard time accepting the gauntlet as Dumbledore "testing" Harry. Though it comes across as logical in the first book, the rest of the series doesn't bare that sort of behavior out, IMO. Actually, I think Dumbledore *did* test Harry in PS/SS, but it was the slightly less exciting Norton adventure that he used. It was a perfect way to see how Harry handled a friend in trouble. I doubt McGonagall was supposed to get involved. But I can see Dumbledore deciding against interfering even after the massive amount of points taken ended in such a painful drop in popularity. It's a bit of a bastard move, but a heck of a lot less of a bastard move than nearly killing three first years. And it explains the giddy point giving that occurs at the closing feast. IMO, anyway. Betsy Hp From BrwNeil at aol.com Sun Apr 23 22:36:43 2006 From: BrwNeil at aol.com (BrwNeil at aol.com) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 18:36:43 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] "Go get your invisibility cloak" Message-ID: <3bf.112e69b.317d5b7b@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151345 In a message dated 4/23/2006 5:49:15 PM Eastern Standard Time, saberbunny at yahoo.ca writes: Catherine now: I had thought he told him to go get the cloak as an excuse to give Harry the time to talk to Ron and Hermione. But now, after reading all the wonderful theories of switching places, maybe this would be a time when the switch would happen. Between Harry leaving DD's office and meeting up with him at the entrance would give DD and the switchee ample time without Harry to make the switch.... I've always thought that the reason was more of the author's need than anything else. JKR had Dumbledore request Harry carry the cloak at all times for only one reason, she needed Harry to be able to use it without running back to the dormroom. EX. He could hardly leave the party, run get the cloak and still hear Snape and Malfoy's conversation. Funny how Harry carried that cloak with him all the time except the night he was leaving with Dumbledore. But JKR had to give Harry an excuse to talk to Ron and Hermione and so she just decided to have him forget the cloak that one time. I wouldn't write anything special into it. The cloak was forgotten simply because this time JKR needed Harry to return to the dorm. Having or not having the cloak was in my opinion just a tool of convenience for the author Neil [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Sun Apr 23 19:10:39 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 15:10:39 -0400 Subject: Prefect Ron /a bit of SHIP Ron/Hermione In-Reply-To: <444ABD9C.8020403@btopenworld.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151346 Irene: >My biggest problem with this relationship is exactly that, the lack of >respect. Ron does not care at all for the things that are important to >Hermione, namely learning and books. He keeps making fun of it at every >opportunity. He keeps disparaging her interest all the time, and keeps >trying to change her. "Hermione, you would be such fun if you only >changed the core of your personality". That's the vibe I get off Ron all >the time. The fact that Hermione has learned after 6 years just to shrug >it off does not make it any better. Rachel Here: Having been in elementary/highschool only a few years ago, I recall that if a boy likes a girl the best way to flirt with her (or so they thought) was to harass her at every waking moment. Ron's immaturity, especially socially, has been discussed many times and is quite a factor when examining his relationship with Hermione. I think that it is actually her intelligence that attracts Ron to her, and hence is the aspect that Ron focuses on. Although Ron is my favorite character, I believe he has a lot of growing up to do in book 7 -- emotionally, physically, and mentally. IMO, Ron will be tested to his limits in this final book and I believe he will grow quite alot by the end. Now that Hermione and Ron are a 'thing', I hope that Ron will treat her with the respect she deserves. ~ Rachel From mgrantwich at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 23:34:16 2006 From: mgrantwich at yahoo.com (Magda Grantwich) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 16:34:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Did Harry have a Horcrux in OOP? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060423233416.95127.qmail@web53108.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151347 --- vantelvanna wrote: > ....and later in the chapter when they (the kids Mrs. Weasley and > Sirius) are cleaning there is a "also a heavy locket that none of > them could open" so do you think that this could be the "REAL" > locket? The initials could match. We don`t find out Regulus' > middle name so it could be? We know he was a DE and he tried to > get out. > > What do you think? Could Harry have had one of the Horcruxes in his > hand in OOP? > > Vanna Yes, Vanna, I think you're probably right. You're in good company; quite a few people caught that on a re-read and we're pretty sure it will play out like you say. Cheers. Magda __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From celizwh at intergate.com Sun Apr 23 23:36:22 2006 From: celizwh at intergate.com (houyhnhnm102) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 23:36:22 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151348 > Talisman draws back her black veil, to tell you the sad truth: houyhnhnm: Along with his mama. Talisman: > No, tis Snape who is already dead. He's not exactly gone, though. > There is little doubt that Book 7 will reveal him in all his dark > and posthumus glory. houyhnhnm: I really have thought Snape the most likely candidate for a switch with DD. The actions and speech of the "Dumbledore" in the cave fit Snape better than either Wormtail or Slughorn. And this: *************** Terror tore at Harry's heart ....He had to get to Dumbledore and he had to catch Snape....Somehow the two things were linked....He could reverse what had happened if he had them both together.... *************** Talisman: > That would leave Switched!DD free to scamper with the DEs all > through Book 7, without further ado about his disguise. houyhnhnm: This suggests a reason for the switch. I couldn't think of a reason. The point was not so much for Snape to impersonate DD (though it does allow Snape to take the hit for Dumbledore without putting Draco at risk and it also gets Harry out of the castle on a night when they were obviously expecting trouble.) But the real purpose was to allow DD to impersonate Snape. He could observe Voldemort directly to get information about the horcruxes. Dumbledore is the only one I can think of who would have been able to impersonate the Half Blood Prince as they fled across the lawn. And it's no wonder he was able to wipe the floor with Harry, if it really was DD. One objection though. The ruse would have to have been kept up after death. Hagrid prepared the body for burial, and though he appears to have gotten along with Snape, I don't think he would have been sobbing uncontrollably over his death. Also, what about the phoenix that appeared to fly from the flames as DD's tomb sprung into being? Then there is Rowling's statement in the LC/Mugglenet intervirew that "I can't answer that question because it's a spoiler, isn't it, whatever I say, and obviously, it has such a huge impact on what will happen when they [Snape and Harry] meet again that I can't." Maybe no one died on the tower that night. Maybe Snape was impersonating Dumbledore, but his death was faked (because otherwise it means that DD AKed someone to death and that's unthinkable). The polyjuice effect, transfiguration, or whatever would only have to have lasted until the body was shrouded, but the Draught of Living Death would have to have continued its effect until the creation of the tomb. Then Snape could have come to and sent off a patronus to Dumbledore. Yes, that's the way I would have it if I could choose. :-) I don't want Snape to be dead. From mgrantwich at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 23:37:27 2006 From: mgrantwich at yahoo.com (Magda Grantwich) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 16:37:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] A Possible Horcrux? (Long) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060423233727.85785.qmail@web53101.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151349 --- sweety12783 wrote: > Know this clock is definitely very clever like Ravenclaw, everyone > would like to know where their loved ones are and if they are in > danger. > > Well tell me what you think, > > sweety12783 It's certainly possible, and we'll have to wait and see. Personally I'm not sure that it wouldn't almost be too easy if it was almost right under Harry's nose the whole time. Also we have to consider how Tom Riddle would have got close to it, unless the Weasleys only acquired it after their marriage. If it's a family heirloom, there's less chance, IMO. Magda __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From mgrantwich at yahoo.com Sun Apr 23 23:46:31 2006 From: mgrantwich at yahoo.com (Magda Grantwich) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 16:46:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re:Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <305.37ab656.3177efcf@aol.com> Message-ID: <20060423234632.85510.qmail@web53109.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151350 --- OctobersChild48 at aol.com wrote: > In fact, IMO, Ron WAS inadequate as Prefect material and as a > Prefect. I > think this is one of the worst contrivances JKR has foisted on us. > I was totally > incredulous when Ron received his notice that he was made Prefect. > > Sandy, who thinks making Harry a Prefect would have been a > contrivance too, > but would have made better sense than Ron. I quite agree. Personally, I think it should have been Neville - who always tries his best, has lots of Gryffindor courage, would take the job seriously and not pick on first-years (something Ron did, even though Hermione stopped him). Neville would have been perfect. Magda __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From siskiou at vcem.com Sun Apr 23 23:57:55 2006 From: siskiou at vcem.com (Susanne) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 16:57:55 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re:Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <20060423234632.85510.qmail@web53109.mail.yahoo.com> References: <305.37ab656.3177efcf@aol.com> <20060423234632.85510.qmail@web53109.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1673037020.20060423165755@vcem.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151351 Hi, Sunday, April 23, 2006, 4:46:31 PM, Magda wrote: > Neville would have been perfect. And can you just see how he would have been treated by others (Fred and George, for example)? Ron had trouble with them, because they are his older brothers, but they would have not listened to Neville, either. Neville is a wonderful guy, and he is one of my favorite characters, but I don't believe it would have been kind to make him a prefect (and I'm not sure Neville would have liked it after the initial surprise and happiness). He isn't looking to stand out, like Ron, who learned that getting the badge doesn't automatically get you all sorts of right without having to put in some serious work. Anyhow, of all the people who were candidates for the badge, I don't see Ron being any worse than any of the others. Ron has shown courage and loyalty, and has his heart in the right place. BTW, Hermione also took her bad mood out on younger students, not just Ron. Hermione can be a bit hypocritical when it comes to others. -- Best regards, Susanne mailto:siskiou at vcem.com From BrwNeil at aol.com Mon Apr 24 00:19:10 2006 From: BrwNeil at aol.com (BrwNeil at aol.com) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 20:19:10 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Did Harry have a Horcrux in OOP? Message-ID: <28c.946eeeb.317d737e@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151352 In a message dated 4/23/2006 7:34:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, mgrantwich at yahoo.com writes: Yes, Vanna, I think you're probably right. You're in good company; quite a few people caught that on a re-read and we're pretty sure it will play out like you say. Cheers. Magda As for a hiding place for another Horcrux, what do you think of the room of requirement? That whole bit about the sherry bottles and Harry hiding his potions book seemed rather overdone unless it was to introduce a Horcrux location. Neil [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From annemehr at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 01:20:07 2006 From: annemehr at yahoo.com (annemehr) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 01:20:07 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151353 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "houyhnhnm102" wrote: > The > polyjuice effect, transfiguration, or whatever would only have to have > lasted until the body was shrouded, but the Draught of Living Death > would have to have continued its effect until the creation of the > tomb. Then Snape could have come to and sent off a patronus to > Dumbledore. Yes, that's the way I would have it if I could choose. :-) Annemehr: >>>Harry thought, for one heart-stopping moment, that he saw a phoenix rise joyfully into the blue (HBP ch. 30; p. 645) Yes, it seems like it could be Snape's patronus -- the one that was too revealing of Snape's character for JKR to divulge. One that's oh, so similar to Dumbledore's. houyhnhnm: > I don't want Snape to be dead. A: All we have to do is circumvent that pesky Unbreakable Vow. ~Annemehr From kernsac at earthlink.net Mon Apr 24 00:51:32 2006 From: kernsac at earthlink.net (Peggy Kern) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 17:51:32 -0700 Subject: "Go get your invisibility cloak" References: <3bf.112e69b.317d5b7b@aol.com> Message-ID: <023901c66739$3bd995b0$6401a8c0@user2b3ff76354> No: HPFGUIDX 151354 Neil: Funny how Harry carried that cloak with him all the time except the night he was leaving with Dumbledore. But JKR had to give Harry an excuse to talk to Ron and Hermione and so she just decided to have him forget the cloak that one time. Peggy now: But my point is that he apparently really did have it with him. When he went back to the dorm, he just got out the potion and the map and talked to Ron and Hermione. So did Dumbledore think he didn't have the cloak? Or was Dumbledore giving him an excuse to go give the map and potion to Ron and Hermione? Or was Dumbledore doing something else while Harry was going back to supposedly get the cloak? If he'd actually gotten the cloak when he went back, I wouldn't wonder about it. But the book specifically describes what he got and what he did. So I wonder if there's something more going on. Peggy From puduhepa98 at aol.com Mon Apr 24 02:15:39 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 22:15:39 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old prob... Message-ID: <3aa.1529145.317d8ecb@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151355 > Magpie: > But I'd say obviously we're supposed to take Harry's line of reasoning here > and get that Dumbledore knew what was going on and let Harry have his > chance, and this is a good thing, not a terrible thing as Hermione thinks. > And it works because in PS, imo, Dumbledore is still in wise man mode. He *isn't* risking a child's life recklessly because Harry is the hero of a > young adventure story and we can trust Dumbledore's watching over the whole > thing. Nikkalmati: Discussing whether DD set up Harry to go after the Stone. IMO this in one of a series of DD mistakes, part of what I think of as FallibleDumbledore! DD would have been taking a huge risk with the fate of the whole WW, if he planned for Harry to have a trial run at LV here. Remember DD went to the MOM in response to an owl that had called him to a nonexistent meeting and he only arrived back just in time. The first risk was that Harry would be killed: by the dog, or the plant or the keys or one of the potions etc. There goes the savior of the world. There also was a significant risk Harry once he had the Stone would be forced to give it up (or even turn to LV's side as LV tries to persuade him to do. Of course we all know Harry would never do that ). If Harry was one of the few people who could get the Stone out of the mirror, because only someone who did not want to use it could get it, then the Stone was in greater danger when Harry went after Quarrel. DD could not risk the Stone falling into the hands of LV, just to give Harry a pretest. I think JKR had a pretty good idea of where she was going with her characters from the beginning and any ideas we had about them that turned out to be wrong were the result of her deliberate obfuscation. She certainly can take a traditional theme and turn it inside out. Nikkalmati [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From foxmoth at qnet.com Mon Apr 24 02:18:32 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 02:18:32 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151356 > Alla: > > No, I really don't see that. Harry is not Arwen, Aragorn is not > Dumbledore. Let me ask you again, what right Dumbledore has to > decide that Harry does not want comfort? If Dumbledore does not know > how to offer it, that is one story, if Dumbledore decided that Harry > does not want it and proceeded with it, and then well, his offense > is worse in my book than I thought. Pippin: Well, Dumbledore can see into Harry's mind, so I suppose he does know what Harry is feeling. Besides that, he probably knows that Harry was embarrassed by Molly's hug, (and has never tried to get another one) that he turned down all Mrs. Figg's attempts to get him to come over for tea, that his biggest fear about reliving his parents' deaths was that he would collapse and show weakness. Harry doesn't have the slightest idea of how to accept comfort. But even if he did, Harry felt like Arwen, like Bran, as if he'd lost a whole universe. How on earth do you comfort someone for that? All Harry wanted to do was rage at Dumbledore, and Dumbledore accepted this and gave him the opportunity. He would have let him rage at Sirius (and may have expected that Harry would want to,) because Sirius was beyond being hurt. But he was not going to let Harry judge Hermione or Petunia or Kreacher, because Harry was not in a state to do it fairly. > Alla: > > Pippin I am afraid I don't follow you. Please answer me one question > and then it will be much easier for me to understand how much we > differ. In your opinion did Dumbledore have a right to say what he > said about Sirius or not? Was it a morally right thing to do or was > it a wrong thing to do, but not maliciously, or was it something > else? > Pippin: Well, let's see what Dumbledore actually said: Harry: And, and Hermione kept telling us to be nice to him-- DD: She was quite right, Harry. I warned Sirius when we adopted Grimmauld Place as our headquarters that Kreacher must be treated with kindness and respect. I also told him that Kreacher could be dangerous to us. I do not think that Sirius took me very seriously, or that he ever saw Kreacher as a being with feelings as acute as a human's -- Harry: Don't you blame--don't you--talk--about Sirius like -- Kreacher's a lying--foul--he deserved-- DD: Kreacher is what he has been made by wizards, Harry. Yes, he is to be pitied. His existence has been as miserable as your friend Dobby's. He was forced to do Sirius's bidding, because Sirius was the last of the family to which he was enslaved, but he felt no true loyalty to him. And whatever Kreacher's faults, it must be admitted that Sirius did nothing to make Kreacher's lot easier-- Sirius did not hate Kreacher. He regarded him as a servant unworthy of much interest or notice. Indifference and neglect often do more damage than outright dislike...The fountain we destroyed tonight told a lie. We wizards have mistreated and abused our fellows for too long, and we are now reaping our reward. Harry: SO SIRIUS DESERVED WHAT HE GOT, DID HE? DD: I did not say that, nor will you ever hear me say it. Sirius was not a cruel man, he was kind to house-elves in general. He had no love for Kreacher, because Kreacher was a living reminder of the home Sirius had hated. -- Now, given that Dumbledore had the right to speak to Harry as an adult and a fellow warrior, that he was not saying anything about Sirius that he wouldn't have said to Sirius's face, and that he no longer had the right to shield Harry from unpleasant truths, was there anything in there that Dumbledore did not have both the right and the duty to say? Did Dumbledore have the right to let Harry go tell Hermione that her efforts to help Kreacher were misguided? Did Harry have the right, does anyone have the right, to say that someone deserved to be treated badly in the past because of what they were going to do in the future? Does anyone have the right to hold that a person acting under duress is morally responsible to the same degree as a free person? Did Dumbledore have the right to teach Harry to discount Kreacher's feelings by behaving as if they weren't as important to him as Harry's own? To pretend that the fountain told the truth and Sirius was indeed one of a superior and benevolent race of beings who deserved only to be adored? I don't think so. Dumbledore was committed to telling Harry everything he was certain of, and apparently he was certain of all this --in spite of that you want him to go back to hiding the truth to spare Harry's feelings? If he let himself do that again, even just for a day or two, where would it stop? I don't think Dumbledore thought he was strong enough and I am sure he was afraid that he wouldn't be given the time. In that sense, yes, I think his exhaustion and his human limitations played a part. Alla: > I take it you argue that Harry is not angry about Petunia at all? Is > that correct? Are you arguing that Harry is really angry about > Sirius and Sirius only and he is perfectly fine with how Petunia > treated him? > > I don't buy it at all. I think Harry has plenty of legitimate > reasons to be angry with Dursleys and that it all was there and > exploded at the end of OOP. > Pippin: Of course he's angry at the way Petunia treated him. I just don't think he was ever angry that Petunia never loved him. What indication has he ever given that that's the case? Is there canon? I think JKR had to give us that scene in HBP to show us how angry Dumbledore was that Petunia had not loved Harry. But I don't think Harry ever wanted her love any more than he wanted that goblet Mundungus stole. It was just an excuse to be angry. > Alla: > Not for trying to keep Harry alive, but for what Harry had to endure > because Dumbledore made that choice. And in my book Dumbledore > became responsible for how Petunia behaves the moment he entrusted a > human being to her care. With the best intentions, yes, or at least > I hope so, but the moment Dumbledore made that decision he is fully > responsible IMO. Pippin: Um, you're saying that by taking Harry, Petunia placed herself under Dumbledore's authority? Where is the canon for that? If she did not, then how can Dumbledore be morally responsibility for her actions? (And Harry had not been starved when he first came to Hogwarts, which is what Dumbledore was talking about when he said that Harry arrived looking a bit less well-fed than he would have liked. ) > Alla: > > Erm... why is that? IMO it is Harry absolute right to pour out his > very legitimate reasons to be angry at Petunia AND Kreacher. As I > said even though Kreacher cannot be blamed for all that occurred, > surely Kreacher is not a robot and responsible at least for his part? > Pippin: IMO, Harry is in no shape to see for himself whether his anger at anyone is legitimate or not. Dumbledore can see that -- we can see it ourselves in the way that Harry decides that Snape is to blame. I think this goes to the whole point of what JKR is trying to say about what prejudice is and where it comes from -- that when people have been mistreated and are in the throes of anger and pain, it's almost impossible for them to tell how much of their anger is justified. Pippin From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 02:51:54 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 02:51:54 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151357 > Pippin: > All Harry wanted to do was rage at Dumbledore, and Dumbledore > accepted this and gave him the opportunity. He would have let him > rage at Sirius (and may have expected that Harry would want to,) > because Sirius was beyond being hurt. > > But he was not going to let Harry judge Hermione or Petunia or > Kreacher, because Harry was not in a state to do it fairly. Alla: Yes, we are indeed differ fundamentally. But let me ask you one more question. Even though I don't think that Dumbledore had any right to decide whether Harry's grievances are fair or not, could you point me to any UNFAIR accusations Harry threw at Petunia or Kreacher? Had Kreacher NOT betrayed Sirius? Had Petunia not never loved him? And Harry's mentioning of Hermione, well I think he is correct, because I think that no matter how nicely they would have treated Kreacher, he would have done the same thing. As an example we see Hermione herself trying to treat Kreacher nicely and what does he say in response? As far as I can remember he calls her mudblood, no? > Pippin: >And whatever Kreacher's faults, it must be admitted > that Sirius did nothing to make Kreacher's lot easier-- > > Sirius did not hate Kreacher. He regarded him as a servant > unworthy of much interest or notice. Indifference and neglect often > do more damage than outright dislike...The fountain we destroyed > tonight told a lie. We wizards have mistreated and abused our > fellows for too long, and we are now reaping our reward. > > Harry: SO SIRIUS DESERVED WHAT HE GOT, DID HE? > > DD: I did not say that, nor will you ever hear me say it. Sirius was > not a cruel man, he was kind to house-elves in general. He had > no love for Kreacher, because Kreacher was a living reminder of the > home Sirius had hated. > > -- > Now, given that Dumbledore had the right to speak to Harry as an > adult and a fellow warrior, that he was not saying anything about > Sirius that he wouldn't have said to Sirius's face, and that he no > longer had the right to shield Harry from unpleasant truths, was > there anything in there that Dumbledore did not have both the > right and the duty to say? Alla: Okay, Pippin I thank for your answer and YES I think there is NOTHING in the quote you brought that Dumbledore had EITHER right or duty to say. You see this quote is a perfect example of why it annoys me so much. Dumbledore LECTURES Harry, he lectures Harry even though Sirius just died, I don't even know that an hour passed after he died. I find it despicable and the only excuse I can find is that Dumbledore was not quite aware of what he was doing , otherwise I cannot respect him anymore, so I guess I will be holding to that excuse. :) Yes, Dumbledore tells Harry that he did not say that Sirius deserved to die, but just in the previous paragraph he implies precisely that, IMO. That Sirius did not make Kreacher's life easier and that is why Kreacher did what he did. Kreacher loved Sirius' parents, Sirius apparently left his house with no warm feelings for his parents. Would Kreacher had ANY love for a man who did not love his former masters, even if this man would have treated him nicely? I don't think so. But this is of course just my opinion. Pippin: > Did Dumbledore have the right to teach Harry to discount Kreacher's > feelings by behaving as if they weren't as important to him as Harry's > own? To pretend that the fountain told the truth and Sirius was > indeed one of a superior and benevolent race of beings who deserved > only to be adored? Alla: Sigh, I don't think Dumbledore had any right to engage in teachings the moment after Sirius died. I just don't. And again, I understand that this was exposition scene for JKR, to me she just failed into giving Dumbledore at least a bit of compassion necessary to make him just a tiny bit more sympathetic. > Pippin: > Of course he's angry at the way Petunia treated him. I just don't think > he was ever angry that Petunia never loved him. What indication has he > ever given that that's the case? Is there canon? Alla: Harry himself says so. I see no reasons in this situation to assume that he lies. To me it is just common sense. Petunia is the only mother figure he knew for ten years. I think it would be strange if the child would not want the love from mother figure, no matter how horribly she treated him. Betsy Hp; > I think Dumbledore is going through a similar experience. Only in > his case, the boy died. Would Sirius following Dumbledore's advice > and treating Kreacher well have changed the ending of OotP? I doubt > it. Kreacher had been twisted by Mrs. Black many years ago. But > this is something Dumbledore can cling to. > > Of course it's not helpful to Harry. And I doubt Dumbledore would > have spoken about it to him except that Harry starts to set Kreacher > up as a scapegoat. It was important, I think, that Dumbledore keep > Harry from fixating on Kreacher. But once that door was opened, > Dumbledore was human enough, hurt enough, to express the "if only > he'd listened!" stuff. Alla: Oh, Betsy, I think I like it. Anything works for me as long as we are not saying that Dumbledore was right to say all that horrible stuff about Sirius to Harry. See, as I said, I still cannot find hurt Dumbledore in that scene ( one tear at the end just was not enough), I especially cannot find Dumbledore who is hurting for Sirius. I would like to see some indication if it, but I am perfectly Okay with assuming that it is there. I guess the real teacher would hurt for all his students. I do think that JKR could have written this scene with more persuasion, but this works for me too. Anything as long as we are not saying that Dumbledore had a right to say all those things, because disrespect to the dead is a horrible offense in my book. JMO, Alla, who would probably never like this speech, but who is happy to engage in a bit of self-hypnosis to convince herself that Dumbledore was hurting for Sirius too. From noon_at_night at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 02:38:27 2006 From: noon_at_night at yahoo.com (Najwa) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 02:38:27 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151358 Talisman wrote: > No, tis Snape who is already dead. He's not exactly gone, though. > There is little doubt that Book 7 will reveal him in all his dark > and posthumus glory. (snipped) > As for the greater WW, there is no hurry to convince them of Snape's > integrity. There is nothing more they can do to him, now. > > From a meta standpoint, this preserves Snape's ever-elusive nature. > By the time Harry (and the average reader) comprehends the totality > of Snape's heroism, he will be far beyond their effusive, and > meaningless, regrets. Najwa's response: I do see Snape proving that he is actually a good guy and perhaps dying eventually, but i don't think that has already happened. He's got too much to answer for as it is, and for him to already be dead would not work for the plot. He is necessary for book 7 I think. The whole scene where Snape runs away and blocks Harry's attacks and so forth is just too Snapish to be Dumbledore. I would think that even if it were Dumbledore, he would not have added the snide remarks. Dumbledore is known for his power and his esteem, but I highly doubt he was known for impersonating anyone. The both of them are very different people. I do not mean that I think the DD and SS switch never happened, because your theory makes sense in many ways, however the tower scene would not fit. I do think the whole death scene is dodgy though, so perhaps your theory along with the theory that DD somehow pretended to die and Snape pretending to kill him might work. I do also feel that DD is dead, but he's different when it comes to death. He has his own portrait, so we could still hear from him. If he did die, I highly doubt he died happy or comfortable, because he has a lot to worry about when it comes to the Wizarding world and Harry, so he might end up being a ghost. I wonder if he has a will and has left anything to Harry, but I digress. So I don't agree about SS dying in place of DD. DD just won't let that happen, regardless of if SS was going to die or not, and DD doesn't hate Snape enough to AK him. Talisman: > Certainly DD's death was a fake. The series explores and signals > the ruse of death in nearly every book. Najwa: True, I do agree with what you are saying, and it would absolutely delight me to know that DD is still alive, and that he wasn't an old fool for trusting Snape, but he can still be around even though he isn't alive. Talisman: > > Then there is the matter of impersonation. Again, it's everywhere > in the series, and I well expect it to play a continued role in the > plot. > Najwa: Yes I agree, and I'm sure with all the time they've spent together they could impersonate each other marvolously, but when it comes to true emotion, I can't see them mimmicking one another. Like in DD's office for instance, right before he asks Harry if he wanted to go with him to the cave, I could see that being Snape. He was very irritated with Harry for not seeing the unimportance of the prophecy. DD usually doesn't lose his patience, regardless of what he is feeling. I can understand why he'd be annoyed either way, but that scene makes me feel like it your theory could be a possibility. It would be a little bit of Snape's annoyance with Harry's ignorance that would cause him to lose his patience. The real DD drags things on for ever and ever as we all know, such as how his hand became black, etc. He just can't sit down and get to the point for the most part, IMO. So for him to lose his patience sort of makes it easier to believe the switch theory in my own head. Talisman: > It gives a whole new force to Switched!DD roaring at Harry not to > call Snape a coward. Najwa: I see what you mean with that one. DD would definitely be upset with Harry if he called Snape a coward after he did something that noble. If the switched SS and DD thing was true to that scene, I still can't believe that whoever was in DD's body was actually killed nor whoever was in Snape's body was actually killing DD. DD just simply cannot be a murderer, nor can he be a fool. Talisman: > For general evidence, there is, of course, that oft-quoted line > about how *...with the sudden agility of a much younger man, > Dumbledore slid from the boulder, landed in the sea, and began to > swim, with a perfect breaststroke, toward the dark slit in the rock > face, his lit wand held in his teeth* (HBP 557). Nice touch, the > wand in the teeth. (snip) > The knife Switched!Snape uses in the cave is *a short silver knife > of the kind Harry used to chop potion ingredients* (HBP 559). > > It's the kind specifically recommended by the HBP for smashing > snarlgaluff pods. Slughorn may be a potions master, too, but the > literary connotation is with Snape. > > Moreover, the incantation Switched!Snape uses to heal his arm is the > same one Snape used earlier to heal Draco's wounds. > > *You are very kind, Harry," said Dumbledore, now passing his wand > over the deep cut he had made in his own arm, so that it healed > instantly, just as Snape had healed Malfoy's wounds* (HBP 560). > > I don't know how many have noticed all the corollaries between > Books 2 and 6. They are rampant. Najwa: That does give me an extra push in the switched DD/SS theory, I'll admit. I do see how you have come to your conclusion and it is definitely very interesting. I agree with the idea of it being possible, save the actual death scene. I do not agree that Snape is dead, but I do think that this was definitely an excellent post talisman, kudos to you :) From puduhepa98 at aol.com Mon Apr 24 03:16:57 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 23:16:57 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151359 >-Laurel Lei >>,, I have read many posts that have touched a nerve, so to speak. They mention that Harry is NOT a murderer or NOT a killer or that he is not capable of it or that they hope he doesn't have to succumb to the murder of Voldemort via the prophecy or even that they would throw their copies of the entire Harry Potter series away if J.K. turned Harry into a murderer in book 7... i.e. someone in Harry's stead would carry out the murder (via the veil, another person does it for him, or by other freakish events he just dies...) >>I may be mistaken in my interpretation of murder within those poster's meanings but... it would seem to me that, Harry is very capable of murder... What about Quirrelmort???? What about Voldemort's soul bit in the diary horcrux??? Wouldn't Harry's soul be torn by his involvement in the death of Quirrel or the "death" of Voldie's soul bit...??? Nikkalmati: I tried to post this a while back but it got lost! I finally found it somewhere in the innards of my computer. I have tried to update it, but I may have missed some pertinent comments. Thanks for bringing this topic up. I think many of us listees want to give Harry a pass and excuse or overlook his behavior because he is the hero or because we see events from his POV. I am not sure JKR wants us to miss that Harry currently is going down the wrong path. That said, I would make a distinction between killing and murder. Quirrel is both accidental (Harry had no idea why he was burning Quirrel) and self-defense. Quirrel was trying to kill him. As has been said already, the diary was not a person and the soul was not destroyed. I do not believe every killing splits the soul. It depends on intent. (I also do not think even a murder creates a separate soul piece unless the murderer plans that in advance and probably says a particular spell to separate and control the piece. However, any murder does do harm to the soul). >LaurelLei >>I also believe that Harry would have killed Sirius if Lupin hadn't arrived. Harry had stated as much. >>And I believe that Harry would have killed Bella in the MOM during/post battle. Nikkalmati: Not sure here, although the anger and hatred to do harm is shown. It was already said that Harry did not know the AK at the Shrieking Shack and possible would have held back. He tried to Crucio Bella not kill her. It also appears from the scene in HBP with Snape that Harry just doesn't have what it takes to do an AK (but Snape wisely didn't let him complete the curse). A little more practice and Harry could get it right. >LaurelLei >>And what about Draco in the bathroom and the sectasempra spell...? The spell for enemies... the spell that Snape "reversed"... had Snape not arrived and known what to do (because he was the "Prince" and possible author)...???? Would Harry then have become a murderer if Draco had died? Isn't what he did attempted murder? Nikkalmati: Now we come to the real leap into darkness for Harry. He already at the opening feast wished for another death this year (meaning the new DADA teacher, Snape). I found that shocking in Harry and a sign of his slide downhill. At the end of the book, he commits an act that could be charged as first degree murder. I don't see this act as self-defense, but escalation. (by the way why didn't Harry say something like "what's the matter? or can I help you? when he saw Draco in distress). Draco attacked first, but only with regular hexes. Harry responded in kind. Draco tried Crucio and Harry hit him with sectasempra. Now we know that the effect of a spell in PV depends on the intent and strength of will behind it. Harry split Draco open and nearly killed him. He probably in a Muggle court would be allowed to plead to involuntary manslaughter, but the initial charge would be murder, if Draco died, and it was only by good luck that he did not and probably Snape too because of the UV. >>but I found it very difficult to explain to my sons that if he were to harm another like Harry did to Draco or the others that they wouldn't "just get detentions". I certainly agree there is a problem here. Harry shows some immediate remorse, but it doesn't last long. Does he ever go to see Draco in the infirmary? Does he even ask how he is doing? Just a touch of concern could have made a difference to Draco or show real remorse. Instead he is soon complaining about what appears to be a very mild detention for what he did. Does it really matter that he misses Quiddich when Draco could have died? Has Snape given up on anyone giving Harry any proper punishment? Did he even report Harry to Minerva or DD? Does he know events are too near the climax to suspend or expel Harry? I don't believe SS is afraid of DD finding out about the book or the spell he created. Surely, DD knows a lot worse things about SS by now and SS can't be held liable for losing a book. The detention SS does give has the potentially beneficial effect of showing Harry "you don't want to be like this; you can't afford to be like this; the WW can't afford for you to be this childish; grow up Harry." Of course, he could just be showing Harry why he disliked James and Sirius so much too . JMO Nikkalmati [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From eggplant107 at hotmail.com Mon Apr 24 07:40:27 2006 From: eggplant107 at hotmail.com (eggplant107) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 07:40:27 -0000 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151360 puduhepa98 at ... wrote: > by the way why didn't Harry say something > like "what's the matter? I wish he had because without a doubt that would have made Draco even angrier and humiliated. > or can I help you? Why on Earth would Harry say that? Harry has every reason to hate Draco and the last thing in the world Harry wanted to do was help him. He knew Draco was up to no good, it's just too bad he couldn't get Dumbledore to listen. > Harry shows some immediate remorse And that was foolish of Harry because he had nothing to be sorry about. > but it doesn't last long. Nor should it. > Does he ever go to see Draco in the infirmary? Does Harry visit the thug who attacked him for no reason with an unforgivable curse, no of course not. > Instead he is soon complaining about what > appears to be a very mild detention for > what he did. Any punishment was an injustice because Harry did nothing wrong. > Draco could have died Well Boo Hoo. This is a war and people die in war, most of them far far better Human Beings than Draco Malfoy. > in a Muggle court [Harry] would be allowed > to plead to involuntary manslaughter, but > the initial charge would be murder, > if Draco died Granted the Muggle judicial system has some very serious flaws, but it's not THAT bad; Harry would never even be charged much less convicted, a clearer case of self defense I've never seen. It mystifies me why people what a hero in a war put the safety of their enemy attacker above their own. That's not noble, that not inspired; it's just stupid and wimpy. If I have any criticism of the Potter books it's that Harry hasn't done enough controversial things, defending himself and yelling at his friends a little bit isn't enough. In the next book I want to see not only Harry kill somebody (Voldemort, Snape, and perhaps a few others) but to find at least a little part of him that actually enjoyed it. Now that's controversial in a way self defense could never be. > Surely, DD knows a lot worse > things about SS by now But one thing Dumbledore didn't know is that that Snape was about to murder him, aided and abided by Draco I might add. If the Death Eaters Draco smuggled into the castle hadn't been there it's unlikely Snape could have escaped after the murder. I wish Harry had killed Draco, the world would have been a better place. Eggplant From h.m.s at mweb.co.za Mon Apr 24 07:49:29 2006 From: h.m.s at mweb.co.za (H.M.S) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 09:49:29 +0200 Subject: Intelligent / Gifted Hermione (was SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron) Message-ID: <005101c66773$b7aaec90$f6d417c4@Sharon> No: HPFGUIDX 151361 Joe Goodwin and Shaun Hately have been discussing the trio's level of intelligence lately - I'm not going to snip their messages as they are too long. Basically Joe speculates that Hermione is not really that much smarter than Harry & Ron, but just seems so because she studies harder; while Shaun has reason to believe that Hermione IS extremely intelligent. While I agree with Shaun here; I feel that it is also important to note HOW all three of them use their brains: A few examples: Although Hermione may well be absolutely brilliant in the brains dept, she does tend to freeze up a bit in a crisis - Philosophers Stone: Hermione remembers the characteristics of Devils Snare and laments the lack of fire / sun It take Harry to remind her that she is a witch! PoA - She allows the boggart to scare her during the exams, when the spell to defeat it is well within her capabilities. Ron can think under pressure - PS - the giant Chess match. His ability with chess, which we see many examples of, suggest that Ron is very good with planning and strategy. Of course, we see many times when Harry snappily responds to a situation that threatens him or his friends. I apologise if I have brought up points that have already been discussed on this list (- its getting so hard to remember) Sharon From h.m.s at mweb.co.za Mon Apr 24 09:06:05 2006 From: h.m.s at mweb.co.za (H.M.S) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 11:06:05 +0200 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP Message-ID: <008101c6677e$a98a6f40$f6d417c4@Sharon> No: HPFGUIDX 151362 Snipped from Alla: "Petunia is the only mother figure he knew for ten years. I think it would be strange if the child would not want the love from mother figure, no matter how horribly she treated him." Sharon now: This reminds me of a line or 2 from the movie "Ever After" Danielle (the Cinderella character) says in tears something like to her stepmother " was there ever a time, in its smallest particle that you ever loved me like a mother?" The Baroness's reply: "how could I love a pebble in my shoe?" Ouch - nasty! I see the same attitude in the Dursleys. Sharon From bboyminn at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 09:09:56 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 09:09:56 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP - DD's Perspecitve In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151363 dumbledore11214 wrote: > Alla: > > Okay, Pippin I thank for your answer and YES I think there is > NOTHING in the quote you brought that Dumbledore had EITHER right or > duty to say. > > You see this quote is a perfect example of why it annoys me so much. > Dumbledore LECTURES Harry, he lectures Harry even though Sirius just > died, I don't even know that an hour passed after he died. I find it > despicable and the only excuse I can find is that Dumbledore was not > quite aware of what he was doing , otherwise I cannot respect him > anymore, so I guess I will be holding to that excuse. :) > bboyminn: I've only been following this conversation in a hit-and-miss fashion, so I will address the general concept more than specific points. I think Dumbledore certainly has both the Right and the Duty to make that entire speech at that particular time. Dumbledore is Harry's friend, he is also Headmaster of the school, within limits, he is also Harry's guardian while Harry is at school, and he is the leader of the independant moment against Voldemort. In that moment of anger, rage, doubt, fear, pain, and most certainly guilt, Harry desperately needed what Dumbledore gave him, and that was Perspective. It would have been very easy for Harry to come away from those tragic events blaming himself for Sirius's death, but Dumbledore softened the blow, just as the blow was hitting hardest by accepting the bulk of the blame for himself. He did not let Harry off the hook, nor did he let Sirius of the hook, he did not let anyone else off the hook for their level of responsibility in the events, but at the same time, as the leader, he accepted a substantial and fair share of the blame for himself. I think Harry needed to hear that. I think Harry desperately needed to hear someone tell him all this wasn't his fault. Further, to each of Harry's comments (re: Sirius, Petunia, Kreacher, etc...) Dumbledore again adds a reasonable and balanced perspective. Sirius was neither kind nor cruel to Kreacher, but Kreacher was a liability and a risk, it would have been wise to treat him especially kind to win his favor and loyalty, even if ulitmately that was impossible. The same with the comment about Petunia. Harry claimed she never loved him, and Dumbledore pointed out that Petunia took him in and more importantly kept him. Certainly, there were several occassions of provocation along the way in which Petunia, or at least Vernon, would have felt justified in turning Harry out. Yet, she kept him, even when Vernon was determined to throw Harry out, Petunia insisted he stay. She may have never shown any love or kindness to Harry, but she must have some feelings however deep that prompted her to allow him to stay in her house. Again, Dumbledore is simply trying to add a reasonable perspective to what Harry is saying. I think in those desperate moments of trama, grief, and anger immediately after the events, more than anything Harry need to see those event, and the event in his life leading up to that moment, in a reasonable and proper framework. In other words, he needed to establish some perspective, some proper perspective, because without that Harry's mind would have wandered down dark and desperate trails of very improper and illogical perspective, and a great deal of emotional damage would have been done that would be very difficult to repair. Enough damage was done without compounding it by attempting to ignore the events; leaving it all to that later time that never seems to come. Dumbledore saw the opportunity, and more importantly, he saw the need, and he stepped up and helped Harry deal with the trama by trying to put a very complex set of events into PERSPECTIVE. You have made it clear, I think, that you don't feel that way, and your position is valid simply by the fact that you feel it. Yet, I think Dumbledore did an excellent job under difficult circumstances. He accepted his own share of the blame, yet did not discount the blame of others with hollow platitudes. It was a long and difficult discussion, and considering he knew he had already left it for too long, leaving it until later was not a good option. In tramatic situations like this, leaving it until later is a bad move because, most ofter, later never comes. Dumbledore had already left it until later too many times, and now the time had come, and more importantly, now the need had come. I do see your point, I do understand your feelings, and I'm not discounting them, I just can't bring myself to agree with them. For what it's worth. Steve/bboyminn From kateydidnt2002 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 09:33:19 2006 From: kateydidnt2002 at yahoo.com (kateydidnt2002) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 09:33:19 -0000 Subject: Did Harry have a Horcrux in OOP? In-Reply-To: <28c.946eeeb.317d737e@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151364 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, BrwNeil at ... wrote: That whole bit about the sherry bottles and Harry hiding his > potions book seemed rather overdone unless it was to introduce a Horcrux > location. > > Neil Not really: the unknowable room was an integral part of Draco's plan in the book. The hiding of things in the Room of Requirement (the overdone emphasis as you call it) could just have been an expository element finally telling the readers where Draco has been disappearing to. Of course, JKR doesn't usually introduce something for one purpose only so it is a possibility. -Kateydidnt, who is a very strong believer in the theory that one horcurx is somehow connected to the cursed Defense Against the Dark Arts position. From BrwNeil at aol.com Mon Apr 24 10:56:51 2006 From: BrwNeil at aol.com (BrwNeil at aol.com) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 06:56:51 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: "Go get your invisibility cloak" Message-ID: <39d.1859ecc.317e08f3@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151365 In a message dated 4/23/2006 9:55:09 PM Eastern Standard Time, kernsac at earthlink.net writes: But my point is that he apparently really did have it with him. When he went back to the dorm, he just got out the potion and the map and talked to Ron and Hermione. So did Dumbledore think he didn't have the cloak? Or was Dumbledore giving him an excuse to go give the map and potion to Ron and Hermione? Or was Dumbledore doing something else while Harry was going back to supposedly get the cloak? If he'd actually gotten the cloak when he went back, I wouldn't wonder about it. But the book specifically describes what he got and what he did. So I wonder if there's something more going on. Peggy Interesting, I missed that. I agree that on a careful read it sounds like Harry just used the cloak as an excuse to go back to the dorm. Harry could have said that he had it, so I don't think Dumbledore was looking for time. Besides, Dumbledore could have waited longer before calling Harry if he had something he wanted to do. No, I think it was totally Harry and that he wanted to give the others the potion. I'm glad you pointed this out because it causes me to give more credit to JKR. I thought she had just had him forget it to make it easier for herself as a writer. Actually this show that as usual, she thought it out well. Neil [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 12:27:05 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 05:27:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060424122705.4431.qmail@web61324.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151366 >LaurelLei >>And what about Draco in the bathroom and the sectasempra spell...? The spell for enemies... the spell that Snape "reversed"... had Snape not arrived and known what to do (because he was the "Prince" and possible author)...???? Would Harry then have become a murderer if Draco had died? Isn't what he did attempted murder? Nikkalmati: Now we come to the real leap into darkness for Harry. He already at the opening feast wished for another death this year (meaning the new DADA teacher, Snape). I found that shocking in Harry and a sign of his slide downhill. At the end of the book, he commits an act that could be charged as first degree murder. I don't see this act as self-defense, but escalation. Joe:Escalation? Draco attempted to use an Unforgivable on Harry. How do you escalate from one of the three curses deemed Unforgivable? Nikkalmati: (by the way why didn't Harry say something like "what's the matter? or can I help you? when he saw Draco in distress). Draco attacked first, but only with regular hexes. Harry responded in kind. Draco tried Crucio and Harry hit him with sectasempra. Now we know that the effect of a spell in PV depends on the intent and strength of will behind it. Harry split Draco open and nearly killed him. He probably in a Muggle court would be allowed to plead to involuntary manslaughter, but the initial charge would be murder, if Draco died, and it was only by good luck that he did not and probably Snape too because of the UV. Joe: Sorry but once Draco used Crucio he in effect drew a deadly weapon. No court in the land would convict someone of defending themselves from something like what Draco tried, none. LaurelLei: >>but I found it very difficult to explain to my sons that if he were to harm another like Harry did to Draco or the others that they wouldn't "just get detentions". Nikkalmati:I certainly agree there is a problem here. Harry shows some immediate remorse, but it doesn't last long. Does he ever go to see Draco in the infirmary? Does he even ask how he is doing? Just a touch of concern could have made a difference to Draco or show real remorse. Instead he is soon complaining about what appears to be a very mild detention for what he did. Does it really matter that he misses Quiddich when Draco could have died? Has Snape given up on anyone giving Harry any proper punishment? Did he even report Harry to Minerva or DD? Does he know events are too near the climax to suspend or expel Harry? I don't believe SS is afraid of DD finding out about the book or the spell he created. Surely, DD knows a lot worse things about SS by now and SS can't be held liable for losing a book. The detention SS does give has the potentially beneficial effect of showing Harry "you don't want to be like this; you can't afford to be like this; the WW can't afford for you to be this childish; grow up Harry." Of course, he could just be showing Harry why he disliked James and Sirius so much too . JMO Joe: Harry shows far more remorse for Draco than is even warranted. As you mentioned Harry sees an enemy in distress so he asks if he is 'okay'. Draco tries to hex Harry and they trade "normal' hexes until Drace escalating the conflict again tries to use a Unforgivable. So Draco shoots first, then escalates then level of curses to the Unforgivable level and you think HARRY should be the one to feel remorse? If Draco had died he would have only had him self to blame. HE started the fight, he escalated the fight, period. Come on now, the reason Snape doesn't make a big deal of it is pretty clear. He knows Harry and he knows Draco after five years and some change. He is pretty clear who is at fault when he sees what happened which is why he doesn't make problems for Harry. If he had and it had been looked into Draco would be on the way to join dad and people would be talking about how "The Boy who Lived" beat another "evil Unforgivable" using Slytherin. He might also have been a bit scared because if Harry had killed Draco then the Unbreakable vow might have some back to bite him. Now I would like to mention that if Harry had killed Draco DD would still be alive and Bill Weasley wouldn't be scared for life. Joe [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Before posting to any list, you MUST read the group's Admin File! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin_Files/HBF_Text__MUST_READ Please use accurate subject headings and snip unnecessary material from posts to which you're replying! --------------------------------- YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "HPforGrownups" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: HPforGrownups-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. --------------------------------- --------------------------------- Celebrate Earth Day everyday! Discover 10 things you can do to help slow climate change. Yahoo! Earth Day [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From celizwh at intergate.com Mon Apr 24 13:53:36 2006 From: celizwh at intergate.com (houyhnhnm102) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 13:53:36 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151367 zgirnius: > Because if Unbreakable Vows are truly Unbreakable, and act quickly > once broken, Snape (who looks like Dumbledore) is about to die > anyway, at any moment, when Dumbledore (who looks like Snape) shows > up. And Dumbledore knows this. (There's no way they would have cooked > up this plan between them if Dumbledore did not know ALL about > Snape's Unbreakable Vow, right?) The ONLY way Dumbledore could > actually save Snape at this moment would be to have himself killed > (by either Snape or Draco). SO I really don't see how this makes > Dumbledore a murderer. [...] > But there REALLY is no way out of Snape dying by Unbreakable Vow > alomst imeediately, if Snape does not kill Dumbledore. houyhnhnm: Are you saying that the UV can "see" through the disguises? That DD! Snape is about to die from the UV unless he kills Snape!DD? The third clause of the Vow required Snape "should it prove necessary if it seems Draco will fail [...] carry out the deed that the Dark Lord has ordered Draco to perform?" But Draco does not seem to be about to fail the /deed that the Dark Lord has ordered/--namely killing Dumbledore. Rather he is about to fail in the attempt to kill Snape (as DD!Snape). So it seems to me that the Vow would not even kick in. From belviso at attglobal.net Mon Apr 24 14:24:41 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (sistermagpie) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 14:24:41 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP - DD's Perspecitve In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151368 > bboyminn: > > I've only been following this conversation in a hit-and-miss fashion, > so I will address the general concept more than specific points. > > I think Dumbledore certainly has both the Right and the Duty to make > that entire speech at that particular time. Dumbledore is Harry's > friend, he is also Headmaster of the school, within limits, he is also > Harry's guardian while Harry is at school, and he is the leader of the > independant moment against Voldemort. In that moment of anger, rage, > doubt, fear, pain, and most certainly guilt, Harry desperately needed > what Dumbledore gave him, and that was Perspective. > > It would have been very easy for Harry to come away from those tragic > events blaming himself for Sirius's death, but Dumbledore softened the > blow, just as the blow was hitting hardest by accepting the bulk of > the blame for himself. He did not let Harry off the hook, nor did he > let Sirius of the hook, he did not let anyone else off the hook for > their level of responsibility in the events, but at the same time, as > the leader, he accepted a substantial and fair share of the blame for > himself. Magpie: To me Dumbledore seemed like he was just dealing with events the way he, personally, dealt with events. I did not see him taking the lion's share of the blame for himself in the way other people might have given it to him, but rather giving himself blame that he was okay with. I just found that almost comical in his speech, the way he stepped in to explain exactly what he did wrong and why himself. We would all like to do that. Sirius himself could have given a speech of equal perspective that somehow came out differently than Dumbledore's. (And it will always be hard to take him seriously after his referring to Harry as showing up at Hogwarts as "a little underfed" or whatever he says--not exactly your call to decide that, DD). It's just what it's called in the title of the thread--DD's perspective. He's the character with nobody above him to judge him the way he judges everyone else. But yes, Dumbledore is certainly doing what you're saying, ushering Harry's mind the way he needs it to go--and the reader's mind too. I think everyone recognizes that this is, in fact, an exposition scene telling *us* how to make sense of the events of the preceding year. But I think it's always going to be difficult for some people to ignore what it unfortunately also is, which is somebody dealing with someone who's just lost a family member by imposing his perspective on events when many people are going to instinctually say a grieving person should be given space to feel his own feelings for a while. Many people would say they don't want perspective in that moment and hate it when people give it to them, especially if they don't agree with that perspective ("He's in a better place," for instance or "Jesus wanted her to be with him now" have upset plenty of grieving people, though the people saying it feel they're giving a comforting perspective.) It's perfectly common for someone grieving to irrationally blame other people, and a speech like Dumbledore's would not change that outside of a work of fiction, imo. In real life a person might rant and rave at any number of things at first, then go into some other idea, then go through a phase when he blamed someone else. It often takes a while to fully understand how things could have happened. In this story Dumbledore steps in an hour after the incident, Harry brings up any number of unprofitable paths to go down plotwise (more important than anything about Harry's emotional health none of these things are going to be important in the next book), Dumbledore knocks them down and a couple of weeks later Harry's decided Sirius wants him to go on with life. The only unhealthy thought Harry manages to hang on to is...surprise! That it's all Snape's fault. Now he's primed for HBP. -m From foxmoth at qnet.com Mon Apr 24 14:51:56 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 14:51:56 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151369 > Alla: > > Yes, we are indeed differ fundamentally. But let me ask you one more > question. Even though I don't think that Dumbledore had any right to > decide whether Harry's grievances are fair or not, could you point > me to any UNFAIR accusations Harry threw at Petunia or Kreacher? Had > Kreacher NOT betrayed Sirius? Had Petunia not never loved him? Pippin: Dumbledore cuts Harry off when Harry starts to say that Kreacher deserved it, and again when he starts to say that Petunia doesn't give a damn. Those accusations are unfair, IMO. I think we agreed that no one deserved to be treated as Kreacher was. If you are going to say that Sirius was upset because of how Kreacher spoke to Hermione, then isn't it strange that he never forbade Kreacher to say those things? I'm sorry to say it, but maybe Hermione's feelings didn't matter to him either. Nobody but JKR could say whether treating Kreacher kindly would have made a difference in the end, but it denigrates Kreacher to say that it couldn't have. No one gave him a reason to choose other than he did. No, Petunia does not love Harry. But that's not the same as not giving a damn about him. She took him in, at risk to her own family, and she kept him, even when that risk had become a reality. You keep saying that Dumbledore has no right to tell Harry these things. But if he doesn't, who does? Who is going to speak for Petunia or Kreacher if Dumbledore does not? He is Harry's headmaster, his guide, his mentor, and yes, his friend, but being a friend does not mean, IMO, unconditional agreement with positions that you find morally repugnant. > > Alla: > > Yes, Dumbledore tells Harry that he did not say that Sirius deserved > to die, but just in the previous paragraph he implies precisely > that, IMO. That Sirius did not make Kreacher's life easier and that > is why Kreacher did what he did. Pippin: Ohhh. You are reading Dumbledore's words as if "we" and "wizards" were code for "Sirius", but Dumbledore is emphatically saying that he doesn't mean that at all. "Wizards" made Kreacher what he is. "We" have abused and mistreated our fellow creatures for too long and "we" are reaping our reward. Sirius did *not* make Kreacher what he is. But Dumbledore says reluctantly ("it must be admitted") that he never tried to make it possible for Kreacher to become something else. Sirius did *not* deserve to die. But I am afraid wizardkind deserved to lose him. That is the "reward" that Dumbledore refers to, IMO. It was cruel, but who ever said that Karma was kind? I understand why you think that Dumbledore should not have tried to make this a teachable moment. But I agree with Steve, he just couldn't excuse himself another time. To quote Susan Cooper again, if once you have failed a great trust, you dare not let yourself be trusted again, because to fail again would be the end of the world. > Alla: > > Harry himself says so. I see no reasons in this situation to assume > that he lies. To me it is just common sense. Petunia is the only > mother figure he knew for ten years. I think it would be strange if > the child would not want the love from mother figure, no matter how > horribly she treated him. Pippin: Goodness me! Are we reading the same books? '"They're your family, after all, and I'm sure you are fond of one another --er--*very* deep down." It didn't occur to Harry to put Fudge right. -- PoA. It's not something that gets talked about a lot, but babies do reject their caregivers sometimes, even caregivers that love them, more often than you might think. I see no reason to assume that there was ever any desire or instinct on Harry's part to bond with Petunia at all. There was certainly nothing by the time he was thirteen. Pippin From irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com Mon Apr 24 15:22:01 2006 From: irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com (IreneMikhlin) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 16:22:01 +0100 Subject: [HPforGrownups] SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: <20060423045049.48498.qmail@web61321.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060423045049.48498.qmail@web61321.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <444CED19.8080205@btopenworld.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151370 Joe Goodwin wrote: > I have to agree with the above but I am going to go out on a limb and > say that Hermione isn't really that much smarter than Harry or Ron. > She gets much better marks because she is driven to work harder to do > well. That doesn't translate into smarter even if it does translate > to better educated. If Harry or Ron spent as much time studying as > Hermione does they would be a lot closer to her in the marks range. That's funny. That's like saying "If Harry was a Rockfeller, he'd be as rich as Rockfeller". One of the characteristics of the gifted children is being an avid reader and having love of knowledge. And Hermione certainly isn't doing all that reading just for the marks. Also, not getting the Golpalott's law suggest the cognitive ability of a teaspoon, if I may be so rude. Ron and Harry definitely have their strong sides, but academic talent isn't one of them. Irene From zgirnius at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 16:05:32 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 16:05:32 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151371 > houyhnhnm: > > Are you saying that the UV can "see" through the disguises? That DD! > Snape is about to die from the UV unless he kills Snape!DD? > > The third clause of the Vow required Snape "should it prove necessary > if it seems Draco will fail [...] carry out the deed that the Dark > Lord has ordered Draco to perform?" > > But Draco does not seem to be about to fail the /deed that the Dark > Lord has ordered/--namely killing Dumbledore. Rather he is about to > fail in the attempt to kill Snape (as DD!Snape). So it seems to me > that the Vow would not even kick in. zgirnius: I guess it is arguable, at that. I do think the Vow sees through disguises, yes. Otherise, what a clever way to kill someone-Polyjuice yourself into them, swear to do something they are certainly not going to do (In exactly one hour and five minutes, I swear to walk into the main vault at Fort Knox, or any equally random and unlikely act), wait for the potion to wear off, and bingo. The unsuspecting victim is dead. However, you have a point. Draco is actually wavering in an attempt to kill Snape, not Dumbledore, though of course he doesn't know that. On the other hand, the Death Eaters present don't know it either. It suree SEEMS that Draco is failing to kill Dumbledore, one of the others even makes a comment to that effect. (Recall Narcissa's wording of the Vow...) From katbofaye at aol.com Sun Apr 23 18:33:30 2006 From: katbofaye at aol.com (katssirius) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 18:33:30 -0000 Subject: Dark Phoenix Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151372 I like this theory a lot. It is based on complex emotions and an intelligent plan. The problem I see with it is I do not think JKR has got it in her. I would have believed it until Book 6. This is her first story and she's having a hard time pulling it together towards an ending. Book 6 impressed me as a set up for a contrived ending that could not be foreseen. The introduction of Voldemort's backstory when he is a character of no interest (even after the back story) wasted 50% of that book. As you point out Snape has always been the most interesting character and we could have used the story of his school days or his time with the Death Eaters. JKR could have given us more on the Marauders, Lily, the Dursleys, almost any Order member. These are all interesting characters and she has thrown out hints but never followed up on them. There is not time in the last book to do it all. I agree Snape is the hero. I think DD's picture in the headmaster's office is the one point I have not seen argued away concerning his death. Other than that I like your story best I just do not think JKR has it in her. She must have realized she needed eight books and instead of giving up some of the unnecessary Voldemort backstory she sacrificed the backstories that are constantly discussed on websites and is the juice for most of the fanfiction. katssirius From orgone9 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 16:07:05 2006 From: orgone9 at yahoo.com (Len Jaffe) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 09:07:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Did Harry have a Horcrux in OOP? In-Reply-To: <28c.946eeeb.317d737e@aol.com> Message-ID: <20060424160705.29743.qmail@web80609.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151373 > BrwNeil at aol.com wrote: > As for a hiding place for another Horcrux, what do > you think of the room of requirement? That whole > bit about the sherry bottles and Harry hiding his > potions book seemed rather overdone unless it was > to introduce a Horcrux location. --Len-- I agree that there's something important to be found in the Room of Requirement [What could be more important than a chamber pot when you're in dire need? :-) ], but I think it's over by the bust of the ugly wizard, which now sports a wig and a tiara, marking the location of potions book. I think the mention of the sherry bottles was to point out that Trelawny has been using the room to try to hide her drinking problem for a long time. --Len-- From orgone9 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 16:22:28 2006 From: orgone9 at yahoo.com (Len Jaffe) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 09:22:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <196.5361f985.317a8f3e@aol.com> Message-ID: <20060424162228.25268.qmail@web80604.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151374 > OctobersChild48 at aol.com wrote: > But, since GoF, I have formed a totally negative > position towards Ron where Hermione is concerned. > It has nothing, however, to do with the above > mentioned things. It has to do with the fact that > he shows no care, concern or respect for Hermione > at all. I consider his treatment of her to be > abusive and chauvinistic. Len: I consider it to be the actions of an early teenage boy, without positive male role models most of the time, with raging hormones, and no clue how to handle a boy/girl trying, and line most of us, failing to deal with attraction, jealousy, confusion, envy, lust, rejection, betrayal, and a whole host of other adult situations, for which he is unprepared emotionally. Does that make him unworthy of redemption? No. We have no prison sentences for immaturity. Harry's negative emotions are directed at Cedric, for winning Cho's attention. He can't blame Cho, so he wishes, in his immature way, for nesty things to happen to Cedric. Ron, feeling betrayed by Hermione, directs his anger at her, because he cannot direct it at Victor. Mostly becuase he can't even get Victor to notice he exists. It's Harry who gets the Prophet write-up that prompts the conversation by the forest. In summary. Ron's a boy, dealing with men's problems, unprepared, and handling them about as well as can be expected, and with uncanny accuracy as far as I'm concerned. Len. From yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com Mon Apr 24 16:31:18 2006 From: yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com (stevemac) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 11:31:18 -0500 Subject: ...Erised DD.... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151375 > BetsyHP: > > I think Harry really did just stumble across the Mirror. It wasn't > until after he and Ron discussed the Mirror at dinner with the staff > (when Harry was already losing sleep and probably looking like it) > that Dumbledore intervened. stevemac: IMO - At the beginning of term, the stone and Fluffy were already in place, which means that the mirror (which was the last part of the trials) SHOULD have been in place as well. If we are to believe that DD had, from the beginning, intended to use the mirror to guard the stone, then why would it have been upstairs... where somebody could find it (Harry). It is, of course, possible that DD did not think of using the mirror until he found Harry using it and decided to move it, but then that implies that the stone was, until then, not well guarded (or at least not AS well guarded). DD then explains exactly what the mirror does, tells him NOT to look for it but that it would be moved to a new home, but also mentions that if he finds the mirror again he will be prepared. It seems like DD is setting him up. DD could have just had the mirror moved, but instead goes to great length to be there the next time Harry finds it and to explain all. From sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 16:49:16 2006 From: sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com (sugaranddixie1) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 16:49:16 -0000 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? In-Reply-To: <20060424122705.4431.qmail@web61324.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151376 Nikkalmati wrote: >I certainly agree there is a problem here. Harry shows some >immediate remorse, but it doesn't last long. Does he ever go >to see Draco in the infirmary? Does he even ask how he is >doing? Just a touch of concern could have made a difference >to Draco or show real remorse. Instead he is soon complaining >about what appears to be a very mild detention for what he did. >Does it really matter that he misses Quiddich when Draco could >have died? ET: Snape said, "You need the hospital wing. There may be a certain amount of scarring, but if you take dittany immediately we might avoid even that...Come....." He then helped Draco to the hospital wing. He didn't have to conjure up a stretcher like he did in POA. Draco was able to walk with assistance & other than Snape's concern about possible scarring, seems out of mortal peril at this point. Given Harry's history, I don't think the idea of Draco having a scar or two would have bothered Harry too much! ;) As for Harry visiting Draco in hospital, I don't think he would have gotten a warm reception if he'd been allowed in at all! Now as regards Quiddich, I'm afraid I can understand why Harry felt the way he did. He was Captain of the team & it was the last match of the season too! Harry, in spite of all he's been through, is still a teenager! He used poor judgement in using that spell, but remember the other spell in the book & what it did? It hoisted people into the air by their ankles- it was more of a prank than dangerous & may have predisposed Harry to believe the Sectumsempra would be an innocuous spell as well. (Come to think of it, it's a shame he didn't try that one out on Draco in the bathroom...flip him upside down and then disarm him! :D ) Nikkalmati wrote: >Has Snape given up on anyone giving Harry any proper punishment? >Did he even report Harry to Minerva or DD? Does he know events >are too near the climax to suspend or expel Harry? I don't >believe SS is afraid of DD finding out about the book or the >spell he created. Surely, DD knows a lot worse things about SS >by now and SS can't be held liable for losing a book. The detention >SS does give has the potentially beneficial effect of showing >Harry "you don't want to be like this; you can't afford to be like >this; the WW can't afford for you to be this childish; grow up >Harry." Of course, he could just be showing Harry why he disliked >James and Sirius so much too . JMO ET: I think SS, while not 'afraid' of DD finding out about the book, would rather not have attention brought to Snape's prior fascination with the dark arts... and, imo, it was very irresponsible of him to leave that book lying around with a spell that dangerous in it. To me though, more telling than anything about why Snape chose the punishment he did was the fact that he himself (SS) had used that very same spell on James when they, (SS & James), were teenagers. I think Snape held back some when attacking James, because the damage to James wasn't on a par with what happened to Draco, but still it appears to have been the same spell. Harry saw this in the pensieve, although at the time he wouldn't have known what spell was used as it appears SS performed it silently. I can't find anywhere that it dawns on Harry at any point that it was Sectumsempra that Snape used on James, but Harry did witness it & Snape knows it! >From OOP when Harry witnesses Snape's worst memory- "...But too late; Snape had directed his wand straight at James; there was a flash of light and a gash appeared on the side of Jame's face, spattering his robes with blood. James whirled about; a second flash of light later, Snape was hanging upside down in the air, his robes falling over his head to reaveal skinny, pallid legs and a pair of graying underpants..." (Harry already knew after witnessing this) why Snape diliked James & Sirius so much. Harry questioned Lupin about it too.) Perhaps Snape gave Harry this punishment because he knew it would pain Harry- I have a hard time picturing SS as a benevolent teacher based on JKR's description...although I know anything is possible! :) So Snape has performed this spell himself, only he knew what to expect from it, while Harry was totally in the dark. I think all of this may have had some bearing on the punishment given. Those words "For Enemies" probably just flashed into Harry's mind at that critical moment & advice from "the book" had done him nothing but good up until that point. If Snape does turn out to be DD's man, I think that him knowing about what's coming may be a factor also. If turns out to be working for LV, however, I would think he'd have been more eager to get Harry expelled. All just my opinion, of course.... ET From rdoliver30 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 18:02:58 2006 From: rdoliver30 at yahoo.com (lupinlore) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 18:02:58 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151377 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "amiabledorsai" wrote: > > This is the problem I have with the various puppet master scenarios. > If Dumbledore wanted Sirius dead, he could simply have kept sending > him out on increasingly dangerous missions until the inevitable > happened. A martyred Sirius would have worked out very well for > Puppetmaster!Dumbledore ("Harry, Sirius would have wanted you to do > this"). Yes, that is very true. Although I suppose one can argue that the most successful puppetmasters are those who never appear to be pulling strings -- for instance the killer puppetmaster that Agatha Christie presents in "Curtain," who is so good, and so untouchable, that the only recourse Poirot has is to kill the villain himself. "Sirius would have wanted you to do this," would be to blatantly reveal Puppetmaster!Dumbledore's true nature, at least to the reader. I, like you, don't have much faith in a manipulative Dumbledore, however. As you point out, if he's manipulative he often isn't very good at it -- although a Dumbledore of any variety often isn't very good at a lot of things, so that isn't saying very much. More to the point, a manipulative Dumbledore would have to be the world's greatest expert at divination to know how certain things would turn out -- or a visitor from the future, which JKR has already said he is not. > I don't think he was rationalizing, so much as trying to find some > little nugget of good in Harry's suffering at the Dursleys'. > Consider how frustrated Dumbledore must be by the whole thing-- here is > a man who is used to literally and figuratively pulling miracles out > of his pocket, and the best solution he can find for protecting Harry > is to board him with a couple of child-abusers. > Hmmm. Well, if that's what Dumbledore meant that's what Dumbledore should have said. Instead we get a confusing, bizarre, and incredibly off-putting display of coldness and high-handedness that actually seems, on the face of it, to make Puppetmaster!Dumbledore plausible -- and which has, indeed, become the crux of many a Puppetmaster!Dumbledore scenario. I don't think JKR means for DD to come off as a Puppetmaster, but she certainly shot herself in the foot with that scene -- at least judging by how often people cite it as Puppetmaster Exhibit A. As I've said before, if there are subtle clues otherwise in the scene, many of them have fallen on a lot of deaf ears (and been read by a lot of blind eyes), and I'd have to say that relying on subtle clues that don't work falls under the category of, as I've said before, being too clever for your own good. Actually, I don't think she meant for there to be subtle clues in the scene. I think, as is often the case with all authors, that JKR knew what she wanted to say and didn't realize that it just doesn't come off that way, at least not to a lot of people on a face-value reading. Actually a friend of mine who teaches writing classes to high schoolers mentioned something like this over lunch this weekend. He said he often has the kids write a scene, then has the class trade papers and each person read another person's scene. He said that anywhere from 25% to 50% of the time, the person who wrote the scene objects "I didn't say that!" but, when asked to look at the page with the recent reading in mind, inevitably confesses something to the effect of "Well, I guess I DID say that, didn't I?" Lupinlore From willsonkmom at msn.com Mon Apr 24 18:13:49 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 18:13:49 -0000 Subject: Slug and Jiggers Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151378 Potioncat here. Call me confunded, but I just "got" Slughorn's name. See, all this time I've been picturing a very fat slug, waving it's slimy antenae in the air...slug's horn. Made me think of flesh eating slug repellant, even if I can't punctuate it. But I came across Slug and Jiggers Apothecary shop as I was meandering along Diagon Alley. You, no doubt, take a quick slug from a jigger of potions to cure what ails you... Yes, you can blow a horn, a slug horn for Childe Roland, but you can also drink from a horn...take a deep slug from it too...Slug horn. Potioncat, grateful to Lexicon Steve and all his staff for the many treasures at the Lexicon. From belviso at attglobal.net Mon Apr 24 18:45:01 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (sistermagpie) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 18:45:01 -0000 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151379 > ET: > > He used poor judgement in using that spell, but remember the other > spell in the book & what it did? It hoisted people into the air by > their ankles- it was more of a prank than dangerous & may have > predisposed Harry to believe the Sectumsempra would be an innocuous > spell as well. (Come to think of it, it's a shame he didn't try that > one out on Draco in the bathroom...flip him upside down and then > disarm him! :D ) Magpie: He did try that, but Draco blocked it, iirc. I think a lot of this thread is, while not a bad thing, not really about what the scene is doing in the story when it goes into justifying or getting Harry off. Harry himself has a healthy instinct to justify himself as well, yet he still feels badly, so there's a reason. (Also Draco's being able to walk really seems beside the point; who wants to play down that awesome twitching Slytherin bleeding out in a puddle in the bathroom just because there's no stretcher? Harry's looking death in the face there?) The reason has a lot, imo, to do with what Harry knows he did. Yes, he didn't know what the spell did on one level, but on another level it did what he asked it to do. The Prince has not done him "only good" up to this point at all. How "good" the Prince is has always been a question. What it has been is powerful and efficient, which is exactly what it is here. The instruction "for enemies" is just the right sinister warning. Harry feels guilty because it wasn't just a case of pushing the wrong button--he directed emotion at Draco and saw it writ large on him. It's like asking a genii for something--he got what he wanted. In terms of whether one can escalate after an Unforgivable, I think of course you can. That's why Neville and Harry are walking around fine after Crucios and a person dead from any non-unforgivable spell isn't. Crucio itself is different depending on the person and context, imo. Adults who use it that we see are sadists genuinely torturing. Teenaged boys in the heat of anger are throwing their own pain and someone else. At least that's certainly what I see from the teenaged boys who have tried to throw it. This is not to dismiss Draco's throwing it--had he been able to sustain or actually cast one in his emotional state he may well have continued casting it until Harry was seriously hurt. But I still don't think that makes the scene about justifying Harry's mistake. They're both fighting, emotions are high, someone gets hurt, Harry happens to be the one left standing in the pool of blood. One of the unique things about that scene, too, is that it's the one time Harry's fought with Draco when Harry *isn't* angry at him. He knows he's come upon somebody in a state somewhat like a cornered, wounded animal. Draco hasn't insulted him in the scene for once; Harry's blood isn't up, and he yet he does all this damage. Harry gets a mild punishment (and a reward of a girlfriend and the Quidditch cup and within minutes it's all about Snape anyway), Draco gets time in the infirmary. They both get a scare. Nobody's coming to arrest Harry, so we don't have to prove whether "no court in the world" would convict him (even if fandom doesn't seem to come to a consensus!). It's Harry's own conscience that's keeping the case from being completely closed at this point. I guess we'll just wait to see whether that actually leads to something in Book VI (which I would hope it would--I wouldn't expect Harry to visit Draco in the infimary, nor would I expect Dumbledore to insist on them working it out as he might in the real world, but I do think it's a bit odd to have the two of them just go off and never speak of this incident again...it seems a rather intimate experience) or if it's just there to imply Harry is a sensitive guy. That seems a little off to me. I'm pulling for more to come. -m From foxmoth at qnet.com Mon Apr 24 18:51:57 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 18:51:57 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP - DD's Perspecitve In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151380 Magpie: > But yes, Dumbledore is certainly doing what you're saying, ushering > Harry's mind the way he needs it to go--and the reader's mind too. > I think everyone recognizes that this is, in fact, an exposition > scene telling *us* how to make sense of the events of the preceding > year. But I think it's always going to be difficult for some people > to ignore what it unfortunately also is, which is somebody dealing > with someone who's just lost a family member by imposing his > perspective on events when many people are going to instinctually > say a grieving person should be given space to feel his own feelings > for a while. Many people would say they don't want perspective in > that moment and hate it when people give it to them, especially if > they don't agree with that perspective ("He's in a better place," > for instance or "Jesus wanted her to be with him now" have upset > plenty of grieving people, though the people saying it feel they're > giving a comforting perspective.) Pippin: I agree that Dumbledore was trying to give Harry perspective, but not a comforting one. One of the things that Harry lost with Sirius was someone who would make Harry's happiness his first priority, right or wrong. Dumbledore, unfortunately for Harry's peace of mind, was trying to fulfill the commitment he made long ago that when the time came, Harry would learn what he needed to know. Harry did hate it. It points up the poignancy of the situation that Sirius is not there, as he was in GoF, to ask if this couldn't wait till a better time. But I think Dumbledore would have answered the same way he did then, that Harry needed to understand what had happened and that the pain would only be greater if was postponed. It is, of course, convenient for JKR's plotline that she does not have to give the reader the idea that Dumbledore shared Harry's idealized view of Sirius and then backtrack to correct it. Snape, Petunia and Kreacher are still part of the story, so the reader at the end of OOP can be left to wonder how Harry and Dumbledore will deal with them in the future. But Sirius is gone. Pippin From clthoma at msn.com Mon Apr 24 19:25:37 2006 From: clthoma at msn.com (justcarol67) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 19:25:37 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151381 lupinlore: > > > Which, of course, brings up a problem that many of us have with > > OOTP, which is that THAT (i.e. the way Harry's grief and > > relationship with DD is handled) just is not in any way believable. > > Given that Harry would have learned not to cry before he learned how > to read, and that he'd just found out the hard way that his own good > intentions could lead to hideous results, what were you expecting? > > Amiable Dorsai > Carol adds: The only things that bothered me about this scene were its length (too much exposition) and the tear at the end (too sappy). And I agree with other posters that the apology for not making Harry Prefect didn't ring completely true. It was *good* for Harry to realize that he didn't need to receive all the honors, that Ron might have something thathe doesn't have (aside from skill at chess). And it was good for Ron, Harry's loyal friend and partner in the fight against Voldemort, to have a shot at responsibility. Harry, for all his importance as the Chosen One (as DD already knows), is not the only student at Hogwarts, or the only one worthy of his attention. So I think that making Ron Prefect was the right decision but that DD gave the wrong explanation, or at least, an incomplete one (as usual). What I did like, though (love, really), was DD's calmness in the face of Harry's fury ("By all means continue demolishing my possessions. I daresay I have too many.") Too bad that wouldn't work in RL as we don't have recourse to Reparo to restore our possessions as DD does after Hurricane Harry. As for DD's references to Sirius Black's faults, I think that DD needed to help Harry see the truth. White lies about a dead man would not have helped. ("Kreacher is what wizards have made him" does take away Kreacher's freedom of choice, however, and his responsibility for those choices. Dobby has been treated at least as badly yet has chosen the side of good. But I don't think that DD is blaming Sirius for all of those choices, only trying to get Harry to pity him a la Gandalf trying to get Frodo to pity Gollum.) And possibly DD doesn't want Harry heaping blame on himself (or Snape?) for Black's death. IMO, he wants Harry to understand that Black made his own decision to come to the MoM. Of course, the blame *could* have been directed a little more squarely onto Bellatrix's shoulders, but DD was clearly trying to shoulder as much of the blame as possible himself. Given DD's recognition (and admission) of his own mistakes, Harry's attitude and behavior throughout the interview, and (as Pippin so wisely pointed out) DD's understanding that he was LV's next target and that his days were numbered, I think that DD did a remarkably good job of telling Harry what Harry needed to know, unpleasant or otherwise. Dumbledore isnotperfect or omniscient. He had just gone through an exhausting battle with an evil wizard whose powers nearly equalled his own and had seen Harry possessed--his greatest fear realized. Even though he now knows that LV can't possess Harry, that knowledge reveals to him that he's been on the wrong track for the entire year. I'd say that, like Harry, DD has "quite enough to be getting on with" at that point, and it's remarkable that he was in control at all with a furious and grieving teenager who doesn't want to hear anything he has to say. (I'm wondering if those of us who sympathize with him in this scene and are willing to tolerate his blunders as those of an emotionally (and perhaps physically) exhausted old man are those who have confronted furious teenagers ourselves and know how very difficult DD's situation was in every respect. Harry was about to leave for the summer. DD had to say everything he could at one time, and he could not be sidetracked by what Harry, given his mood, might take as false sympathy for the loss of his godfather. He had to get on with the business at hand, chiefly the Prophecy and its consequences. We can gently chide JKR for putting too much exposition in this scene (surely the summary of Harry's previous confrontations with LV could have been left out), but I for one don't fault her characterization of Dumbledore in this scene. I think that considering what he and Harry had just been through and what he alone deduced that they would be facing in the coming year, the depiction is spot on. I doubt that any of us in his place could have done better--and many of us, faced with CAPSLOCK Harry demolishing our possessions, rebelling against our authority, and denying our capacity to understand him, would have done far worse, reacting with anger or making excuses for our own failings. DD, for all his faults and failings, does neither. He does what a wise and honorable adult ought to do--he takes responsibility for his own mistakes and tries to rectify them as best he can in the limited time available, at the same time managing the exceedingly difficult task of getting Harry to listen to him. (I'm sure that anyone on the list who's never faced an angry teenager can at least recall being one and perhaps empathize in retrospect with the adult authority figure on the receiving end of their righteous wrath. [Teenagers are always "right," at least in their own minds.] And the fact that Harry is not just any teenager but the future nemesis of Voldemort, as well as someone that DD loves and admires, multiplies the difficulty of his task exponentially.) At any rate, I for one can and do empathize with DD in this scene though I can also empathize with Harry, having been a teenager myself once upon a time. Carol, who disliked DD's criticism of the Dursleys in HBP (though they deserved it) and felt that JKR was bowing to reader criticism of OoP rather than standing her ground and keeping the characterization of DD consistent From mgrantwich at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 19:37:37 2006 From: mgrantwich at yahoo.com (Magda Grantwich) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 12:37:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <20060424162228.25268.qmail@web80604.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060424193737.73967.qmail@web53107.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151382 > In summary. Ron's a boy, dealing with men's problems, > unprepared, and handling them about as well as can be > expected, and with uncanny accuracy as far as I'm > concerned. > > Len. I wish I could believe it was just that, but since the movies started coming out, I think that Ron has been getting dumber by the book. I'd like to see a return to chess-strategist-Ron because the HBP-Ron didn't strike me as someone who could even spell "chess". Magda __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From bboyminn at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 19:52:39 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 19:52:39 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP - DD's Perspecitve In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151383 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sistermagpie" wrote: > > Magpie: > To me Dumbledore seemed like he was just dealing with events the way > he, personally, dealt with events. I did not see him taking the > lion's share of the blame for himself in the way other people might > have given it to him, but rather giving himself blame that he was > okay with. ... bboyminn: I do see your point, but I think in his own pragmatic way Dumbledore accepts his share of the blame, and admits his mistakes and missteps honestly and bluntly. Part of his doing so, I'm sure is to diminish the fact that Harry is certainly blaming himself, and while Dumbledore fairly points out Harry's share of the blame, he makes sure that the bulk of that burden is lifted from Harry, and with no where else to go, it falls on his shoulders. I don't think he is doing this just to placate Harry, I think he sees it as a fair and honest assessment. In that moment, he knows he has done many things wrong; keeping Harry in the dark, keeping Sirius locked up, not intervening with the Dursley on Harry's behalf, etc.... He accepts his responsibily, and I really think it made Harry feel better. On the subject of Dumbledore not intervening at with the Dursleys, I think from Dumbledore's remote outpost, it was just too easy to keep repeating the mantra 'He's alive, he's safe, that's what's important'. Later it became 'He's alive, he's safe, he'll be at Hogwarts soon'. Dumbledore is human, and for humans it is alway easier to maintain the status quo, especially a distant status quo, rather than struggle with change. In hindsight, now that Harry is there in front of him, broken and battered, I'm sure Dumbledore wishes he had done more, but that is in the past, and in the present, all they can do is move forward. > Magpie: > > ... But I think it's always going to be difficult for some people > to ignore what it unfortunately also is, which is somebody dealing > with someone who's just lost a family member by imposing his > perspective on events when many people are going to instinctually > say a grieving person should be given space to feel his own feelings > for a while. Many people would say they don't want perspective in > that moment and hate it when people give it to them, especially if > they don't agree with that perspective ("He's in a better place," > for instance or "Jesus wanted her to be with him now" have upset > plenty of grieving people, though the people saying it feel they're > giving a comforting perspective.) ... > bboyminn: This is what I meant by 'hollow platitudes', saying 'he's in a better place', 'so sorry for your loss', 'he's with Jesus now', whether the people know it or not are more likely to be infuriating words rather than comforting words. That is very much what Hagrid tried to do when he said Sirius died in battle and that's how he would have wanted to go. Harry quickly points out that he wouldn't have want to go at all. Those words do not soften the events or add any comfort. But, I do see Dumbledore's words of perspective as adding comfort and softening the blow. In some sense, Dumbledore is blunt and insensitive to Harry's loss. But his blunt /honest/ words gave Harry much more comfort and did more to bring him to a state of resolved grief than Hagrid's words, or anyone's hollow platitudes, ever could. For those of you who have read the continuation of the 'Ender's Game' series, you are familiar with the concept of 'The Speaker for the Dead', in some ways, I see Dumbledore in this role. He gives an honest and fair accounting of a man's life (Dumbledore's, Harry's, and Sirius's), neither hiding nor exaggerating any aspect of it. Only in the truth of a man's life can you make sense of it. Some who hear a 'speaking' are comforted because the dead person's life now makes sense, others are horrified that such brutal truths are revealed. Yet, whether comforted or horrified, the man's life and his actions finally make sense. > Magpie: > In this story Dumbledore steps in an hour after the incident, Harry > brings up any number of unprofitable paths to go down plotwise (more > important than anything about Harry's emotional health none of these > things are going to be important in the next book), Dumbledore > knocks them down and a couple of weeks later Harry's decided Sirius > wants him to go on with life. The only unhealthy thought Harry > manages to hang on to is...surprise! That it's all Snape's fault. > Now he's primed for HBP. > > -m bboyminn: Percisely the point I'm trying to make. I think we must ask whether Harry wants life to 'go on' because of what Dumbledore said and the perspective he added, or whether it was inspite of Dumbledore's effort. I think Dumbledore very much help Harry find the right path to resolve his grief over the events and over Sirius. Delay or hollow meaningless platitudes, in my opinion, would have only heightened and warped Harry's grief process. For what it's worth. Steve/bboyminn From irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com Mon Apr 24 20:16:53 2006 From: irene_mikhlin at btopenworld.com (IreneMikhlin) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 21:16:53 +0100 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <20060424193737.73967.qmail@web53107.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060424193737.73967.qmail@web53107.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <444D3235.50604@btopenworld.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151384 Magda Grantwich wrote: > > I wish I could believe it was just that, but since the movies started > coming out, I think that Ron has been getting dumber by the book. > I'd like to see a return to chess-strategist-Ron because the HBP-Ron > didn't strike me as someone who could even spell "chess". I know that movies do not count, but I thought it was very telling that the script-writers felt the need to change Victor from a star student to a "physical being". Because unless he was dumber than Ron, the dramatic triangle would not work. Irene From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 19:49:17 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 12:49:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: <444CED19.8080205@btopenworld.com> Message-ID: <20060424194917.75636.qmail@web61316.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151385 Irene wrote: That's funny. That's like saying "If Harry was a Rockfeller, he'd be as rich as Rockfeller". One of the characteristics of the gifted children is being an avid reader and having love of knowledge. And Hermione certainly isn't doing all that reading just for the marks. Also, not getting the Golpalott's law suggest the cognitive ability of a teaspoon, if I may be so rude. Ron and Harry definitely have their strong sides, but academic talent isn't one of them. Joe: Umm No. Both of their OWLS imply academic talent. There are plenty of highly intelligent people who are not overly fond of reading to such a degree as young Miss Granger. Thare many types of intelligence and using ANY one measuring tool is horribly simplistic. Not to mention Hermione's personality suggests she IS reading merely to recieve high marks. Wasn't it Hermione's who's boggart was MM telling her she failed all of her exams? I was sent to a school for very gifted students(Which I hated because the sports programs were terrible) for one year when I was a teenager. At that school I met very driven students and very lazy ones. Students who read anything they could get their hands on and students who only read what they had. Students who were in Calculus 5 as seniors and students who had a bit of trouble with math becauase as bright as they were it didn't interest them. Gifted students come in all shapes, sizes and personalities. There is not one archetype for intelligence. The fact remains that Hermiones OWLS are significantly better than Harry and Rons. A fair bit of the credit for this has to go toward her obsessive regard for her marks. Hermione is smarter than both Harry and Ron but it isn't by as great a measure as by the level her academic ambitions/insecurities excede theirs. Joe From sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 20:41:24 2006 From: sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com (sugaranddixie1) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 20:41:24 -0000 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151386 (Re: Harry using Levicorpus on Draco in the bathroom confrontation) Magpie wrote: >He did try that, but Draco blocked it, iirc. ET: You're right...I totally missed that! :) ET Magpie wrote: >The Prince has not done him "only >good" up to this point at all. ET: I think, from Harry's point of view, the Prince has done him nothing but great until the episode with Draco. Harry needed help in potions & the Prince gave him what he needed to succeed. I think this built up an element of trust in Harry for the prince's advice. ET Magpie wrote: >(Also Draco's being able to walk really seems >beside the point; who wants to play down that awesome twitching >Slytherin bleeding out in a puddle in the bathroom justbecause >there's no stretcher? Harry's looking death in the face there?) ET: Yes, it's true that Harry looked death in the face, (i.e. thought he might have killed Draco), during that horrible time before Snape arrived, but I was really just giving my opinion regarding the question that was asked about why Harry was able to go on so readily/easily to worry about the Quiddich match. I think it was because between Snape's comments & Draco being able to walk to the hospital with support (as opposed to having to be transported there), Harry found reassurance that Draco was o.k. I do think Harry continues to feel badly, but also that he's learned a valuable lesson. He can't stop living because he's made a mistake, no matter how serious it was..... That doesn't really apply to the question of whether he's a murderer (or has it in him to be one). I think the element of his trust for the prince does apply, however. If someone you trust gives you advice, are you guilty for taking it? ET From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 21:25:34 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 21:25:34 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: <20060424194917.75636.qmail@web61316.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151387 > >>Irene: > > > > Also, not getting the Golpalott's law suggest the cognitive > > ability of a teaspoon, if I may be so rude. Ron and Harry > > definitely have their strong sides, but academic talent isn't > > one of them. > Joe: > Umm No. Both of their OWLS imply academic talent. There are plenty > of highly intelligent people who are not overly fond of reading to > such a degree as young Miss Granger. Thare many types of > intelligence and using ANY one measuring tool is horribly > simplistic. > Betsy Hp: For example, Hermione has little to no leadership abilities. Harry has her beat on that. And she's terrible at improvising, which is why Harry beat her DADA score, I'd imagine. And, ironically, I think Hermione has a very hard time reading people emotionally. Whereas Ron is very good at it, IMO. There's a reason Harry is more comfortable around Ron than he is around Hermione. *And* there's a reason that Hermione was left with only Hagrid for company when Harry and Ron were angry at her. Ron is much better at figuring out how a person is thinking. If Hermione had listened to him during her SPEW phase, she may have gotten further. Actually, I think that's where JKR is going when she sees Ron and Hermione as a couple. She provides the cold calculation, he provides the heart, and together they're unstoppable. Is the idea anyway. So far Hermione has done such a good job stomping all over poor Ron's heart, I'm not sure she deserves him. Betsy Hp From BrwNeil at aol.com Mon Apr 24 21:41:32 2006 From: BrwNeil at aol.com (BrwNeil at aol.com) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 17:41:32 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron Message-ID: <2a1.8ef41a0.317ea00c@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151388 In a message dated 4/24/2006 5:26:50 PM Eastern Standard Time, horridporrid03 at yahoo.com writes: Actually, I think that's where JKR is going when she sees Ron and Hermione as a couple. She provides the cold calculation, he provides the heart, and together they're unstoppable. Is the idea anyway. So far Hermione has done such a good job stomping all over poor Ron's heart, I'm not sure she deserves him. Betsy Hp Interesting how two people can read the same book and have totally different opinions. To me it seems Ron has done most of the stomping (Especially in HBP) and I can't figure out why Hermione wants him. But then I've never been a believer in the theory that people that fight all the time actually like each other or that people that are total opposites attract. I don't fight with people I like and I prefer to spend my time with someone that shares the same interests. You and JKR might think they are a great match, but I doubt many marriage councilors would agree. Neil [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From bboyminn at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 22:10:55 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 22:10:55 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys... - DD's Speech; A to B In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151389 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" wrote: > > Carol adds: > > ...edited... > > ... > > Harry was about to leave for the summer. DD had to say everything he > could at one time, and he could not be sidetracked by what Harry, > given his mood, might take as false sympathy for the loss of his > godfather. He had to get on with the business at hand, chiefly the > Prophecy and its consequences. > bboyminn: To this I say 'BRAVO'. I think that very concisely summarises Dumbledore position and explains his action. The opportunity and the need were there, and Dumbledore seized them both. > Carol concludes: > > ...edited.. > > Carol, who disliked DD's criticism of the Dursleys in HBP > (though they deserved it) and felt that JKR was bowing to reader > criticism of OoP rather than standing her ground and keeping the > characterization of DD consistent > bboyminn: Just a side comment on this one point, don't you think that Dumbledore's speech to the Dursleys at the beginning of HBP was an extention of his realization and admission of his mistakes at the end of OotP? Further, was Dumbledore's critical comments to the Dursleys, since it was completely lost on them, for their benefit, or was it really for Harry's benefit? Was this actually Dumbledore trying in some small way to admit his mistake and make up for the Dursley's treatment of Harry? Of course, it could never physically make up for it, but it might have the power to give Harry some satisfaction to see the Dursleys confronted for their 'crimes' even if there was no punishment? To some extent, the Dursleys had the attitude that they could treat Harry any way they wanted because no one could ever see or know what they did. Of course, I think a large degree of that was subconscious; or perhaps a conscious avoidance of the issue. Now they are openly and publicly (in a sense) being call to task for their actions. Finally, someone of great power and importance is acknowledging that what the Dursleys did is wrong, unnecessary, and uncalled for. Further in calling them to task, Dumbledore is acknowleding his own fault in the matter. Again, it doesn't change anything, but I think Harry got some satisfaction out of it. That particular scene also serves another purpose, in a subtle and indirect way, the location of 12 Grimmauld Place has been revealed to the Dursleys by the 'Secret Keeper'. That may or may not be significant, but it has been done, and is a plot point ready to play out if JKR decides she needs it. There are some who presume that after Harry's next birthday, the Dursleys will be attacked and Harry will have to offer them sancutary at Grimmauld Place. Though I admit, given all the story that remains to be told, Dursley at Grimmauld Place seems like a distraction. Which now brings me to a quick summary of the entire HBP book. In a sense, this book is a prelude to book seven, and in that sense, it is a very limiting book for the author. The purpose of the books is to take the overall story from point A to point B, and those points are predetermined. The story has to go from where it is at to where it NEEDS to be when book seven starts. I think those two predetermined points restricts what can happen in between, especially when so many significant plot points and information transfers must occur to get the story to where it needs to be. I think JKR had her greatest freedom to write in GoF. In that book, she could take the plot just about anywhere. She can explore her world at will, and it shows. In HBP, that freedom is greatly reduced, and a long list of specific things have to occur between the beginning and the end. Personally, I thought a fight between Draco and Harry over the Black Estate and a continuation of the DA Club would have been a more interesting story, but JKR is not in a position to diverge. She can't let the story wander into the many interesting subplot because she has a very specific destination in mind, and she must drive the story to that destination. So, the Black Estate subplot is resolved in a few paragraphs. Snape's inconsistencies and questions are resolved in a short chapter; though more were created than answered in his case. The Dursleys are taken to task and we move on because there will be no place else in the story where that can occur. Draco needs to do what Draco needs to do. Snape must do what Snape must do. Dumbledore has to educate Harry about the Horcruxes because they are obviously critical to the final book. Dumbledore needs to die. Things HAD to be done, and the best JKR could do is weave the best possible story around those very necessary elements. HBP is not at the top of my list of favorite HP books. But, just as with CoS, I grow more fond of it with each reading, especially now that the hype and intense expectations have softened. Now in the final book, there is no need for more mysteries, in this book the secrets are revealed and the mysteries are solved, and we know, finally, what it all means. I sounds like the book is progressing nicely, and however long or short it is, however good or bad it is, it's been a fun ride, one that I will be sad see come to an end. For what it's worth. STeve/bboyminn From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Mon Apr 24 22:19:08 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 22:19:08 -0000 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151390 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "eggplant107" wrote: Eggplant: > I wish Harry had killed Draco, the world would have been a better place. Geoff: Putting aside your oft-mentioned desire for murder, mayhem and chaos, there could be an interesting parallel here. '"What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!" "Pity? It was pity that stayed his hand. Pity and mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo...." "I am sorry," said Frodo. "But I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum..... ...He deserves death." "Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement..... .....And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end: and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many - yours not least..."' (J.R.R.Tolkien "Fellowship of the Ring" "The Shadow of the Past" What part has Draco still got to play? Hmmm. I wonder. From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 22:34:14 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 22:34:14 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: <2a1.8ef41a0.317ea00c@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151391 > >>Betsy Hp: > > Actually, I think that's where JKR is going when she sees Ron > > and Hermione as a couple. She provides the cold calculation, > > he provides the heart, and together they're unstoppable. Is the > > idea anyway. So far Hermione has done such a good job stomping > > all over poor Ron's heart, I'm not sure she deserves him. > >>Neil: > Interesting how two people can read the same book and have > totally different opinions. Betsy Hp: That's the beauty of this site! >>Neil: > To me it seems Ron has done most of the stomping (Especially in > HBP) and I can't figure out why Hermione wants him. Betsy Hp: In HBP, *I* can't figure out why Hermione wants Ron, either. She acts like he's a piece of poo she just wiped off her shoe. What I also have a hard time understanding is how Ron is able to get past that sort of treatment and keep on liking Hermione. Though he's always been able to see through her "all-knowing, all-powerful" facade. So perhaps he's able to see past her bad behavior in this particular book. > >>Neil: > > I don't fight with people I like and I prefer to spend my time > with someone that shares the same interests. You and JKR might > think they are a great match, but I doubt many marriage councilors > would agree. Betsy Hp: Oh, I was totally talking about JKR's view upthread. Personally, I'm having a hard time seeing a match made in heaven here. (Though I'm quite sure that's how the book will end.) There have been bickering couples in literature before, and I've bought them hook, line and sinker: Beatrice and Benedick, Jane and Mr. Darcy, Princess Leia and Han Solo (hey, there was a book!). I'm not getting such a great vibe off of Hermione and Ron. Betsy Hp From blink_883 at hotmail.com Mon Apr 24 22:21:01 2006 From: blink_883 at hotmail.com (whirledgirl) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 22:21:01 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP - DD's Perspecitve In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151392 (hi...new here...wanted to say hello somewhere so "hello!" and..) Steve/bboyminn: > Percisely the point I'm trying to make. I think we must ask whether > Harry wants life to 'go on' because of what Dumbledore said and the > perspective he added, or whether it was inspite of Dumbledore's > effort. I think Dumbledore very much help Harry find the right path to > resolve his grief over the events and over Sirius. Delay or hollow > meaningless platitudes, in my opinion, would have only heightened and > warped Harry's grief process. "whirledgirl" : Something that has been reiterated throughout all the books so far is that our choices allow our character to grow and develop. It seems to me that ultimately Harry's choice not to dwell on or waste undue energy by hating the Dursleys for their treatment of him will prove pivotal in book 7, just as this, Harry's capacity for love, has been important so far. Perhaps I'm way off, yet it does seem important that at any time during his childhood, Harry could have become hostile towards the Dursley's - but didn't. His childhood was as bad, if not slightly worse (for the Dursley's were his actual family, let's not forget, as opposed to the carers in the orphanage Riddle was in!) than Voldemort's. Harry didn't know his parents died trying to save him, and had loved him to that extent, for a major part of his childhood. Quite honestly I believe that with or without Dumbledore, Harry would have found the 'right' path again, and would have thawn out as it were. "whirledgirl" From forceman at SBCGlobal.net Mon Apr 24 23:23:54 2006 From: forceman at SBCGlobal.net (state_u_guy) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 23:23:54 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/Hermione, Re: Horcrux in OOP?, Re: Slug and Jiggers In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151393 > Betsy Hp in #151387: > Actually, I think that's where JKR is going when she sees Ron > and Hermione as a couple. She provides the cold calculation, > he provides the heart, and together they're unstoppable. State: I do think they make a great force for the Gryffindors as their prefects! Neil wrote in #151352: > That whole bit about the sherry bottles and Harry hiding his > potions book seemed rather overdone unless it was to introduce > a Horcrux location. State: Wow, the Dungeon, as the final Horcrux..cool! Nice stage for a battle scene, and convienient for the wrapping of any loose ends. Hmm. > Potioncat: > But I came across Slug and Jiggers Apothecary shop as I > was meandering along Diagon Alley. You, no doubt, take a quick > slug from a jigger of potions to cure what ails you... > > Yes, you can blow a horn, a slug horn for Childe Roland, but you > can also drink from a horn...take a deep slug from it too...Slug > horn. State: Nice....A wine drinking Jabba he is. Good call. From xxneuman07xx at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 22:48:52 2006 From: xxneuman07xx at yahoo.com (xxneuman07xx) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 22:48:52 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron/Golpalott's Third Law In-Reply-To: <444CED19.8080205@btopenworld.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151394 Irene: > Also, not getting the Golpalott's law suggest the cognitive ability > of a teaspoon, if I may be so rude. Ron and Harry definitely have > their strong sides, but academic talent isn't one of them. Neuman: Alright then, I'll bite. What does Golpalott's Third Law mean? "The antidote for a blended poison will be equal to more than the sum of the antidotes for each of the separate components." How would one antidote be more than another? Did Golpalott also invent some kind of rating system? From siskiou at vcem.com Tue Apr 25 00:06:02 2006 From: siskiou at vcem.com (Susanne) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 17:06:02 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: <2a1.8ef41a0.317ea00c@aol.com> References: <2a1.8ef41a0.317ea00c@aol.com> Message-ID: <1283260939.20060424170602@vcem.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151395 Hi, Monday, April 24, 2006, 2:41:32 PM, BrwNeil wrote: > Interesting how two people can read the same book and have totally different > opinions. To me it seems Ron has done most of the stomping (Especially in > HBP) and I can't figure out why Hermione wants him. To me it seems while Ron has done some "stomping", he's also done a lot of complimenting (albeit in a hidden way, mostly). He is always there for her when it counts. Hermione is quite good at "stomping" on Ron herself, calling him all sorts of uncomplimentary things and sometimes in a hypocritical way ( calling him pathetic when he flinches at the name of Voldemort, even though she herself has just started using the name and still stumbles over it). Hermione strikes me as the kind of person who is hardest on the ones she loves best. She treats Harry with kid gloves, almost like a hapless child (understandable, looking at his history, but also shows that she is not attracted to him, imo), while she wants Ron to be the best he can be, without her help. She only helps him out when things are desperate, or he does something Hermione approves of greatly, and even then it's either secretly or covered by her acting all gruff. Very interesting dynamics, and I think if the big revelation of Hermione having kissed Krum, combined with Ginny calling him weird for being "innocent" at his age and Hermione practically telling Ron he was rubbish at Quidditch had not happened, he would have never gone for Lavender the way he did. -- Best regards, Susanne mailto:siskiou at vcem.com From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 24 23:00:31 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 16:00:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione In-Reply-To: <2a1.8ef41a0.317ea00c@aol.com> Message-ID: <20060424230031.51916.qmail@web61324.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151396 BrwNeil at aol.com wrote: Interesting how two people can read the same book and have totally different opinions. To me it seems Ron has done most of the stomping (Especially in HBP) and I can't figure out why Hermione wants him. But then I've never been a believer in the theory that people that fight all the time actually like each other or that people that are total opposites attract. I don't fight with people I like and I prefer to spend my time with someone that shares the same interests. You and JKR might think they are a great match, but I doubt many marriage councilors would agree. Joe: I doubt seriously that any marriage councilors would be able to take a discussion about the relationship between two 16/17 year olds very seriously. Honestly none of the Hogwarts kids should be close to getting married to anyone. I think this is a by product of shipping. That said though, I married someone I can have a good heated discussion with. Someone with firey opinions who isn't afraid to disagree with me. Honestly I can't imagine anything more boring than spending the rest of my life with someone who thinks the same things I do and does all the things I do. Sounds very, very Narcissistic and a bit like emotional self-pleasuring. The truth is that all sorts of good relationships happen and there are times when people outside that relationship don't understand it. Let's be honest here, no matter what shipping choice JKR made there would be people who didn't like and it and thought it was all wrong. Really though we see what happen through Harry's eyes so we have no idea how Ron and Hermione(or anyone else) feel about each other. I feel pretty uncomfortable though saying I know more about how someone should feel about another person even if both are fictional. Joe From laurel.coates at gmail.com Mon Apr 24 22:29:49 2006 From: laurel.coates at gmail.com (Laurel Coates) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 15:29:49 -0700 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3cd952930604241529j14728753r76a3a2aaf587e271@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151397 Geoff: > > '"What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when > he had a chance!" > > "Pity? It was pity that stayed his hand. Pity and mercy: not to > strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo...." > > "I am sorry," said Frodo. "But I am frightened; and I do not feel > any pity for Gollum..... > ...He deserves death." > > "Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And > some that die deserve life. can you give it to them? Then do not > be too eager to deal out death in judgement..... > .....And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells > me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the > end: and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of > many - yours not least..."' > (J.R.R.Tolkien "Fellowship of the Ring" "The Shadow of the Past" > > What part has Draco still got to play? Hmmm. I wonder. Laurel: I find a better parallel between Gollum and Peter Pettigrew, not Malfoy. PP has been set up by JKR to play an important role in the last face-off between Harry and Voldemort. Laurel From jmmears at comcast.net Tue Apr 25 00:10:32 2006 From: jmmears at comcast.net (serenadust) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 00:10:32 -0000 Subject: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: <444D3235.50604@btopenworld.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151398 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, IreneMikhlin wrote: > I know that movies do not count, but I thought it was very telling that > the script-writers felt the need to change Victor from a star student to > a "physical being". Because unless he was dumber than Ron, the dramatic > triangle would not work. Forgive me for intruding, but I'm having trouble remembering where Victor Krum is refered to as a "star student". Can you point me to where in cano I can find this reference, because I never had the impression that Victor was characterized as a superior intellect. Thanks, Jo Serenadust From zgirnius at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 00:13:58 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 00:13:58 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron/Golpalott's Third Law In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151399 > Neuman: > Alright then, I'll bite. What does Golpalott's Third Law mean? > > "The antidote for a blended poison will be equal to more than the sum > of the antidotes for each of the separate components." > > How would one antidote be more than another? Did Golpalott also invent > some kind of rating system? zgirnius: It means that if you have a blended poison, to make the antidote for it you will need to add the antidote for each of the component poisons, AND something additional. (The law does not appear to state WHAT additional). From kchuplis at alltel.net Tue Apr 25 00:19:05 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 19:19:05 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151400 On Apr 24, 2006, at 7:10 PM, serenadust wrote: > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, IreneMikhlin > wrote: > > > > > I know that movies do not count, but I thought it was very telling > that > > the script-writers felt the need to change Victor from a star > student to > > a "physical being". Because unless he was dumber than Ron, the > dramatic > > triangle would not work. > > Forgive me for intruding, but I'm having trouble remembering where > Victor Krum is refered to as a "star student". Can you point me to > where in cano I can find this reference, because I never had the > impression that Victor was characterized as a superior intellect. > kchuplis: I didn't get the feeling he was a dolt in the movie either. Hermione just says he's not "loquacious". Well, he doesn't speak the language well, that's not an off observation. Harry says "He wasn't going to the library for books". I didn't get the impression he was an idiot. And I don't recall him being brilliant in the book. *shrug* From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Tue Apr 25 00:39:39 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 00:39:39 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron/Golpalott's Third Law In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151401 Neuman: > > "The antidote for a blended poison will be equal to more than the sum > > of the antidotes for each of the separate components." > > > > How would one antidote be more than another? Did Golpalott also invent > > some kind of rating system? zgirnius: > It means that if you have a blended poison, to make the antidote for it > you will need to add the antidote for each of the component poisons, > AND something additional. (The law does not appear to state WHAT > additional). Ceridwen: Maybe there is some sort of ratcheting when two or more antidotes are added together, making them more than the sum of their parts? Ceridwen. From rdoliver30 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 00:21:34 2006 From: rdoliver30 at yahoo.com (lupinlore) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 00:21:34 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (was:Re: Old, old problem.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151402 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" wrote: > > > Carol, who disliked DD's criticism of the Dursleys in HBP (though they > deserved it) and felt that JKR was bowing to reader criticism of OoP > rather than standing her ground and keeping the characterization of DD > consistent > Absolutely JKR was bowing to reader criticism, as well she should have. Like it or not, a writer is a salesperson, of books and of images and ideas. Like all sellers, a writer ignores his or her customers to his or her peril. A writer who does not keep an ear to the ground when it comes to reader preferences and dissatisfaction is a fool -- which is something I don't think anyone has ever accused JKR of being. JKR's book sales were not in danger, but her sales of ideas and images certainly were. Was she being inconsistent? Many would say that it is OOTP Dumbledore who is the bizarre and inconsistent figure, not the Dumbledore seen at the Dursleys. Or, perhaps more to the point, DD at the Dursleys' got across the image JKR was trying to sell when it came to Dumbledore, whereas DD at the end of OOTP blurred that image to the brink of incoherence. Like all intelligent salespeople, JKR simply accepted that her tactics were not effective when judged by the results and made appropriate adjustments. Lupinlore From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 01:44:36 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 01:44:36 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151403 > Pippin: > Nobody but JKR could say whether treating Kreacher kindly would > have made a difference in the end, but it denigrates Kreacher > to say that it couldn't have. No one gave him a reason to choose > other than he did. Alla: Of course only JKR can say that, just as only she can say whether Snape is a murderer or not, or whether Lupin is Evil or not :) and many other things, but when did it ever stopped us from wondering? :) But I disagree. I think it denigrates Kreacher to say that wizards made him who he is and that is why and only why he chose what he did. I view him as an intelligent human being (well, human being of another race, but human being nevertheless), or intelligent being would be the better way to say it? I am not sure. I have very little sympathy for Kreacher on pure emotional level , but on the intellectual level I sympathize with his situation of course. Nevertheless I refuse to say that he is a robot incapable to choose for himself because he is enslaved. As I said, I think Kreacher truly loved Sirius' parents and that is what determined his actions towards Sirius. Pippin: > You keep saying that Dumbledore has no right to tell Harry these > things. But if he doesn't, who does? Who is going to speak for Petunia > or Kreacher if Dumbledore does not? He is Harry's headmaster, his > guide, his mentor, and yes, his friend, but being a friend does not > mean, IMO, unconditional agreement with positions that you find > morally repugnant. Alla: And being a friend IMO also means respecting the grief of your friend and if necessary NOT to say the things which would disrespect the deceased and by that the person who loved him. Oh, I have to also say before I will get these arguments - the bitter taste in my mouth which I get when I read Dumbledore's badmouthing Sirius of course has nothing to do with me liking Sirius' character. Let me bring the most obvious example. I think that there are not enough words in the world in order for Harry to express his very legitimate grievances against Snape and I would cheer him up if he tells at least something of it to Snape. BUT if Snape would have died and his child ( twins - waves at Potioncat :)) or his parent had an encounter with Harry right after Snape's death and Harry would start badmouthing Snape to his relations, my reaction would be wanting to tell Harry to shut up and to shut up now, since I would think that would be a horrible conduct on his behalf. Pippin: > I understand why you think that Dumbledore should not have > tried to make this a teachable moment. But I agree with Steve, > he just couldn't excuse himself another time. To quote Susan > Cooper again, if once you have failed a great trust, you dare not > let yourself be trusted again, because to fail again would be the > end of the world. Alla: I understand why JKR tried to make it a teachable moment, because IMO she did not want to put it in another book, but yes, I don't think it casts Dumbledore in a good light. As long as I am expressing myself clear enough on those reasons ( and I feel like I did it too many times by now :)), because we are not going to agree on it. > > Alla: > > > > Harry himself says so. I see no reasons in this situation to assume > > that he lies. To me it is just common sense. Petunia is the only > > mother figure he knew for ten years. I think it would be strange if > > the child would not want the love from mother figure, no matter how > > horribly she treated him. > > Pippin: > Goodness me! Are we reading the same books? > > '"They're your family, after all, and I'm sure you are fond of one another > --er--*very* deep down." > > It didn't occur to Harry to put Fudge right. > -- PoA. > > It's not something that gets talked about a lot, but babies do reject > their caregivers sometimes, even caregivers that love them, more > often than you might think. > > I see no reason to assume that there was ever any desire or instinct > on Harry's part to bond with Petunia at all. There was certainly nothing > by the time he was thirteen. Alla: Hehehe. Far apart from each other as we were on some issues, I used to think that we are close enough on some. But yes, it seems like on this topic we ARE reading different books. All that this quote tells me that Harry and his family do not love each other. It tells me nothing as to whether Harry wants Petunia's love and since Harry is the one who tells me that he is indeed upset about Petunia not loving him, I choose to believe him. As I said I see no reason not to. Besides, we seem to agree that Harry has plenty legitimate reasons to be angry with Petunia, so even if he IS just that - angry with her and is a bit confused as to him wanting her love, I think that substitution of one anger for another is really, really Okay, especially since Harry had it bottled up for so long. I mean, you earlier implied is that Harry's anger with Petunia is covering his anger for Sirius' death. I don't see it anywhere. I think whatever anger Harry has at Petunia is just that with Petunia and for Dumbledore refusing to listen to him, well, I totally understand why he did, but of course I read it completely differently than you do. I think Dumbledore cuts Harry off when he starts venting that she never loved him for very simple reason and it has nothing to do with redirecting Harry's anger, etc. I think Dumbledore cannot bear listening to it. Why? Because Dumbledore indeed loves Harry and it is hard for him to listen the full account of Harry's misery, especially because he is the one who put Harry there. Again, please let's not start arguing about whether Dumbledore had best intentions or not when he did it. :) I think he did have those intentions, absolutely. The thing is I think he is responsible regardless, simply because he made this choice. Not in a sense that he should be punished for it, of course not, but in a sense that whatever Harry chooses to say about his stay at Dursleys, Dumbledore is obligated to listen in my book. JMO, Alla From Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com Tue Apr 25 02:03:17 2006 From: Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com (coldsliversofglass) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:03:17 -0000 Subject: Advice, and the guilt of taking it [Was: Is Harry a Murderer...] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151404 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sugaranddixie1" wrote: > That doesn't really apply to the question of whether he's a murderer > (or has it in him to be one). I think the element of his trust for > the prince does apply, however. > > If someone you trust gives you advice, are you guilty for taking it? coldsliversofglass: Yes, I think Harry is guilty for taking the advice even though he trusts the person giving it to him. I mean, you have to figure that Harry is trusting a book...well, actually, no: less than that, he's trusting the notations a person made inside of said textbook. He doesn't know who the person is and he doesn't know anything about them other than the fact that the person is good at potions. He didn't put enough effort into verifying what he was being told. He acted on a generalized comment, knowing nothing about the context of what he was being told, and he has to accept the consequences of that. One has to be careful of assuming that everything written is a hundred percent true: textbooks, and anonymous advice written in said textbooks by another student, are no different. Harry should know the dangers of trusting books and the stuff written within them by now: the textbook echoes right back to Riddle's journal. Also, if Harry had taken the advice of The Prince, and the Prince had turned out to have been an awful potions student, who would have been guilty when the potion exploded? I'm thinking Harry...and I'm thinking Harry knew that when he first decided to take the advice. The fact that some of the advice The Prince gives is good, and some of it bad, has no bearing on Harry's guilt. Even the people we know and love and trust give us bad advice on occassion: we have to know when to take it and when to leave it. coldsliversofglass From siskiou at vcem.com Tue Apr 25 02:04:42 2006 From: siskiou at vcem.com (Susanne) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 19:04:42 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Prefect Ron (was DD on the Dursleys). In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <117806646.20060424190442@vcem.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151405 Hi, Monday, April 24, 2006, 5:19:05 PM, Karen wrote: > I didn't get the feeling he was a dolt in the movie either. I did! There was that remark about his head being full of sawdust, which certainly made it sound like his brain wasn't anything to boast about. That in addition to Hermione saying they never talked... -- Best regards, Susanne mailto:siskiou at vcem.com From hokukaua at aol.com Tue Apr 25 01:55:26 2006 From: hokukaua at aol.com (hokukaua) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 01:55:26 -0000 Subject: Tom Riddle Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151406 I was just rereading the 4th book and in the beginning when they are talking of the deaths of the Riddle family, Frank Bryce says that all three were dead....meaning a man, a wife, and a son- Tom Marvolo Riddle.... does anyone have any explanations for me? I thought his mother died during childbirth, his father abandoned him, and he was well alive, or as alive as he could be. Please, someone clear this up for me.... hokukaua From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Tue Apr 25 02:21:58 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 22:21:58 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Tom Riddle In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060425022158.77774.qmail@web37012.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151407 hokukaua wrote: I was just rereading the 4th book and in the beginning when they are talking of the deaths of the Riddle family, Frank Bryce says that all three were dead....meaning a man, a wife, and a son- Tom Marvolo Riddle.... does anyone have any explanations for me? I thought his mother died during childbirth, his father abandoned him, and he was well alive, or as alive as he could be. Please, someone clear this up for me.... Catherine now: I was looking for canon to see if it says "Tom Marvolo Riddle" anywhere, but it seems just to say "Tom Riddle" who would be Tom Riddle Sr., father to Tom Morvolo Riddle. TMR. killed his father Tom Sr. and his paternal grandparents. Tom Sr. we think knew that Merope was pregnant, but never found out about his child. That must have been a nasty night when TMR went to the Riddle House. Catherine Before posting to any list, you MUST read the group's Admin File! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin_Files/HBF_Text__MUST_READ Please use accurate subject headings and snip unnecessary material from posts to which you're replying! SPONSORED LINKS Culture club Adult education Organizational culture --------------------------------- YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "HPforGrownups" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: HPforGrownups-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. --------------------------------- --------------------------------- Enrich your life at Yahoo! Canada Finance [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From orgone9 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 02:29:33 2006 From: orgone9 at yahoo.com (Len Jaffe) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 19:29:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron/Golpalott's Third Law In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060425022933.34331.qmail@web80612.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151408 > Neuman: > Alright then, I'll bite. What does Golpalott's Third > Law mean? > > "The antidote for a blended poison will be equal to > more than the sum > of the antidotes for each of the separate > components." > > How would one antidote be more than another? Did > Golpalott also invent > some kind of rating system? Len: It means that you need to find the antidotes for each of the ingredients, then find the additional antidote-ingrediant that will synergize these individual antidotes to counteract the synergy of the poison's ingredients. Len From gelite67 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 02:47:43 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:47:43 -0000 Subject: Harry's ability to detect traces of magic Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151409 I've noticed two places in the series where Harry has possibly noticed the "presence" of or traces of magic: First, in Ollivanders: "...the back of his [Harry's] neck prickled. The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle with some secret magic." U.S. Edition, softcover at 82. In HPB, at the cave: "Harry could not tell whether the shivers he was experiencing were due to his spine-deep coldness or to the same awareness of enchantments." U.S Edition, Hardcover at 557-58. I'm wondering if anyone can think of any more instances? I'm also wondering if magic leave traces why/if traces of magic can be sensed at Hogwarts, or if it is more easily detectible where magic otherwise shouldn't be practiced??? Finally, I'm wondering if detecting traces of magic something that can be learned? DD sure didn't give much guidance on the subject, which seems very odd if Harry is going to need to rely on being able to detect traces of magic in order to find the Horcruxes. Angie From gelite67 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 02:52:53 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:52:53 -0000 Subject: Sectumsempra and the DEs Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151410 Any theories as to why Harry didn't use Sectumsepmra on the DEs at the end of HBP? He tried it on the dead bodies in the cave, to no effect, but not on the live DEs upon whom, presumably, it would have worked. Seems like it should've been no holds barred -- he'd just witnessed Snape kill DD and he believed someone in the Order (or perhaps a student) was dead. It just seems odd to me that he wouldn't have used that curse on his enemies. Angie From Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com Tue Apr 25 02:36:12 2006 From: Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com (coldsliversofglass) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:36:12 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: <00ba01c66632$b6626ee0$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151411 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Kim" wrote: > Kim wrote: >This post makes me think about the basilisk slinking through the >pipes of the castle. I've always wondered why the other students >and teachers couldn't even hear the snake hiss, though Harry wasn't >always alone when he heard it. While Harry could hear it plainly >enough to understand the words he was saying. Now I also wonder why >a very observant Dumbledore didn't hear the snake hiss and >understand the language, as well. He's all through the castle all >the time. Or maybe it's just that the trio, and especially Harry, >are very "lucky" and always in the right place at the right time. >Or it's just an oversight by the author who's trying to get a >gazillion elements of a long and wonderful story all packed into 7 >books and sometimes has to just ask us to overlook some >inconsistencies. coldsliversofglass: For that matter, how could everyone for the last how many years have not heard it? I mean, the basilisk has been there for awhile (long enough to kill Myrtle who would happily tell anyone inquiring into her death about the hissing) and no one's heard it all these years? The only thing i can think of it that maybe everyone assumed it was just the pipes in the walls making the noise...and Harry, because he heard words instead of hissing, knew that it wasn't the pipes? coldsliversofglass From kchuplis at alltel.net Tue Apr 25 03:07:55 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 22:07:55 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Sectumsempra and the DEs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <30CBB614-B0F9-4C93-AF60-F97690680256@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151412 On Apr 24, 2006, at 9:52 PM, gelite67 wrote: > Any theories as to why Harry didn't use Sectumsepmra on the DEs at the > end of HBP? > > He tried it on the dead bodies in the cave, to no effect, but not on > the live DEs upon whom, presumably, it would have worked. > > Seems like it should've been no holds barred -- he'd just witnessed > Snape kill DD and he believed someone in the Order (or perhaps a > student) was dead. It just seems odd to me that he wouldn't have used > that curse on his enemies. > kchuplis: In that scrum, it would be easy to fell a "good guy" with friendly fire, I would think. Besides, he was more or less focused on getting through the fight to get to Malfoy and Snape. From Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com Tue Apr 25 02:21:43 2006 From: Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com (coldsliversofglass) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:21:43 -0000 Subject: ...Erised DD.... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151413 BetsyHP wrote: >I think Harry really did just stumble across the Mirror. It wasn't until after he and Ron discussed the Mirror at dinner with the staff (when Harry was already losing sleep and probably looking like it) that Dumbledore intervened. >>stevemac replied: >>IMO - At the beginning of term, the stone and Fluffy were already >>in place, which means that the mirror (which was the last part of >>the trials) SHOULD have been in place as well. If we are to believe >>that DD had, from the beginning, intended to use the mirror to >>guard the stone, then why would it have been upstairs... where >>somebody could find it (Harry). It is, of course, possible that DD >>did not think of using the mirror until he found Harry using it and >>decided to move it, but then that implies that the stone was, until >>then, not well guarded (or at least not AS well guarded). >>DD then explains exactly what the mirror does, tells him NOT to >>look for it but that it would be moved to a new home, but also >>mentions that if he finds the mirror again he will be prepared. It >>seems like DD is setting him up. coldsliversofglass: I have to agree that Dumbledore was setting Harry up. Dumbledore's friend gave Dumbledore the stone to protect, so one has to wonder how Dumbledore could accept the responsibility for the stone and not already have a good idea of how he was going to protect it. Also, why in the world would they tell students that the third floor corridor was off limits unless they already knew where and how they were all going to protect the stone? And in that vein, wouldn't it have been better to do a spell or something subtle to deter people away from that area? Perhaps they could've given Fluffy or Peeves run of that hall to make people avoid it. Anyhow, I just think that if Dumbledore really had intended to protect the stone and prevent anyone from finding it (Harry included) he'd have done a better job of concealing its location. Just how dumb do the Voldemort Supporters (or children of said supporters) have to be in order to not realize that what's off limit holds what they're looking for? Especially if it's never been off limit before. coldsliversofglass From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 03:14:46 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:14:46 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151414 > > Pippin: > > I see no reason to assume that there was ever any desire or > instinct > > on Harry's part to bond with Petunia at all. There was certainly > nothing > > by the time he was thirteen. > > Alla: Hehe. I SO should have combined it with my previous post, but here are some more quotes to reinforce your point that Harry cannot stand Dursleys :)) But even those quotes only show to me that Harry cannot stand them, I think it is perfectly reasonable that Harry cannot stand them AND wants Petunia love at the same time, especially since that is what he said. "Asleep was the way Harry liked the Dursleys best; it wasn't as thought they were ever any help to him awake." - GoF, p.19 "Harry had no particular feeling about Dursleys leaving. It made no difference for him whether they were in the house or not." - OOP, p.45, paperback. Harry cannot stand Dursleys, that is understandable due to how they treat him, IMO. But as I said above I find it perfectly reasonable that Harry may at the same time want the love of those who treat him horribly and it is canon that he does. Alla From Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com Tue Apr 25 02:41:48 2006 From: Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com (coldsliversofglass) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:41:48 -0000 Subject: Voldemort's ideology? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151415 Forgive me if this has already been asked, but exactly what is the ideology behind Voldemort's bid for power and control? There were a couple mentions in the book--but usually by The Order so I don't know how accurate the views are--of exactly what Voldemort is working towards. Even the mentions, however, were obscure and revolved around PureBloods and muggles and seperating the two. I'm assuming that there's more to Voldemort's quest for power than just that. Even if there isn't, I'm just curious as to what others think about Voldemort. What, exactly, does Voldemort want? coldsliverofglass From kchuplis at alltel.net Tue Apr 25 03:23:21 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 22:23:21 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5EBE3ADC-FC75-42F8-8AAA-EB3EEC890ED2@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151416 On Apr 24, 2006, at 10:14 PM, dumbledore11214 wrote: > > > Harry cannot stand Dursleys, that is understandable due to how they > treat him, IMO. But as I said above I find it perfectly reasonable > that Harry may at the same time want the love of those who treat him > horribly and it is canon that he does. > kchuplis: Well, there is no doubt that Harry would like to be loved. I don't think, until he finds out more about his parents, he would be real particular about where it came from. From aceworker at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 03:24:53 2006 From: aceworker at yahoo.com (career advisor) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 20:24:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Golpalott's Third Law In-Reply-To: <1145933344.58556.25916.m20@yahoogroups.com> Message-ID: <20060425032453.88094.qmail@web30204.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151417 Irene: > Also, not getting the Golpalott's law suggest the cognitive ability > of a teaspoon, if I may be so rude. Ron and Harry definitely have > their strong sides, but academic talent isn't one of them. >Neuman: >Alright then, I'll bite. What does Golpalott's Third Law mean? >"The antidote for a blended poison will be equal to more than the sum >of the antidotes for each of the separate components." >How would one antidote be more than another? Did Golpalott also invent >some kind of rating system? All right at the risk of embarrassment I'll take a shot at this: All this law means is that if you take two separate potions with there separate anti-dotes and blend or mix them together then the new antidote is both of the previous antidotes plus something else as a result of the effect of mixing them together. For example: Potion A Antidote: Eye of a whistlewillow Potion B Antidote: Tongue of a fresh picked Gollywop The blended potion AB: Antidotes: Eye of a whistlewillow + Tongue of a fresh pickled Gollywop + a third ingredient to account foe the effect of the blending. It could get very complicated once you start mixing complicated potions with many ingredients. Only a chemist or pharmacist could tell you if there is an equivalent law in real life, but I would suspect so. I think this is also a concept for homeopathic medicine where they take small minuscule amounts of ingredients and mix them together. And I was no gifted child, just bright and dyslexic. But I was good at these sort of puzzles, but all that usually does is gets you is a civil service job like mine, so both Hermione and I would be perfectly qualified for the ministry of magic if such a thing existed. Oh joy! DA Jones From Schlobin at aol.com Tue Apr 25 03:47:20 2006 From: Schlobin at aol.com (susanmcgee48176) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:47:20 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: <2a1.8ef41a0.317ea00c@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151418 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, BrwNeil at ... wrote: > > > > In a message dated 4/24/2006 5:26:50 PM Eastern Standard Time, > horridporrid03 at ... writes: > > Actually, I think that's where JKR is going when she sees Ron and > Hermione as a couple. She provides the cold calculation, he > provides the heart, and together they're unstoppable. Is the idea > anyway. So far Hermione has done such a good job stomping all over > poor Ron's heart, I'm not sure she deserves him. > > Betsy Hp > Uh, Hermione provides the cold calculation? The girl who is grieved by the plight of the House Elves? The girl who sits besides Ron's bedside white faced and jaw clenched? Ron is SO immature..I don't quite know what Hermione sees in him... First, he behaves abysmally at the Yule Ball, ignoring his date to drool over another girl (and he doesn't even have the insight to understand that he is in the throes of jealousy). He totally misjudges his best friend (Harry)and makes him miserable while Harry is struggling to survive in the Tri Wizard tournament. Hermione asks him to Slughorn's party. He gets SO bent out of shape because he hears from Ginny that Hermione has kissed Viktor...that he runs off to snog Lavendar. He has NO interest in Lavender as a person - - actually he just uses her to get sexual experience -- and uses her to inflate his own ego. Oh, well, I guess the sexist would say "boys will be boys", but God forbid my son should ever act that badly. I have NO clue what Hermione sees in him. Susan From kmalone1127 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 03:58:31 2006 From: kmalone1127 at yahoo.com (kmalone1127) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:58:31 -0000 Subject: Voldemort's ideology? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151419 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "coldsliversofglass" wrote: > > Forgive me if this has already been asked, but exactly what is the > ideology behind Voldemort's bid for power and control? > > There were a couple mentions in the book--but usually by The Order so > I don't know how accurate the views are--of exactly what Voldemort is > working towards. Even the mentions, however, were obscure and > revolved around PureBloods and muggles and seperating the two. I'm > assuming that there's more to Voldemort's quest for power than just > that. Even if there isn't, I'm just curious as to what others think > about Voldemort. > > What, exactly, does Voldemort want? "What do all men with power want? More power." I've thought about this myself. If all Voldemort wanted was immortality, why did he need to start a war? I belive the answer lies in his ideology, which is that there is no good or evil, only power and those to weak to use it. True evil does not see itself as evil. An evil person would say that good and evil are points of veiw. Voldemort believes that since he is the most powerful wizard in the world, naturally he should rule it. After all, the weak must serve the strong or be killed, and why would anyone choose death? Also remember that in CoS the diary Riddle stated that he was meant to carry on Salazar Slytherin's "noble work", that of purifying the wizarding race of those with muggle decent, or impure blood. He literally does not see the muggle borns and those with muggle blood in them as human. To him, they are less than animals, a cancer upon his vision of purity. To get rid of them will natually start a war. Going back to his ruling the world, we really haven't seen much of that desire. I think it is more about his purification quest, but again, those with power seek to gain more. Once the wizarding race has been cleansed, what next? He has all of these followers, both willing and unwilling, what to do? Why, take his natural place on the throne. After all, since there would be no one who could challange him and win, why shouldn't he rule? As for the muggles, why, they are nothing but dirt to be swept away. Once Voldemort is on the throne, then the whole world will be cleansed and re-ordered to the natural way of things, what could be better? That is what I believe his MO is, anyway. Any thoughts? kmalone1127 From eggplant107 at hotmail.com Tue Apr 25 04:27:33 2006 From: eggplant107 at hotmail.com (eggplant107) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 04:27:33 -0000 Subject: Advice, and the guilt of taking it [Was: Is Harry a Murderer...] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151420 "coldsliversofglass" wrote: > The fact that some of the advice The Prince gives > is good, and some of it bad, has no bearing on > Harry's guilt. I hate Snape with a passion but paradoxical as it sounds I must confess to rather liking The Prince. Perhaps the young Snape was not quite as evil as the older version. You say some of the advice The Prince gave was bad, but I can't think of any. Sectumsempra could be useful against enemies just as The Prince said it was. Incidentally Harry used that spell again after the time with Draco, he used it against the Inferne in the cave. If the need arises, and it probably will, I hope to see Harry use it yet again, it is after all quite a colorful curse. It would look great in the Medium That Must Not Be Named. Eggplant From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Tue Apr 25 06:57:40 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 06:57:40 -0000 Subject: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151421 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, puduhepa98 at ... wrote: > Nikkalmati: > I tried to post this a while back but it got lost! I finally found it > somewhere in the innards of my computer. I have tried to update it, but I may > have missed some pertinent comments. > > Thanks for bringing this topic up. I think many of us listees want to give > Harry a pass and excuse or overlook his behavior because he is the hero or > because we see events from his POV. I am not sure JKR wants us to miss that > Harry currently is going down the wrong path. > That said, I would make a distinction between killing and murder. Quirrel > is both accidental (Harry had no idea why he was burning Quirrel) and > self-defense. Quirrel was trying to kill him. As has been said already, the diary > was not a person and the soul was not destroyed. I do not believe every > killing splits the soul. It depends on intent. Geoff: When the Rhinemaiden :-) first raised this topic in message 151051, I presented a fairly long analysis of Harry's actions in post 151065. I begin by quoting a section of that reply: Laurel Lei: > I also believe that Harry would have killed Sirius if Lupin hadn't > arrived. Harry had stated as much. (Obviously Sirius dying at that > time wasn't in J.K.'s plot-line). > And I believe that Harry would have killed Bella in the MOM > during/post battle. Geoff: Here, I might be willing to agree with you. Although, I wonder if Remus hadn't arrived, Harry might have had a similar epiphany to Draco at the end of HBP and realised that cold bloodedly killing someone was perhaps not as easy as it first seemed. 'Harry raised the wand. Now was the moment to do it. now was the moment to avenge his mother and father. He was going to kill Black. He had to kill Black. this was his chance... The seconds lengthened and still Harry stood frozen there, wand poised, Black staring up at him, Crookshanks on his chest. Ron's ragged breathing came from near the bed; Hermione was quite silent. And then came a new sound - Muffled footsteps were echoing up though the floor - someone was moving downstairs. "WE'RE UP HERE!" Hermione screamed suddenly. "WE'RE UP HERE - SIRIIUS BLACK - QUICK!" Black made a startled movement that almost dislodged Crookshanks; Harry gripped his wand convulsively - Do it now! said a voice in his head - but the footsteps were thundering up the stairs and Harry still hadn't done it.' (POA "Cat, Rat and Dog" pp.251-52 UK edition) I had never realised before how the two confrontations - Harry's and Draco's - echo each other.... In the case of Bellatrix, Harry is beside himself with grief, fear and rage. But.... Notice.... He does NOT try to cast an Avada Kedavra spell. He has a go at Crucio. That is an attempt to hurt - not murder. Even when canon tells us: 'Hatred rose in Harry such as he had never known before...' (OOTP "The Only One He Ever Feared" p.715 UK edition) Harry does NOT attempt to kill. Laurel Lei: > And what about Draco in the bathroom and the sectasempra spell...? The > spell for enemies... the spell that Snape "reversed"... had Snape not > arrived and known what to do (because he was the "Prince" and possible > author)...???? Would Harry then have become a murderer if Draco had > died? Isn't what he did attempted murder? Geoff: Draco raised the stakes in the duel. The fight began with a Levicorpus and a Leg-Locker Curse and then... 'Harry slipped over as Malfoy, his face contorted, cried, "Cruci-" "SECTUMSEMPRA!" bellowed Hary from the floor, waving his wand wildly.' (HBP "Sectumsempra" pp.488-89 UK edition) Harry was being plain stupid in using an unknown spell and giving into temptation: 'Harry was about to put his book away again when he noticed the corner of a page folded down; turning to it, he saw the Sectumsempra spell, captioned 'For Enemies', that he had marked a few weeks previously. He had still not found out what it did, mainly because he did not want to test it around Hermione but he was considering trying it out on McLaggen the next time he came up behind him unawares.' (Ibid. p484) It must be obvious that he doesn't realise that it could be a highly dangerous spell at this point. I do not accept that Harry harboured the intent of killing Malfoy at this time. He had suddenly been projected into a duel without any real prior warning. As I noted above, the Sectumsempra spell was obviously in the back of his mind; the fact that it was labelled as being for use with enemies doesn't necessarily suggest that it is life-threatening. After all, spells like Stupefy, Expelliarmus, Petrificus Totalus are obviously curses used against opponents but they are not inherently dangerous .. As an aside, I get rather irritated with the extreme polarisation of attitudes which occurs in a thread like this. On the one hand we have some members who give Harry a halo, blue eyes and make him a first cousin of the angel Gabriel which there is a school of opinion which assumes that whenever Harry steps out of line and does something wrong, it is done with malice aforethought and is further evidence of Awful!Evil!Horrible!Harry. I have always been a fan of Harry but do not see him as perfect. I relate to him because I can see myself at the same age. Teens are finding their feet as adults. They take advice, they ignore advice; they play safe, they take risks; they are extremely confident, they are racked with self-doubts. Harry is unusual that he has had more than his fair share of problems and threats but to suggest that every time something goes wrong is an indicator of an evil nature is rubbish. He had to protect himself in PS and COS which was a factor in the death of Quirrell and the destruction of Diary!Riddle. But I pointed out that he could not bring himself to attempt murder on Sirius and Bellatrix. Even when his rage was possibly at its highest - in the pursuit of Snape at the end of HBP - he is recorded as trying to cast nine spells. The only one with really lasting consequences is another Sectumsempra which Snape blocks and is possibly cast in desperation because the latter is so good at blocking anything thrown at him ? and he also knows the counter-spell anyway. I think we need to remember Harry is, like many others including Draco, feeling his feet as a young adult, he is someone with a huge expectation placed on him and hence feeling that pressure and who is also often expecting to come under attack from Voldemort and his minions who seek his death. From silmariel at telefonica.net Tue Apr 25 10:42:22 2006 From: silmariel at telefonica.net (silmariel) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 12:42:22 +0200 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Golpalott's Third Law In-Reply-To: <20060425022933.34331.qmail@web80612.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060425022933.34331.qmail@web80612.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200604251242.22357.silmariel@telefonica.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151422 Neuman: > > Alright then, I'll bite. What does Golpalott's Third > > Law mean? > > > > "The antidote for a blended poison will be equal to > > more than the sum > > of the antidotes for each of the separate > > components." > > > > How would one antidote be more than another? Did > > Golpalott also invent > > some kind of rating system? > Len: > It means that you need to find the antidotes for each > of the ingredients, then find the additional > antidote-ingrediant that will synergize these > individual antidotes to counteract the synergy of the > poison's ingredients. Oh, I thought it meant that once stablished the nature and quantity of the antidotes as if counteracting separated poisons, you had to add a little more to each of them, so that the final quantity of the blended potion is equal or more than the expected for the sum of the simple antidotes. Joe: >Hermione is smarter than both Harry and Ron but it isn't by as great a >measure as by the level her academic ambitions/insecurities excede theirs. Have to agree. I think Hermione is supossed to be gifted, but she has to study too much and put too much work into her studies to achieve her academic levels. I can't see her as truly gifted. It should be easier for her, after all, she is not in a gifted children school competing with her peers, to be over the top, she shouldn't have to work so hard. Just IMO. Silmariel From kmalone1127 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 03:17:26 2006 From: kmalone1127 at yahoo.com (kmalone1127) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:17:26 -0000 Subject: Locket Horcrux Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151423 I've just had a thought and I apologize if anyone has mentioned this before. It seemes to me that there is a simple way of deducing whether or not the locket in 12 Grimmauld Place really is a horcrux. Now, to cover myself I want to state that I may be quite as wrong as Humphrey Belcher, but I think it has merit. We know that JKR has direct input into the important bits of the movies, ie: the GH scene. If the locket is indeed a horcrux then it is a very important plot device that pertains to the major story line. Given that, if in the upcomming OotP movie, they show the locket or reference it in some way, then I think we have our answer. No director in their right mind would leave out an important clue to the story. It would be hokey to have Harry in the seventh movie suddenly find a horcrux when there was no forshadowing of it before. Harry mentioning something that was not shown that has a large impact on the story would kill the suspense, like in books when the hero suddenly discovers a way to kill the Big Bad and it seems to have come from nowhere, that kind of thing. Anyway, just thought I'd put my two cents out there, let me know what you think. (the OotP movie comes out before book seven, right?) kmalone1127 From willsonkmom at msn.com Tue Apr 25 10:54:04 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 10:54:04 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore the parselmouth? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151424 > coldsliversofglass: > > The only thing i can think of it that maybe everyone assumed it was > just the pipes in the walls making the noise...and Harry, because he > heard words instead of hissing, knew that it wasn't the pipes? Potioncat: The Basilisk was in the Chamber all those years. He (she?) was only in the pipes when it was sent out to kill, and I would think it could only be heard near the area of the pipes it was in. So that DD wouldn't have heard it unless he was near that section. I'm not sure if DD knew what the monster was, but I don't see how he couldn't have. I don't think he had worked out the pipes as a means of transportation. Potioncat From drednort at alphalink.com.au Tue Apr 25 11:00:31 2006 From: drednort at alphalink.com.au (Shaun Hately) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 21:00:31 +1000 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Golpalott's Third Law In-Reply-To: <200604251242.22357.silmariel@telefonica.net> References: <20060425022933.34331.qmail@web80612.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <444E8DEF.2568.2AB2748@drednort.alphalink.com.au> No: HPFGUIDX 151425 On 25 Apr 2006 at 12:42, silmariel wrote: > Have to agree. I think Hermione is supossed to be gifted, but she has to study > too much and put too much work into her studies to achieve her academic > levels. I can't see her as truly gifted. It should be easier for her, after > all, she is not in a gifted children school competing with her peers, to be > over the top, she shouldn't have to work so hard. Just IMO. Well, your opinion is as valid as anyone elses, but let me explain as someone whose done a lot of work with a lot of gifted kids over the years, why I would say Hermione is definitely gifted and more than gifted. First of all, just because Hermione studies very hard doesn't mean that she actually needs to study that hard. Hermione seems to be what we would generally describe as a gifted perfectionist - and that's an area I know a lot about. It's the area of giftedness, I'm most cited on. http://tinyurl.com/oolxd I should that some gifted children actually do need to study quite a bit. Giftedness has different forms and some of those actually require a lot of study to express themselves - the giftedness in those cases is more in the ability to synthesise and express ideas, rather than in the area of having such a good memory that study can be minimised. Personally I don't think Hermione has that type of giftedness - I think she probably does have a good memory - but there are gifted kids like that. But I say, I think Hermione is a gifted perfectionist and that is the reason for her excessive amount of studying. I really don't think Hermione needs to do as much study as she does to perform well, but being a perfectionist, she does a lot more than she needs to (one of the two ways perfectionism most often expresses itself - the other is in not studying at all, because if you don't try, you have an excuse for failure). Hermione got very close to the highest possible marks in her OWLS. In fact, she got the highest possible mark in ten of them, and the second highest possible mark in the eleventh. The thing is, we have no way of knowing for certain if Hermione *just* got her ten O's - or if she got those ten O's easily. Perhaps Hermione did ten times as much study as she needed to get those O's - perhaps she could have got them with one tenth of the study. The mere fact that Hermione studied a lot doesn't mean she had to study that much. I've seen this pattern with quite a few gifted perfectionists. Studying to a far greater extent than they needed to do. And bear in mind that according to Ron, Hermione was actually disappointed with her results. Virtually perfect results and still disappointed - a classic perfectionist response. No, Hermione is not in a special school for gifted children. But she's doing eleven OWLs when it seems it is normal to do nine. And at one stage, she was doing another two extra subjects with the aid of a Time Turner, which Professor McGonagall had to write all sorts of letters to the ministry to get - it's not normal for students to be allowed to carry the workload Hermione had in her third year, which does suggest to me that she must be unusual, and more importantly judged to be unusual by McGonagall - a teacher who seems to have very high standards. She also does *exceed* the highest level expected of students at least twice that we know of. In first year, she gets 112 percent in her Charms exam. In third year, she gets 320 percent in her Muggle Studies exam. This indicates that Hermione does study more than she needs to. This girl doesn't stop studying when she knows she's passed. She doesn't even stop studying when she's met the standard her school regards as perfect - worth 100%. She keeps studying even after she's done more than enough. So viewing the fact she studies very hard as an indication that she isn't as smart as she appears, seems to me to be rather unjustified. She studies because she is driven to. The standard the school requires doesn't interest her - she's aiming to do as well as she possibly can whether that is at the standard of the school, or even higher. I think things could be easier for Hermione if she wasn't a perfectionist and wasn't driven in this way. If she could be happy with passing or even if she could be happy with 100%. But she isn't that type of person. 100% isn't good enough - not when marks of 112% or 320% are achieveable. Hermione works to her potential. Not to the potential expected of a student of her age. Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html (ISTJ) | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 "You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia From noon_at_night at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 04:23:03 2006 From: noon_at_night at yahoo.com (Najwa) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 04:23:03 -0000 Subject: Something Suspicious about Severus (was :Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix) In-Reply-To: <026301c66713$83c3e1d0$6501a8c0@MITRE.ORG> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151426 > > > Rebecca wrote: > > There is a decription on the Tower that has always (like everything else > Snape) had me wondering, specifically this snippet: > > "But someone else had spoken Snape's name, quite softly. > 'Severus .' > The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. > For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading. > Snape said nothing, but walked forwards and pushed Malfoy roughly out of the > way. **The three Death Eaters fell back without a word. Even the werewolf > seemed cowed.**" > > My question is who is Snape in the LV Death Eater World that other DE's > would either respect or fear him? And why would the werewolf be "cowed"? > Najwa now: Excellent question. How would Snape, who has been thought of as a traitor, who is a mudblood, and of all things, who has never seemed to be a force to be reckoned with on either sides, all of a sudden someone who has power over the DE's and a werewolf at the tower? Wasn't the werewolf the leader of werewolves as well? And he of all people was the one that could murder Albus Dumbledore, a man even Voldie himself fears? Snape just gets more and more enigmatic with every book it seems. Though his moods and character never seems to fluctuate too much, something about him very intriguing and he maintains the feel of a three dimensional character. How JKR pulls that off is pure genius I think. To be honest, as most, I have a gut feeling he'll end up doing something heroic in the end, not to redeem himself, because he does not seem to be one who cares what anyone thinks of him, but something to prove that he was truly what Dumbledore thought him to be, someone Dumbledore could trust. That doesn't mean everyone should, but something about him makes him trustworthy to Dumbledore, and I highly doubt he was that much of a fool to trust his own would be murderer. I know I keep stressing this but this is a point that has to be made. Dumbledore is not perfect, but he's no fool. I don't think the story will go as Talisman predicted completely, because I don't see Severus Snape being a man of self sacrifice. He is a true Slytherin after all, he's got to have some gain from what he does. I do believe he will die heroically in the end though. As for Dumbledore being alive, as I've stated before he doesn't need to be alive to be around and helpful. I'm wondering about the Wizard cards. Harry got a Dumbledore card in book one, so it might be of use now that Dumbledore is dead. It's small, its easy to carry, and we've seen in that scene that Dumbledore seems to be active in his card. I wonder if it can operate like a portrait can. If anything, he can give advice and moral support through the thing. Since Harry probably won't be going back to Hogwarts, this might be the way he can communicate with his mentor via the portrait in Headmistress McGonagall's office. I think we haven't seen the last of Dumbledore, but we've seen the last of his physical self. Harry needs to now be able to protect himself and look out for himself, but it won't ruin the story to have Dumbledore lodged away in his back pocket if he's come to a few dead ends i think. Najwa, who hopes JKR really means it when she says she's going to tie up the loose ends completely in the last book. From alimcj at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 06:48:29 2006 From: alimcj at yahoo.com (AliMcJ) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 06:48:29 -0000 Subject: "mysterious symbols" on pensieve? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151427 Does anyone have any idea what the other symbols on the Pensieve are? Runes and astrological symbols are there and Harry would recognize them; there are others that book says he does not recognize. alincj From adhaereovirtuti at sbcglobal.net Tue Apr 25 03:05:09 2006 From: adhaereovirtuti at sbcglobal.net (adhaereovirtuti) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:05:09 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151428 Houyhnhnm102" wrote: > > > The > > polyjuice effect, transfiguration, or whatever would only have to have > > lasted until the body was shrouded, but the Draught of Living Death > > would have to have continued its effect until the creation of the > > tomb. Then Snape could have come to and sent off a patronus to > > Dumbledore. Yes, that's the way I would have it if I could choose. :-) > > > Annemehr: > >>>Harry thought, for one heart-stopping moment, that he saw a phoenix > rise joyfully into the blue (HBP ch. 30; p. 645) > > Yes, it seems like it could be Snape's patronus -- the one that was > too revealing of Snape's character for JKR to divulge. One that's oh, > so similar to Dumbledore's. > > houyhnhnm: > > I don't want Snape to be dead. > > Annemehr: > All we have to do is circumvent that pesky Unbreakable Vow. I've thought the entire idea of DD and Snape being switched rather clever, and have been reading the commentary with great interest. I am wondering if - and I do not know if anyone else has said this - that DD was polyjuiced/switched into impersonating Snape at Spinner's End when the Unbreakable Vow occurred. He quite affectionately greets Narcissa and Bellatrix, which seemed quite un-Snapelike to me when I was reading it. ------ HBP American, pg. 22. "Narcissa!" said the man, opening the door a little wider, so that the light fell upon her and her sister too. "What a pleasant surprise!" ------ Dumbledore has a habit of greeting everyone very kindly. You will even note how polite he is to Tom Riddle when he applies for a teaching position at Hogwarts. Snape never struck me as the type to be particularly cheerful to anyone, even if he was in league with them. Of course, it could be Snape, and he could just be kissing up. But he never struck me as a brown noser. In addition, Snape's hand twitches when taking the UV. Is it because it is the blackened hand of DD, cleverly disguised? ----- HBP American, p.36 (Snape's hand twitched within hers, but he did not draw away) ----- I honestly can't see Snape promising anyone to save their child, just to alleviate their anguish. Whether DDM!Snape or not. But I could see DD doing that, even if it meant promising his own death (Although that was not known at the time). If it was actually Snape, and he was truly loyal to LV, he would not submit to an UV and he would tell of the incident to LV and Narcissa would be in deep trouble. Also, it's interesting that Wormtail seems to be spying on Snape, although the reason given is that he is assisting Snape. Also, whether it is DD in disguise or a true Snape, that neither knew what Draco's mission was. If DD was polyjuiced/switched with Snape, there might be a few behaviors suspicious enough that LV would have Wormtail spy and LV would not confide in Snape about Draco's assignment. We also may note DD sure is gone a lot of the time in this particular book, eh? Just my thoughts. I am not as advanced in HP analysis like some of you are... but it just seemed more appropriate that DD would submit himself to an UV to protect Draco, than it would for Snape to do such a thing. AV From noon_at_night at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 05:07:14 2006 From: noon_at_night at yahoo.com (Najwa) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 05:07:14 -0000 Subject: Harry's ability to detect traces of magic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151429 Angie wrote: DD sure didn't give much guidance on the subject, > which seems very odd if Harry is going to need to rely on being able > to detect traces of magic in order to find the Horcruxes. > Najwa now: Angie I think you're on to something. Maybe its not traces of magic that we need to be worried about him sensing, but think about it, he has the ability to sense when Voldimort is near or just about anything Voldimortish really. So if he's near a horcrux, I wonder if his scar will hurt as well? Great like of thinking you've got us on...that could help him find them a little easier. From talisman22457 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 11:57:58 2006 From: talisman22457 at yahoo.com (Talisman) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 11:57:58 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151430 Talisman tosses aside her steaming quill, slides a 13 foot scroll of responses in your direction, and snuggles up to a rather stiff- looking fellow in singed robes. zgirnius: Talisman: Hey now, we can't have that. There's too much Devil in those details to allow them to be swept under the rug. zgirnius However, I really find it hard to believe that the man in the Cave was not Dumbledore. Talisman: Hmm. Obviously shock induced bewilderment. Elevate your feet and stay warm. ; ) zgirnius: He's an important figure in the story with a particular sort of relationship to Harry. Talisman: Undoubtedly important. Central even. He is the Prime Mover in Harry's world. Switched!DD allows him to go on being just that. We all have our own readings of Dumbledore's relationship with Harry. I suppose it could be described as *particular.* But, I'm not at all sure that their distinctive affiliation requires Dumbledore to go to the Cave. zgirnius: And probably the single most beautiful, moving moment in that relationship occurs during the Cave sequence, when Dumbledore tells Hary, "I am not worried, Harry, because I am with you." I just can't quite bring myself to believe that Rowling would write this moment in for an impostor. >snip< At that point in the story the line as a line from SNAPE to Harry, just does not have the same impact). Talisman: Harry is not yet ready for his moment with Snape qua Snape, but he will find this interaction quite poignant in retrospect, I assure you. Snape, on the other hand, has had the good taste to slip away before all the maudlin blibbering sets in. ::wink to Koinonia02:: I see, zgirnius, that you are from the DDM camp, so I trust you read Snape as diametrically opposed to Voldemort (he would *never* wear a turban; he appears in Fake!Moody's Foe Glass, etc.); and that you understand the magnanimity of his actions. After all the things he has suffered in the line of duty, and his frequent protection of Harry, he is coming to the end of his part in the struggle. (Though there will be loads of revelation in Book 7) All his efforts--known and unknown--are now invested in Harry, whose behavior over the course of the next year will determine whether Snape's consuming sacrifices will pay off or come to nothing. Consider how he won't allow Harry to provide even a negligible amount of blood for entrance tribute: *You are very kind, Harry...[b] ut your blood is worth more than mine* (HBP 560). With the hellish cup to his lips, he drinks to *Your good health, Harry* (570). And, as they set out to keep Snape's appointment with death, he says *I am not worried...I am with you* (578). Impact enough for me. Having raised the topic of Snape's tireless efforts, permit me to indulge in a short digression regarding his protection of Harry in PoA (there is hardly enough volume for a separate post and I have nowhere else at the moment to stick this, though I'm sure my opponents will have suggestions....) Back in 2003 I asserted that Snape initially saved Harry from the dementors by the lake, leading to a detailed exploration of Time- Travel in the post: Time, Repetition and the Uber-Dimension: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/79635 Arguments contra included the fact that there was only one Patronus at the lake and that it had to be Harry's, to which I replied: --------------------------------------------------------------------- I unequivocally believe that Harry created the "Prongs" patronus, which was the one and only patronus seen in the PoA "dementors by the lake" scene. I do not think Snape used a patronus there at all. Harry may not know of any other means to control dementors, but he is hardly Snape's equal in DADA. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To those who missed that argument--and even more to those who didn't --I must now point out the supportive evidence from HBP: *Ron was now struggling to finish a viciously difficult essay for Snape that Harry and Hermione had already completed. Harry fully expected to receive low marks on his, because he had disagreed with Snape on the best way to tackle dementors...* (448). ::Talisman pauses to wipe some of the spattered gore of her enemies from her breastplate:: zgirnius And on the other end--why would Dumbledore make such a point of revealing to Harry that Snape was the Half-Blood Prince (as the man who looks like Snape does in "Flight of the Prince"?) Anne: It's the first lesson in who Snape really is. Talisman: Agreed. Or at least *another* step on the trail to truth that culminates in Book 7. zgirnius: The COWARD moment, I will grant you, works. But the final reason I remain convinced that Snape was Snape and Dumbledore was Dumbledore in the climactic scene is that DADA curse. Under your scenario, Snape made a plan with Dumbledore, and it WORKED. Talisman: While Dumbledore and Snape may have switched on other occasions, beyond the Cave & Tower scenes, I did not posit their transposition throughout HBP. Snape was in the classroom teaching DADA all term. The Switch stuff was strictly extra-curricular. Therefore, the Curse has been honored: Snape taught the DADA class, and did not last more than one year. Or did you mean something else? zgrinius: >snip< If the Avada Kedavra bothers you, the theory easily modifies to "Dumbledore lifts Snape off the Tower with a nonverbal spell and a green flash of light, and then Snape dies shortly thereafter for breaking his Vow." >snip< Talisman: You betcha. (Thus the answer to Jeanette & Sherry's main objection.) Dumbledore is a whiz with those tractor-beam spells. They've cushioned Harry from more than one fall. I'm sure things were carried out in the kindest possible manner. And, we do know that saying Avada Kedavra won't do the job if you don't mean it. I'm evil enough to believe DD could have meant it, i.e. killed if it were necessary, but clearly, in light of the UV, it wasn't. houyhnhnm: Are you saying that the UV can "see" through the disguises? >snip< The third clause of the Vow required Snape "should it prove necessary ?Eif it seems Draco will fail [...] carry out the deed that the Dark Lord has ordered Draco to perform?" But Draco does not seem to be about to fail the /deed that the Dark Lord has ordered/-- namely killing Dumbledore. Rather he is about to fail in the attempt to kill Snape (as DD!Snape). So it seems to me that the Vow would not even kick in. zgrinius: However, you have a point. Draco is actually wavering in an attempt to kill Snape, not Dumbledore, though of course he doesn't know that. On the other hand, the Death Eaters present don't know it either. It suree SEEMS that Draco is failing to kill Dumbledore, one of the others even makes a comment to that effect. (Recall Narcissa's wording of the Vow...) Talisman: In light of Draco's two previously failed attempts, I suggest that the trigger for the third clause of Snape's UV was intentionality. Neither the cursed opals nor the poisoned mead succeeded in accomplishing the Dark Lord's deed, yet Snape's heart beat on. Theoretically then, Draco could have continued sending toxic socks and potted tentaculas, etc. for the remainder of Dumbledore's natural life, and could miss the mark every time, without untoward vow consequences. However, it's one thing to launch nasties in Dumbledore's general direction, it's quite another to face up to the reality of the job. While it's true that, for the reader and those assembled on the tower, the confrontation between DD!Snape and Draco provided external confirmation of Draco's failed resolve, I don't think it mattered whom he was facing. If Draco had managed to fire an AK at DD!Snape and yet--and for the sake of vow argument--had been unable to give him so much as a nosebleed, I don't think Snape would have been forced to act or die. >From a *failure* perspective, I don't see how that would differ greatly from the potentially lethal opals and mead being intercepted- -and survived--by collateral victims. But, the fact remains that, believing he had a clear shot, he lowered his wand. The difference is that at this point Draco comprehends that his *heart is not really in it,* that *killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe,* and that he is *not a killer* (585-86). In his own heart, and to the eyes of the world, he was no longer willing to try, and that, perversely, was the terminal failure. houyhnhnm: I really have thought Snape the most likely candidate for a switch with DD. The actions and speech of the "Dumbledore" in the cave fit Snape better than either Wormtail or Slughorn. And this: *************** Terror tore at Harry's heart ....He had to get to Dumbledore and he had to catch Snape....Somehow the two things were linked....He could reverse what had happened if he had them both together.... *************** Talisman: An absolutely lovely catch. Thanks, houyhnhnm. houyhnhnm: One objection though. The ruse would have to have been kept up after death. Hagrid prepared the body for burial, and though he appears to have gotten along with Snape, I don't think he would have been sobbing uncontrollably over his death. Talisman: As per the Mama Crouch evidence, the corpse of someone who dies while in a polyjuiced form retains the transformed state. I would expect the deceased to look just like Dumbledore. houyhnhnm: Also, what about the phoenix that appeared to fly from the flames as DD's tomb sprung into being? Annemehr: Harry thought, for one heart-stopping moment, that he saw a phoenix rise joyfully into the blue (HBP ch. 30; p. 645) Yes, it seems like it could be Snape's patronus -- the one that was too revealing of Snape's character for JKR to divulge. One that's oh, so similar to Dumbledore's. Talisman: Anne and I are in accord. Perhaps I should have elaborated on the title of my post. It comes from the analogy Rowling draws between Snape's actions in HBP and Fawkes's Book 2 assistance to Harry in the Chamber. *Snape..knelt over Malfoy, drew his wand, and traced it over the deep wounds Harry's curse had made, muttering an incantation that sounded almost like a song. ...the flow of blood seemed to ease...the wounds seemed to be knitting. ... Moaning Myrtle was still sobbing and wailing overhead* (523). Instead of Fawkes's song and tears, we have Snape softly singing his ancient healing charm, while Myrtle provides the tears. Snape is the Dark Phoenix. Steven1965aaa: [raised the issue of the phoenix lament]: The phoenix song gave succor to those grieving *Dumbledore,* do you think Dumbledore would have been unmindful of their pain? Moreover, I think it is indicative of Dumbledore's grief for Snape, who, I believe, was more Dumbledore's equal than any other, and for whom he cared deeply. (No, that's not slash.) Fawkes himself evinces love for those whom Dumbledore loves. Have you never noticed the little signs of affection he gives Harry? Then, why shouldn't Fawkes lament for Dumbledore's beloved warrior? And do you really think Dumbledore would not have contributed to the ceremony in some fashion? There is also *Fawkes* evidence of Dumbledore's return in Book 7. In the July 16, 2005 Cub Reporter interview, Rowling was asked: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Humphreys for BBC Newsround: Who did Fawkes previously belong to and will he play a vital role in the next book? JK Rowling: I am not going to answer about the role in the next books, which probably gives you a big clue...>snip< http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2005/0705-edinburgh- ITVcubreporters.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- The part of the quote that I snipped emphasizes Dumbledore's sole ownership and so underscores the close identity between the two. However, the main point of interest is her *no comment.* The question is whether Fawkes will play a vital role in book 7. Silence is customarily taken as assent, and Rowling seems to think she's given something away. If Fawkes is operative in book 7, then Dumbledore's about. I'm not sure why Rowling answers the question in terms of the books, plural, i.e. 6 & 7. It may be an inadvertent slur or a typo. At least some of the assembled children have obviously read HBP: JKR: *Has anyone finished Half-Blood Prince yet? Good going!* And, she cheerfully answers other questions from the book: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Trisha Mittal for the Hindustan Times India - My question is why is the Weasleys' clock set at Mortal Peril? JK Rowling: Mrs Weasley is right, if you don't know what I'm talking about, the Weasleys have a clock in which each of the 9 hands represents a member of the family and they point at things like at work, travelling and so on. Well at the beginning of this book all 9 hands are pointing at mortal peril. Mrs Weasley is right, she hopes that everyone is now in danger and she is correct. Well if the deaf eaters had clocks their hands wouldn't point at mortal peril. And the Weasley are what are called blood traitors; in other words they are pure blood but don't act that way. They consort and like muggles. Therefore they are in the firing line, they would not be among Voldemort's favourite people? --------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Notice that here we also get *deaf eaters* for Death Eaters, so there is some question as to accuracy. If you read through the interview, you'll see other obvious mistakes like that in the transcript. But, if she uses *books* intentionaly, what it also says is: I'm not going to comment on what all that lamenting was about. Which is another way of saying: it's not what it might appear to be. Just because I was assessing this interview, I'll add this last point: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Cara McKenzie for Radio Forth - Every year since Harry has been to Hogwarts the defence against the dark arts teacher has left Hogwarts or died every year. Does that mean that something will stop Snape from being the defence against the dark arts in book 7? JK Rowling: Yes. I really can't say more than that. That is because one of those questions that is a very good question and everyone would like to know the answer but it gives a lot away. There must obviously be a new one. --------------------------------------------------------------------- She could have said: If you've finished the book, then you'll know why. But, she didn't. This fits very nicely with the idea that readers may conclude that he can't return because he's a murderer, but it's really because he is dead. houyhnhnm: Then there is Rowling's statement in the LC/Mugglenet interview that "I can't answer that question because it's a spoiler, isn't it, whatever I say, and obviously, it has such a huge impact on what will happen when they [Snape and Harry] meet again that I can't." Talisman: This seems to be Koinonia02's main concern, as well. Once Rowling began talking about Snape's role in Book 7, she had no choice but to refer to him in the ordinary manner. The question was: Is Snape Evil? She tried to get off with: *JKR: [Almost laughing] Well, you've read the book, what do you think?* But, the interviewers pressed on:*ES: She's trying to make you say it categorically.* (Rowling, for her part, was trying to wiggle away.) The interviewers at least feigned an assumption that her answer meant yes (the sly dogs): --------------------------------------------------------------------- MA: Well, there are conspiracy theorists, and there are people who will claim - JKR: Cling to some desperate hope [laughter] - ES: Yes! MA: Yes! ES: Like certain shippers we know! --------------------------------------------------------------------- Initially, Rowling is flippant and joins in the laughter--but after Emerson's comparison to the H/H shipping debacle, she can be seen to change her tune. She is on record as wanting to firmly debunk any further H/H shipping hopes, so a direct comparison would be quite meaningful. Yet it is only the interviewers (sly dogs) who jump on this and force the issue. Clearly they try to pin her to the correlation that hope for Snape's goodness is like hope for H/H. At this point Rowling becomes palpably discomfited. She babbles; she stammers around; she emphatically backs out of the H/H analogy net. She makes a point of clarifying that she doesn't want to quash any theories. I.e., this is NOT like the H/H matter. This belies her *cling to hope* snickering; she wants to leave the door open. A mighty admission. --------------------------------------------------------------------- JKR: Well, okay, I'm obviously-- Harry-Snape is now as personal, if not more so, than Harry-Voldemort. I can't answer that question because it's a spoiler, isn't it, whatever I say, and obviously, it has such a huge impact on what will happen when they meet again that I can't. And let's face it, it's going to launch 10,000 theories and I'm going to get a big kick out of reading them so [laughs] I'm evil but I just like the theories, I love the theories. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Perhaps she would have done better to leave it at theory encouragement, but it was a fluid situation and she addressed the inevitable Snape/Harry showdown in Book 7. Inevitable. We all expect it, and it will happen, albeit with Snape!DD. I expect DD to use Harry's raging hatred of Snape as bait (DD's established M.O.) to draw Harry in his direction and accomplish necessary events in Book 7. Yes, Harry will see and confront *Snape,* Rowling would hardly try to deny that--and their future interaction is why most readers would care whether he is evil or not. (If he was never to be *seen* again, the question of his goodness would not be nearly as vital (Or, the *big, big, big, question* as Melissa calls it.) Rowling likely put little quotes around the word in her head, but she's hardly going to wiggle her fingers in the air and say *quote/unquote Snape.* Because, as I said, if she is going to address *Snape's* role in Book 7, at all, even vis-a-vis her inability to confirm or deny things about him, there is nothing that she can call him but: Snape. Rowling parses things mighty thin, and when it comes to preserving her secrets, she's not adverse to misdirection and equivocation. katssirius: I like this theory a lot. It is based on complex emotions and an intelligent plan. The problem I see with it is I do not think JKR has got it in her. >snip< As you point out Snape has always been the most interesting character and we could have used the story of his school days or his time with the Death Eaters. Talisman: I certainly wanted more Snape in 6 (Alright, in 1 through 5, too) and I will be the most disgruntled fan you know if we don't finally get him in spades for Book 7. Happily, I think he is too critical to the denouement for her to avoid giving up the goods. I have my own little bag of quibbles with the probity and/or execution of some of Rowling's apparent premises. But, thanks to my iconoclastic (though not subversive, I assure you) reading of the works, I find a great deal of coherency, and I retain a certain neurotic optimism that she will pull it all off, yet. katssirius: I think DD's picture in the headmaster's office is the one point I have not seen argued away concerning his death. Talisman: The first point is that we know relatively little about the magic involved. This can lead to a great many assumptions, and errors, like the PoA patronus rebuttal I discussed, may ensue. The WW is filled with magical pictures. All of them move, from trading cards to casual snapshots. In addition to moving, the head's portraits are expected to speak, though we have yet to see DD's do so. I expect it will eventually say any number of interesting things, but we also have evidence that such wizard *recordings* don't require death. First things first. Beyond our textual experiences with the portraits, which don't address the magic involved, we have two explanations from Rowling. One comes from the August 15, 2004 Edinburgh Book Festival--notably before HBP was released. http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/news_view.cfm?id=80 Here, the query included the assertion that *all the paintings we have seen at Hogwarts are of dead people.* Rowling agreed that this was true, and no doubt it was at the time, but she never said this was necessary. She went on to explain how * previous headmasters and headmistresses leave behind a faint imprint of themselves. They leave their aura, almost, in the office and they can give some counsel to the present occupant, but it is not like being a ghost. They repeat catchphrases, almost. ...If Harry had a portrait of his parents it would not help him a great deal. If he could meet them as ghosts, that would be a much more meaningful interaction, * Okay, so previous heads have left behind traces that repeat catchphrases and provide less meaningful interaction than ghosts. Not really helpful to the question of whether a portrait is indicia of death. Somewhat more revealing disclosures came with her F.A.Q. response to the question of how the erstwhile Prongs managed to insult Snape via the Marauder?fs Map. http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/faq_view.cfm?id=103 In sum, Rowling says: *It is not really Prongs writing the insult to Snape, it is as though he left a magical recording of his voice within the map.* Ah. A magical recording. En route to this conclusion, she rattles off some additional ways *wizards have...of making sure their voices are heard after their death.* She tells us to * think of Bertha Jorkins rising out of the Pensieve in 'Goblet of Fire', the Sorting Hat continuing to spout the wisdom of the Founders hundreds of years after their deaths, the ghosts walking around Hogwarts, the portraits of dead headmasters and mistresses in Dumbledore's office, not to mention Mrs. Black's portrait in number twelve, Grimmauld Place... there are other examples, too, of which the Marauder's Map is merely one.* If, as is implied, the portraits participate in a shared magic with the other listed examples, then she has just revealed that death is not required. Sure, we've seen dead Bertha in the pensive. But, we've seen plenty of (concurrently) live people there, too: Dumbledore, Snape, Trelawney, Bella, the Crouches Jr & Sr, Karkaroff, Bagman, Rita, etc. etc. How about those prophecy recordings? Trelawney is alive, and yet she rises up and speaks from the orb. And, of course, *Lupin* throws insults from the Map, while he himself is standing in Snape's office, observing the proceedings. Under the circumstances, I think a portrait could be managed without DD's death. Possibly even pre-loaded with some pithy advice for Harry. What a deal. All of the advantages of death, and none of the inconvenience. I think GoF (Goblet Theory, again) provides us with another instance of a *bogus* portrait: the mermaid in the prefect's bathroom. I don't think that creature was ever alive. In the course of time we discover she looks nothing like a real merperson. Rowling bothers to specifically point this out to us (497). Why is that do you suppose? Not that she was *exactly* lying when she affirmed that *all the (circa 2004) *people* in portraits are dead (my emphasis) After all, I'm sure she is respectful of the fact that the merpeople have chosen to be categorized as beasts--or at least non-beings (FB xiii ). Koinonia02: [regarding my assertion that DD may be a metamorphmagus] My bet is on a link between Dumbledore and Gryffindor. As for the Black family/metamorphmagus angle, I surely see that making an appearance again, if it already hasn't happened. Talisman: Where?fs the rub? I'll bet Gryffindors can marry Blacks and be metamorphmagi, too. Koinonia02: It would seem possible for the above [post goo] words to come from Snape. However, could not Dumbledore, the great giver of second chances, have a spotted past(now no more a DE quote)? >snip< it's possible at one time in his life he was not exactly clean and hence >snip< his statements in the cave. Talisman: You are unwittingly dealing with the known perpetrator of Guilty!DD, the theory that launched a thousand hate mails from the *nice* side. I have no problem tagging DD in flagrante delicto, his sins improve him (as a character); this just isn't his gig. Koinonia02: >snip< The thing is, if you go back and read...it's hard to picture the Snape in this chapter being anyone but Snape. The anger, the mention of James once again, the white-hot, whiplike hex(?)against Harry' face...all these are very much Snape-like. >snip< Talisman: There's no point in getting all tarted up if you aren't going to play the part. In addition to the fact that he has a role to perform, and can be expected to be at least as good at it as Barty Jr., Dumbldore's got plenty of reason to be pissed. Snape has just given everything to the cause; this round of the game has been bought at a terrible price. In the face of this tragedy, Snape!DD is headed for the abomination of Voldemort's gleeful celebrations. Meanwhile he's got to watch Hagrid's hut go up in flames while saving Harry from overzealous DE Crucios, shuttling Draco out of the gates, parrying Harry's attempts at everything from Unforgiveables to Levicorpus, and listening to Harry's screeching about Snape's cowardice. Have you forgotten the Albus of GoF? *At that moment, Harry fully understood for the first time why people said Dumbledore was the only wizard Voldemort had ever feared. The look upon Dumbledore's face as he stared down...[at Fake!Moody]...was more terrible than Harry could have ever imagined. ...There was cold fury in every line of the ancient face; a sense of power radiated from Dumbledore as though he were giving off burning heat* (679). Or, how about OoP? *Directly above them...stood Albus Dumbledore, his wand aloft, his face white and furious* (805). I also don't think Dumbledore has unalloyed regard for James. I assure you, when Dumbledore spits out his disdain for a *pampered prince,* in OoP, he means James. You know, the Potter's coddled late-life treasure; the guy who thought he was all that and would hex you in the hallway to boot; the guy Dumbledore wanted to make sure Harry didn't turn out like. Yeah, that one. As for hexing his peeps, Dumbledore is clearly prepared to do so, when authenticity requires. Just ask Kingsley-man-that-smarted- Shacklebolt (OoP 621). The little cheek-smacking didn't do any damage to Harry, it allowed Snape!DD to get away without taking any jinxes up the tookus, and it drove home the need for Mr. DA big-shot to buckle down and master those nonverbal spells. Rebecca: My question is who is Snape in the LV Death Eater World that other DE's would either respect or fear him? And why would the werewolf be "cowed"? Talisman: He is one BMF; in the best possible way. houyhnhnm: Maybe no one died on the tower that night. Maybe Snape was impersonating Dumbledore, but his death was faked >snip< Talisman: :: sigh:: It took me more than two months to work through my denial. houyhnhnm: Yes, that's the way I would have it if I could choose. :-) I don't want Snape to be dead. Talisman: Me either, darlin.?f It's probably hard to be a fictionalized necrophiliac girlfriend, but I'm gonna grit my teeth and do it. From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Tue Apr 25 12:20:03 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 08:20:03 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Harry's ability to detect traces of magic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060425122003.51649.qmail@web37006.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151431 Najwa wrote: Najwa now: Angie I think you're on to something. Maybe its not traces of magic that we need to be worried about him sensing, but think about it, he has the ability to sense when Voldimort is near or just about anything Voldimortish really. So if he's near a horcrux, I wonder if his scar will hurt as well? Great like of thinking you've got us on...that could help him find them a little easier. Catherine: Except that he had the diary in his hands during CoS and never felt it as Voldemort. If the locket at Grimauld Place is a horcrux, he didn't feel it then either. Unless he fine tunes his Volde-senses I don't know if it will help him to find them. I do think it helps protect him to destroy them however. He has a lot to learn in book 7. Hopefully he'll be up to the challenge.... Catherine Before posting to any list, you MUST read the group's Admin File! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin_Files/HBF_Text__MUST_READ Please use accurate subject headings and snip unnecessary material from posts to which you're replying! SPONSORED LINKS Adult education Culture club Organizational culture --------------------------------- YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "HPforGrownups" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: HPforGrownups-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. --------------------------------- --------------------------------- 7 bucks a month. This is Huge Yahoo! Music Unlimited [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From laurence59 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 12:21:13 2006 From: laurence59 at yahoo.com (laurence59) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 12:21:13 -0000 Subject: Voldemort's ideology? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151432 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "coldsliversofglass" wrote: > > What, exactly, does Voldemort want? > Simply: Thief of Death - from the french. Un Voleur = A thief voler = to steal, and I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that Vol is the imperative form of steal, as in a command, Steal! de = of mort = death Hope this helps, Laurence From phil at pcsgames.net Tue Apr 25 12:45:23 2006 From: phil at pcsgames.net (Phil Vlasak) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 08:45:23 -0400 Subject: Dumbledore lodged in Harry's pocket References: Message-ID: <003301c66866$253522b0$6600a8c0@phil> No: HPFGUIDX 151433 Najwa now: snipped As for Dumbledore being alive, as I've stated before > he doesn't need to be alive to be around and helpful. I'm wondering > about the Wizard cards. Harry got a Dumbledore card in book one, so it > might be of use now that Dumbledore is dead. It's small, its easy to > carry, and we've seen in that scene that Dumbledore seems to be active > in his card. I wonder if it can operate like a portrait can. If > anything, he can give advice and moral support through the thing. > Since Harry probably won't be going back to Hogwarts, this might be > the way he can communicate with his mentor via the portrait in > Headmistress McGonagall's office. I think we haven't seen the last of > Dumbledore, but we've seen the last of his physical self. Harry needs > to now be able to protect himself and look out for himself, but it > won't ruin the story to have Dumbledore lodged away in his back pocket > if he's come to a few dead ends i think. > > Najwa, who hopes JKR really means it when she says she's going to tie > up the loose ends completely in the last book. Now Phil: I don't think the magic cards have magic as powerful as the portraits do. But there is another way Harry could have Dumbledore lodged in his pocket. If Harry repairs his two-way mirror and finds the one that Sirius had, he could place one near Dumbledore's portrait and have the other in his pocket. This way if Harry needs help from Dumbledore he could just pull out the mirror and say his name. Phil, who hopes this will get Harry back to Hogwarts in book seven. From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Tue Apr 25 12:46:06 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 08:46:06 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Voldemort's ideology? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060425124606.5000.qmail@web37009.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151434 laurence59 wrote: Simply: Thief of Death - from the french. Un Voleur = A thief voler = to steal, and I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that Vol is the imperative form of steal, as in a command, Steal! de = of mort = death Catherine: Vol can also stand for "to fly" or "to flee" And for me "Voldemort" tanslates to "flee from death" which in fact has been his greatest ambition. I can't say what makes him tick. He certainly likes controling people, and it's not like he is out there risking his life on a daily basis, he gets his death-eaters to do that. I see him as a mobster, leading by promoting fear and hatred, rather than by earning respect. I would like to know what would happen if he got his way. Purebloods and pureblood-wannabe's everywhere, cowtailing to his demands, but no one to oppose him. Would he really be happy? Does he even know happy? I think he would be bored without chaos. He has a journey and a destination in mind, but I don't think he would like it if he ever got there. He is so determined to overcome his own mortality, and he doesn't see any further than that. I wonder if he'll become a ghost once he is vanquished. He and the Bloddy Baron can compete as chief ghost of Slytherin house.... Catherine (For whom it took several years to stop spelling "family" with two L's in english, and still has trouble spelling similar words in french and english, address and envelope being the two I never know how to spell in either language! address/adresse envelope/enveloppe. Sigh...the advatages and disadvantages of primary schooling in a second language....) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From parisfan_ca at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 13:09:30 2006 From: parisfan_ca at yahoo.com (laurie goudge) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 06:09:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Tom Riddle In-Reply-To: <20060425022158.77774.qmail@web37012.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060425130930.59347.qmail@web30714.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151435 --- catherine higgins wrote: > > > hokukaua wrote: I was just > rereading the 4th book and in the beginning when > they are > talking of the deaths of the Riddle family, Frank > Bryce says that all > three were dead....meaning a man, a wife, and a son- > Tom Marvolo > Riddle.... does anyone have any explanations for me? > I thought his > mother died during childbirth, his father abandoned > him, and he was > well alive, or as alive as he could be. Please, > someone clear this up > for me.... parisfan writes: I took it to mean Tom Riddle Sr, HIS dad and HIS mum were all dead. The way I read that chapter was that young Tom showed up, says 'hi', suprizes his daddy and grandparents, probably a fight ensues in which daddy dearest probably gets insulting about Merope and Tom Jr. and Jr. taking it out on his dad and granparents. laurie __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From foxmoth at qnet.com Tue Apr 25 14:58:03 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 14:58:03 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151436 Alla: > > Harry cannot stand Dursleys, that is understandable due to how they > treat him, IMO. But as I said above I find it perfectly reasonable > that Harry may at the same time want the love of those who treat him > horribly and it is canon that he does. Pippin: No, it's canon that he resents being deprived of it. Not quite the same thing. But you're painting yourself into my corner here. If Harry, after fifteen years of abuse, still craves Petunia's love, and presumably would respond if only she treated him with kindness and respect, how can we possibly say that Kreacher wouldn't have responded to Sirius? With some degree of logic, that is, because obviously we can say anything we want :) And we can make Dumbledore's words mean anything we want, but since he warned Sirius that Kreacher "could be dangerous to us" even though presumably he himself was treating Kreacher with kindness and respect, he obviously wasn't saying that Sirius was betrayed solely because he wasn't kind. But Sirius's lack of compassion made it difficult for him to see Kreacher as dangerous. I think that is something Harry would not have seen on his own. One more question for you, Alla. Should Snape die in the next book, can we expect you to keep silence about his flaws in order to respect the feelings of all us poor broken-hearted Snape lovers? :) Pippin From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 12:33:06 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 05:33:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060425123306.18299.qmail@web61311.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151437 susanmcgee48176 wrote: Uh, Hermione provides the cold calculation? The girl who is grieved by the plight of the House Elves? The girl who sits besides Ron's bedside white faced and jaw clenched? Joe: But not agrieved enough to do anything beyond annoy her fellow classmates. Let's remember here, she is the one coming from outside the Wizard culture and she is telling them how their cultural traditions are wrong. Just like the swoty little know it all she is. But her indignation only goes so far. She doesn't leave the school. She doesn't stop sleeping in her House Elf made bed. She cares about them but doesn't mind reaping the fruits of their labor. She seems to have forgotten most of that by HBP as well. Susan :Ron is SO immature..I don't quite know what Hermione sees in him... First, he behaves abysmally at the Yule Ball, ignoring his date to drool over another girl (and he doesn't even have the insight to understand that he is in the throes of jealousy). He totally misjudges his best friend (Harry)and makes him miserable while Harry is struggling to survive in the Tri Wizard tournament. Hermione asks him to Slughorn's party. He gets SO bent out of shape because he hears from Ginny that Hermione has kissed Viktor...that he runs off to snog Lavendar. He has NO interest in Lavender as a person - - actually he just uses her to get sexual experience -- and uses her to inflate his own ego. Joe: Surely you mean in your opinion? Because I don't think we ever get a look inside Ron's head regarding the entire issue. As we have said before there are those who don't know what he sees in Hermione. If your most damning complaint is that a 14yr old(GOF) acted immature then I think that is hardly surprising. Susan:Oh, well, I guess the sexist would say "boys will be boys", but God forbid my son should ever act that badly. Joe: Sorry but it is almost a certainty that your son will act in similar manner at some point. If we are being honest almost all of us have acted immaturely and hurt people's feelings. I am certain I have and not just as a child either. I suspect you have done the same as no one is perfect. Making mistakes(or percived ones) is as much a part of development as making the correct choices. Susan:I have NO clue what Hermione sees in him. Joe: I can see that. The thing is though that it is probable you have been in a relationship and people have wondered what you did to deserve the person you were with, vise versa more than likely as well. What people outside of a relatinship think is meaningless. --------------------------------- YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS --------------------------------- --------------------------------- How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger?s low PC-to-Phone call rates. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From meltowne at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 16:06:30 2006 From: meltowne at yahoo.com (meltowne) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 16:06:30 -0000 Subject: DD polyjuiced as Snape In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151438 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "adhaereovirtuti" wrote: > > I've thought the entire idea of DD and Snape being switched rather > clever, and have been reading the commentary with great interest. > > I am wondering if - and I do not know if anyone else has said this - > that DD was polyjuiced/switched into impersonating Snape at Spinner's > End when the Unbreakable Vow occurred. > ...> I honestly can't see Snape promising anyone to save their child, just > to alleviate their anguish. Whether DDM!Snape or not. But I could see > DD doing that, even if it meant promising his own death (Although that > was not known at the time). If it was actually Snape, and he was truly > loyal to LV, he would not submit to an UV and he would tell of the > incident to LV and Narcissa would be in deep trouble. > > Also, it's interesting that Wormtail seems to be spying on Snape, > although the reason given is that he is assisting Snape. Also, whether > it is DD in disguise or a true Snape, that neither knew what Draco's > mission was. If DD was polyjuiced/switched with Snape, there might be > a few behaviors suspicious enough that LV would have Wormtail spy and > LV would not confide in Snape about Draco's assignment. Another advantage to this - Snape seemed to have to use the Legilimens spell to read Harry's mind, but is good at blocking others from reading his own mind. On the other hand, Dumbledore seems proficient at both - he didn't need them to tell him what the vow was, but could read it from her mind as she thought about it. Having promised, as Snape, to protect Draco, he then enlists Snape to keep an eye on Draco, to keep Draco from doing something to harm his soul. From beatrice23 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 16:19:51 2006 From: beatrice23 at yahoo.com (Beatrice23) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 16:19:51 -0000 Subject: Sectumsempra and the DEs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151439 wrote: > > Any theories as to why Harry didn't use Sectumsepmra on the DEs at the > end of HBP? > > He tried it on the dead bodies in the cave, to no effect, but not on > the live DEs upon whom, presumably, it would have worked. Probably for the same reason that he doesn't use avada, imperio, or crucio. It is dark magic . PERIOD. One doesn't use it on another human being. Harry is plagued by guilt when he does use it on Malfoy and lets face it, if anyone deserves it.... He uses it in the cave because he is facing an opponent that is not alive so technically it is like blasting away a rock or something else. He uses it out of desperation. He may be angry when battling the DE, but he shows that he has to some extent learned to master that enough not to stoop to the level of the DE. Quite a difference from OotP when he attempts to use crucio on Bellatrix. Beatrice From aceworker at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 03:58:26 2006 From: aceworker at yahoo.com (career advisor) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2006 20:58:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Subject: Re: The real reason for the attack on Hogwarts in HBP prince was to grab a horcrux from the room of requirement ( Was: Did Harry have a Horcrux in OOP?) In-Reply-To: <1145863000.1092.13275.m19@yahoogroups.com> Message-ID: <20060425035826.2161.qmail@web30204.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151440 Neil: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151441 Angie wrote: > Any theories as to why Harry didn't use Sectumsepmra on the DEs at > the end of HBP? > > He tried it on the dead bodies in the cave, to no effect, but not > on the live DEs upon whom, presumably, it would have worked. > > Seems like it should've been no holds barred -- he'd just witnessed > Snape kill DD and he believed someone in the Order (or perhaps a > student) was dead. It just seems odd to me that he wouldn't have > used that curse on his enemies. "Rald Sedgewick Radcliffe": He used the sectumsempra, if I'm not mistaken. He used it to Professor Snape but Snape blocked the sectumsepra. Remember Professor Snape's line when he blocked Harry's attempt to use the jinx to him? "ARE YOU TRYING TO USE THE JINX THAT I HAD INVENTED? YOU'RE LIKE YOUR FATHER" The line is not exactly like that but it sounds like that. He said that line before he told to Harry that he is the half-blood prince. Read THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE CHAPTER THAT HAD A TITLE FLIGHT OF THE PRINCE. I forgot the exact chapter number it but it the title is that FLIGHT OF THE PRINCE. If I'm not mistaken it was the chapter before the WHITE TOMB chapter which is the last chapter of the book. From Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com Tue Apr 25 13:29:57 2006 From: Lady_AshkaCat_Rain at hotmail.com (coldsliversofglass) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 13:29:57 -0000 Subject: Voldemort as a Ghost? (Was: Voldemort's ideology?) In-Reply-To: <20060425124606.5000.qmail@web37009.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151442 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, catherine higgins < saberbunny at ...> wrote: > I wonder if he'll become a ghost once he is vanquished. He and the Bloddy >Baron can compete as chief ghost of Slytherin house.... coldsliversofglass: Ooh, now that sounds like fun...theorizing over the fate of Voldemort if he should die, that is. I like your idea of him competing with the Bloody Barron to be the ghost of the Slytherin house. I also have this image of Snape still being a teacher and driving Voldemort's Ghost absolutely crazy taunting him in that cold bored tone...in front of the students no less. Any other theories on what might happen to Voldemort when he dies? I'm hoping it won't be the same ending as in the Chamber when the diary version was defeated (Ray of light, or even convergence of shadows seems a bit cliche). From sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 14:16:39 2006 From: sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com (sugaranddixie1) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 14:16:39 -0000 Subject: Advice, and the guilt of taking it [Was: Is Harry a Murderer...] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151443 > Eggplant: > I hate Snape with a passion but paradoxical as it sounds I must > confess to rather liking The Prince. Perhaps the young Snape was not > quite as evil as the older version. You say some of the advice The > Prince gave was bad, but I can't think of any. Sectumsempra could be > useful against enemies just as The Prince said it was. Incidentally > Harry used that spell again after the time with Draco, he used it > against the Inferne in the cave. ET again: (I liked the young Prince better too, btw....) I think Harry made a very poor judgement call in using that spell without knowing what it did, but I can understand why he did it. IMO, he made a poor judgement call again in using it against the Inferne because a corpse isn't going to bleed to death. ;) He didn't know what would stop them though, so I guess it was as good as anything....wonder what would have happened if he'd used Lockhart's bone "repair" spell? :D ET: who has been told she has a very strange sense of humor & considers it a high compliment. :) From spirittalks at gmail.com Tue Apr 25 18:41:04 2006 From: spirittalks at gmail.com (Kim) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 14:41:04 -0400 Subject: Pensieve / Re: Dumbledore lodged in Harry's pocket References: <003301c66866$253522b0$6600a8c0@phil> Message-ID: <00a501c66897$cfc14ca0$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> No: HPFGUIDX 151444 I wonder if we'll find that Dumbledore has willed the Pensieve to Harry. Perhaps we'll see him diving in whenever he needs to consult Dumbledore about something. And naturally, the omniscient Dumbledore would have foreseen the question and prepared an answer for Harry to view. It could be so much fun to see Harry thinking aloud, or even forgetting DD's dead and responding to the image of him, and then startling when DD actually answers him (having anticipated that he'd react that way, naturally). Imagine what he could learn this way? It would be a wonderful way for JKR to have the most powerful man ever to continue to teach "The Chosen One" without being there to help him. Just a thought... Kim From spirittalks at gmail.com Tue Apr 25 18:49:57 2006 From: spirittalks at gmail.com (Kim) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 14:49:57 -0400 Subject: Something Suspicious about Severus (was :Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix) References: Message-ID: <00b401c66899$0d2b14d0$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> No: HPFGUIDX 151445 Rebecca wrote: > "But someone else had spoken Snape's name, quite softly. 'Severus .' The > sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. > For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading. Snape said nothing, but > walked forwards and pushed Malfoy roughly out of the way. **The three > Death Eaters fell back without a word. Even the werewolf seemed cowed.**" Kim Is it possible that it was the one who murmered the name "Severus" that they feared? I just finished rereading the series last night and this bothered me too. But I finally read it to mean that it had called their attention to Dumbledore standing there. If it is Snape that they feared then perhaps he is Voldy's favorite but the way the sentence reads makes no sense. Why would they have reason to fear one of their own unless, like Voldy, he tortures them or causes them to believe he will have Voldy do it. I don't know, it makes no sense in any way I read it unless I attribute their fear to Dumbledore, rather than Snape. Kim From zgirnius at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 19:08:05 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 19:08:05 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151446 WARNING-REALLY LONG! (though perhaps not much longer that Talisman's...) > Talisman: > Talisman tosses aside her steaming quill, slides a 13 foot scroll > of responses in your direction, and snuggles up to a rather stiff- > looking fellow in singed robes. zgirnius: Womanfully suppresses urge to copy out Poe's "Annabel Lee" for Talisman... > Talisman: > Hmm. Obviously shock induced bewilderment. Elevate your feet and > stay warm. ; ) zgirnius: I'm a pretty emotionally resilient sort. I did wait until I was past the but, but... stage of spluttering to reply the first time. But thanks for your kind concern... > Talisman: > Hey now, we can't have that. There's too much Devil in those > details to allow them to be swept under the rug. Zgirnius: I did not. I found none of them convincing. It is a lovely theory, though, so if you insist this is going to be a VERY long post. Before I go into your details, though, I have a new question of my own. Accepting your theory for the sake of argument: Dumbledore turned into Snape and went down into Snape's office. He knew the game was afoot when Flitwick came for him. But Flitwick was sent, we are told, as a result of a spur-of-the-moment decision by McGonagall, which if the battle went better might never have been made. It could have happened that Draco, or another Death Eater, killed Snape, leaving Harry all alone with them. For me, this is a major reason to believe that Dumbledore told Draco the simple truth on the Tower-he truly believed there was no way Draco would get Death Eaters into Hogwarts, and thus he and Snape had no plans for that particular night. > Talisman: > Harry is not yet ready for his moment with Snape qua Snape, but he > will find this interaction quite poignant in retrospect, I assure > you. Zgirnius: I do get the whole glorious, full-blown heroic picture you are trying to paint here, Talisman. I do. I just don't think it is what Rowling wrote/will write. My bottom line objection to your theory (and also the Spinner's End Snape was Dumbledore theory) is that in Spinner's End and The Flight of the Prince Rowling lavished some lovely character moments on Snape, and likewise in the Cave and Tower she did the same for Dumbledore, and I just really am not convinced she would have done this for the wrong person(s), as I have already tried to explain. Talisman: > I see, zgirnius, that you are from the DDM camp, so I trust you read > Snape as diametrically opposed to Voldemort (he would *never* wear a > turban; he appears in Fake!Moody's Foe Glass, etc.); and that you > understand the magnanimity of his actions. Zgirnius: I'd compliment you on your perceptiveness only I think this is only too clear > Talisman: < snip other Cave quotes > > And, as they set out to keep Snape's appointment with death, he says > *I am not worried...I am with you* (578). Zgirnius: I do not see Snape as having that kind of personal belief in Harry at this stage any more than I see Harry as ready to accept it at present (on this latter point at least, we agree). He goes along with Dumbledore because he has heard the Prophecy, and also because he is willing to some extent to trust Dumbledore's judgment, but I really see him as mirroring Harry. Canon basis for my feeling? The Sectumsempra chapter, mostly, I guess, and assorted remarks by Snape about Harry in PoA and OotP, though certainly the Flight of the Prince probably colors my view as well. So while I can see Harry retrospectively getting the full emotional benefit of this moment, I can't see Snape in the moment delivering this line with sincerity. And that makes it a partly wasted line, to me, if your theory is correct. To me, Snape kills Dumbledore on the Tower because Dumbledore asks him to, and goes off to rejoin the Death Eaters as a spy in deep cover to carry out Dumbledore's plan that he be there to help Harry if needed in the final confrontation. Even though he has his own doubts on the subject of Harry, which only makes the whole situation that much more poignant to me. Talisman: > Having raised the topic of Snape's tireless efforts, permit me to > indulge in a short digression regarding his protection of Harry in > PoA (there is hardly enough volume for a separate post and I have > nowhere else at the moment to stick this, though I'm sure my > opponents will have suggestions....) Zgirnius: Oh, you are *SO* clever to have thought of that. I love it. I'm buying. And it ties in so nicely with that Dementor essay in HBP, which you of course knew nothing about! But, I think we have not seen our last Dementor. And I do think that in Book 7, we will see Snape dealing with them in his other way. I really like the Book 3/Book 7 parallel idea, you see, and you've just given me another possible little bit to add to it. > Talisman: > Therefore, the Curse has been honored: Snape taught the DADA class, > and did not last more than one year. > > Or did you mean something else? Zgirnius: I did mean something else, but you can hardly be blamed for failing to read my mind. Having considered it longer, though-I am satisfied on this point. The Curse did work, you are right and I withdraw this objection. > Talisman: > In light of Draco's two previously failed attempts, I suggest that > the trigger for the third clause of Snape's UV was intentionality. > > Neither the cursed opals nor the poisoned mead succeeded in > accomplishing the Dark Lord's deed, yet Snape's heart beat on. > > Theoretically then, Draco could have continued sending toxic socks > and potted tentaculas, etc. for the remainder of Dumbledore's > natural life, and could miss the mark every time, without untoward > vow consequences. Zgirnius: Yet another interpretation of what the Vow means, precisely Aaaargh. I had decided the key was `*seems* to fail'. The key being the public/evident nature of the failure. So on the Tower I saw the problem not in Draco's realization that he did not want to do it, but in the untimely arrival of four inconvenient witnesses, to see Draco's seeming failure and report it to Voldemort. OK, so much for this post .back to the original! > Talisman draws back her black veil, to tell you the sad truth: > > Ah, fun theories about Slughorn or Pettigrew taking Dumbledore's > place. I wish I could subscribe to them, but, let us face facts: > there is only one surrogate with the mighty cahones required for the > action of the cave and the tower, Severus Snape. Zgirnius: As you have surmised, you'll get no argument from me on this point. > Talisman: > From a meta standpoint, this preserves Snape's ever-elusive nature. > By the time Harry (and the average reader) comprehends the totality > of Snape's heroism, he will be far beyond their effusive, and > meaningless, regrets. Zgirnius: This is to some extent a matter of personal taste. I would much prefer (from a meta standpoint, as you say) to have Rowling make Harry and Snape come to terms in real time. It depends, of course, on what story exactly you think Rowling is trying to tell. Talisman: > Certainly DD's death was a fake. The series explores and signals > the ruse of death in nearly every book. Zgirnius: Something about it was fake, yes. But any number of theories share this trait. Dumbledore could have been Dumbledore and still be alive, for example (not that I personally buy this theory). Talisman: > I would expect Snape to be even better at impersonating DD. Zgirnius: Yes, Snape could impersonate DD. Doesn't mean he did, and I axplained above why I, personally, doubt Rowling would have had him do so in the scenes in question. > Talisman: > The list of obvious methods have been recited in every Switch! Theory. Zgirnius: I grant Snape could have been Polyjuiced, and Dumbledore wouldn't need to be. Were I the author of the theory, I would have the Prince invent a longer lasting Polyjuice Potion, and Dumbledore, well, he WAS Transfiguration professor, so I think his ability to like whatever he chooses is pretty much a given. That it is plausible in Rowling's world does not mean that it happened, though. > Talisman: > The DADA professor always has a role to play in the denouement. > But, in all other books, the DADA professor has also been the new > character to the book. Zgirnius: Well, if Snape killed Dumbledore, this would certainly be the case in HBP Zgirnius: Another area of complete agreement. > Talisman: > Switched!Snape is foreshadowed in GoF by the dying Mrs. Crouch who > convinces Barty Sr. to allow her to take Jr.'s place. However, in > HBP, it is the doomed Snape (no more worries about how to get out of > the UV) who convinces DD to make the switch. Zgirnius: I would be quite interested how you would splice the snippets of conversation that we have from Hagrid into the conversation you propose took place. Talisman: > Now, like Barty Jr., Switched!DD is free to move behind enemy lines, > in someone else's guise and--like Fake!Moody--he is doubly cloaked > in the enemy's false belief in his demise. Zgirnius: Or Snape is free to move behind enemy lines, now cloaked in his enemy's false belief in his treason. I love the little Voldemort/Dumbledore contrast that Voldemort absolutely could not imagine that Dumbledore would *order* Snape to kill him for any reason whatsoever. I mean, in a way it still works if Snape died, since Voldemort would hardly expect that either, but Voldemort and Dumbledore are each other's counterparts in the story, not Voldemort and Snape. > Talisman: > *[Snape] is now no more a Death Eater than I am* (591). > > The old waffler just couldn't say * Snape is not a DE* could he? And > of course, Snape IS a DE, albeit a traitorous one. Zgirnius: I don't see the point of such switches, routinely. They are risky, and surely Dumbledore can trust Snape to report back fully and accurately? (There's always the Pensieve, if Dumbledore wants to see for himself). I took the statement to be poetic emphasis, just as Dumbledore's reference to Snape's `return'. Talisman: > I expect it was Switched!Snape in the office, prior to the cave > outing, ergo the blanching when Harry confronts him about Snape > being the one who told LV about the Prophesy. Zgirnius: While it is certainly an excellent reason for Snape to blanch, given that Dumbledore has tried to hide this fact form Harry for a year now, and has been fending off Harry's suspicions of Snape for a year, it seems to me a more than adequate reason for Dumbledore to blanch as well. > Talisman: > For general evidence, there is, of course, that oft-quoted line > about how *...with the sudden agility of a much younger man, > Dumbledore slid from the boulder, landed in the sea, and began to > swim, with a perfect breaststroke, toward the dark slit in the rock > face, his lit wand held in his teeth* (HBP 557). Nice touch, the > wand in the teeth. Zgirnius: But under your theory, in this scene Snape is Polyjuiced into Dumbledore. He is therefore in the body of a 150 year old man. It seems to me, were I to Polyjuice into a little old lady, I would suddenly have a lot more trouble opening jars of jam and were I to Polyjuice into an NFL offensive lineman, moving the furniture around in my home would become SOO much easier. Now, I can see your saying Snape is acting out of habit here (since in his own body he *would* be a much younger man) and then hiding his discomfort from Harry when it reoinds him he's currently occupying a body with some limitations. But the same could be said of Dumbledore (he acts energetically and resolutely in the heat of the moment even though he knows he's too old for this.) I don't see this as demonstrating anything. Talisman: > There is more evidence that it's Snape in the cave: > > The knife Switched!Snape uses in the cave is *a short silver knife > of the kind Harry used to chop potion ingredients* (HBP 559). Zgirnius: Suggestive. On the other hand, all the students at Hogwarts have one, as Potions is a required subject. It may be something a wizard would tend to have on their person. Snape, after all, is teaching DADA this year. Why would HE be carrying his Potions knife around on this particular mission? Talisman: > Moreover, the incantation Switched!Snape uses to heal his arm is the > same one Snape used earlier to heal Draco's wounds. > > *You are very kind, Harry," said Dumbledore, now passing his wand > over the deep cut he had made in his own arm, so that it healed > instantly, just as Snape had healed Malfoy's wounds* (HBP 560). Zgirnius: The man in the Cave, as your quote shows, did not speak/sing the incantation, unlike Snape in the bathroom. Possibly indicative of a higher degree of power/skill/experience which Dumbledore has. (Or of the relative insignificance of the wound being healed my point is that the evidence can be seen either way, not that you are wrong.) Talisman: > I don't know how many have noticed all the corollaries between > Books 2 and 6. They are rampant. Zgirnius: I have, I like the theory that 1 and 5, 2 and 6, and 3 and 7 have/will have similarities (I first saw the idea on Red Hen's site, though I do not necessarily subscribe to her precise theory of this). Talisman: > In my own opinion, the memory potion is a symmetrical reversal of > Lockhart's end of book memory loss. > > The symmetry requires that the person experiencing the potion > induced surfeit of memory in HBP be Lockhart's opposite, and that > would definitely be Snape. > > The fact that they are each DADA professors in the respective books > completes the *butterfly effect.* Zgirnius: This works, but one could try and draw different parallels/reverse parallels. It's not a game I'm that good at, but Snape seeming to be a total villain at the end of Book 6 when he really is far from it seems a reasonable mirror of Lockhart proving to be a descipcable nobody when he played the heroic rescuer. Note Lockhart survived his experience >Talisman: > But, on further reflection, I believe he is reliving the murder of > his family as a penalty for his failure or refusal, as a young DE, > do something the Dark Lord had ordered him to do. Zgirnius: I'll take your Guilty!Dumbledore theory instead, thanks. I have no problem with an epitome of good that has some serious skeletons in his closet from 120 or so years ago >Talisman: > This also satisfies the intra-book symmetry: he protects Draco from > what he then demonstrates he has suffered himself. Zgirnius: It's not intra-book if Snape was not in the Cave but Snape's willingness to help Draco could very well originate to some extent in his own back story, I don't doubt it. > Talisman: > Like when Snape toasts * [t]he Dark Lord* at Spinners End (24), and > then toasts Harry while in the cave, as Switched!DD (570). Zgirnius: Dumbledore also drinks a toast at the start of Book 6. Zgirnius: Not a problem for me, your explanation is logical within your theory. There are also excellent reasons why Dumbledore would be pleading in that scene, however. (Personally, I think it is because he had just decided he was not rescuable under the circumstances, and was afraid Snape would nonetheless sacrifice himself in a vain attempt, which would also place Draco and Harry in greater danger). Talisman: > And, it's a nice symmetry to Snape's being the recipient of > Narcissa's pleading, in the beginning. Zgirnius: As is Snape's being the recipient of Dumbledore's pleading, you must admit. And hey, my way both pleading parties have some concern for Draco as part of their motivation. From yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com Tue Apr 25 19:04:40 2006 From: yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com (stevemac) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 14:04:40 -0500 Subject: Sectumsempra and the DEs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <21E69B28-AD43-4C06-9F73-C941BBFF0DC1@stevenmcintosh.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151447 Beatrice23: > Probably for the same reason that he doesn't use avada, > imperio, or crucio. It is dark magic. PERIOD. One doesn't use > it on another human being. Harry is plagued by guilt when he > does use it on Malfoy and lets face it, if anyone deserves it.... > > He uses it in the cave because he is facing an opponent that is > not alive so technically it is like blasting away a rock or > something else. He uses it out of desperation. He may be > angry when battling the DE, but he shows that he has to some > extent learned to master that enough not to stoop to the level of > the DE. > > Quite a difference from OotP when he attempts to use crucio on > Bellatrix. stevemac: He does try to use several curses at the very end as Snape and Draco try to flee the grounds (the key word being TRIES). He tries (one assumes) CRUCIO twice, a few others, then SECTUMSEMPRA. It's seems to be blind rage and assumed self-defense in the cases where Harry does KNOWINGLY use Dark Magic, but he does try it - it's not "below" him. From willsonkmom at msn.com Tue Apr 25 19:16:41 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 19:16:41 -0000 Subject: Portraits and a Pensieve / Re: Dumbledore lodged in Harry's pocket In-Reply-To: <00a501c66897$cfc14ca0$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151448 >Kim wrote: > I wonder if we'll find that Dumbledore has willed the Pensieve to > Harry. Perhaps we'll see him diving in whenever he needs to consult > Dumbledore about something. Potioncat: Well, if he also willed a dozen or so bottles of memory, it would be ok. The Pensieve itself is just a tool...although a very useful one. If someone could teach Harry how to use it, it would be great. Kim: It could be so much fun to see Harry thinking aloud, or even > forgetting DD's dead and responding to the image of him, and then > startling when DD actually answers him (having anticipated that he'd > react that way, naturally). Potioncat: Am I the only one not looking forward to DD's portrait waking up? Meeting Portrait!Phineas Nigellus is one thing. We never knew the living Professor Black. Facing Portrait!DD is another. I think it'd be like calling the home of a deceased friend to speak some other family member and getting his voice on the answering machine. Not pleasant, I wouldn't think. I would assume to members of the WW it's no different than watching an old family movie, but that can be painful too. Potioncat, who wouldn't mind getting a few bottles of memory From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 20:00:45 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 20:00:45 -0000 Subject: Something Suspicious about Severus (was :Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix) In-Reply-To: <00b401c66899$0d2b14d0$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151449 > >>Rebecca: > > > > My question is who is Snape in the LV Death Eater World that > > other DE's would either respect or fear him? And why would the > > werewolf be "cowed"? > >>Kim: > Is it possible that it was the one who murmered the name "Severus" > that they feared? > > I don't know, it makes no sense in any way I read it unless I > attribute their fear to Dumbledore, rather than Snape. Betsy Hp: But Dumbledore is collapsed on the ground. And the reactions are definitely aimed at Snape. Remember, this is not the Order. These folks do not, by definition, play well with others. (Well, they probably *do* play well with others, only the others don't enjoy the play at all. ) Snape scares them. That's the bottom line. He's tight enough with Voldemort, smart enough in his own right, and really, really powerful. He's the man in charge. And these folks, especially (being not all that bright) are not going to challenge him. Not to his face, anyway. > >>Najwa: > > Wasn't the werewolf the leader of werewolves as well? > Betsy Hp: I'm betting Snape is an expert at taking down werewolves. After all, he was nearly killed by one in his sixth year at Hogwarts. Knowing what we know about student!Snape, I think it's not hard to imagine him researching, refining and perfecting the art of fighting werewolves. And Fenrir would know it. Snape would be sure he knew it. (Though there's also the fun, Fenrir is a pack animal through and through and he recognizes when an alpha male enters a room. ) > >>Talisman: > He is one BMF; in the best possible way. Betsy Hp: I was going to tell you to shut your mouth, but then I realized, you're just talking about Snape. (Erm, I really hope you get the song reference otherwise I look really, really rude.) Betsy Hp From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 20:50:32 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 20:50:32 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151450 > >>Susan: > Uh, Hermione provides the cold calculation? Betsy Hp: Oh, yes. Definitely. Hermione isn't a machine by any means, but she does have a hard time putting herself in someone elses shoes (something Ron does without thinking) and she has a hard time seeing people as people and not neat little numbers that should react just so within her neat little plans. > >>Susan: > The girl who is grieved by the plight of the House Elves? Betsy Hp: An excellent example. Hermione didn't have a single conversation with a single house elf. Because *they* weren't important except in what they stood for, in *her* opinion. > >>Susan: > The girl who sits besides Ron's bedside white faced and jaw > clenched? Betsy Hp: Yes, that same girl. As I said, she's not a machine. But she's not the empathetic member of the trio either. > >>Susan: > Ron is SO immature. Betsy Hp: Oh, I think Ron has behaved well within his age bracket. Both he and Harry were bad dates at the Yule Ball. But then, neither of them had mothers telling them the proper way to treat a date. (Harry because his is dead, Ron because his is Molly.) > >>Susan: > He totally misjudges his best friend (Harry)and makes him > miserable while Harry is struggling to survive in the Tri Wizard > tournament. Betsy Hp: Not the entire tournament. Just the beginning. And I wouldn't say Ron made this mistake because he's selfish or immature. He thought Harry had betrayed him. (I'd also point out that Ron went to Harry to make apologies first, but Harry refused to listen. Not that I blame Harry either, he was under a bit of pressure himself, poor lamb.) But, speaking of GoF, as we are: I think it becomes strongly apparent that Ron is a rock for Harry. His loyalty and support (and sense of humor!) is something Harry needs, and misses, and is relieved to get back. It's that sort of stuff that draws Hermione to Ron, I think. (Though being a tall red-head with great shoulders has to help .) But, unfortunately, it's that sort of stuff that is hard to measure. You don't take a test in it and there aren't any certificates or medals given out. And Hermione, for some reason, spent most of HBP dismissing Ron's strengths or taking them for granted. > >>Susan: > > He has NO interest in Lavender as a person -- actually he just > uses her to get sexual experience -- and uses her to inflate his > own ego. > >>Joe: > Surely you mean in your opinion? Because I don't think we ever get > a look inside Ron's head regarding the entire issue. > Betsy Hp: I'm going to agree with Joe here. How can we assume that Ron is just after Lavender for the sex? He's attacked, rather ruthlessly, on just about every level by Hermione. And meanwhile, there's Lavender making it very plain that she sees something fairly smoking in Ron. Why would he not decide to take what's being offered? Yes, he does figure out that he and Lavender have little in common. But at that point he starts pulling away from her. Which leads me to believe (especially since Lavender still seemed very much on board) that sex had little to do with it. On the other hand, Hermione goes out with a boy *specifically* to hurt Ron's feelings. She even takes a few moments to hem and haw over which date would sting the most. (Did it even work? I can't recall Ron reacting to it at all.) > >>Susan: > I have NO clue what Hermione sees in him. Betsy Hp: I quite like Ron. Honestly, I think he'd make a great boyfriend, especially in the high school years. Very loyal and with a nice old- fashioned streak that would keep him from pushing a girl for too much. I do have a hard time seeing what *Hermione* sees in him, because she certainly doesn't express any sort of admiration or respect for Ron throughout HBP. IOW, I see Ron's good points, but I don't see Hermione seeing them. I get that Ron quite likes Hermione's intelligence and he's fondly amused (rather than annoyed) at her tendency to over-react to things. (No one is better at talking Hermione down from a hysterical fit than Ron.) But I don't get how he was able to put up with such bad treatment over this last year. He must have recognized a vulnerability or something that I missed. Betsy Hp From hickengruendler at yahoo.de Tue Apr 25 21:35:48 2006 From: hickengruendler at yahoo.de (hickengruendler) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 21:35:48 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151451 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" wrote: > > I get that Ron quite likes Hermione's intelligence and he's fondly > amused (rather than annoyed) at her tendency to over-react to > things. (No one is better at talking Hermione down from a > hysterical fit than Ron.) But I don't get how he was able to put up > with such bad treatment over this last year. He must have > recognized a vulnerability or something that I missed. > > Betsy Hp > Hickengruendler: But now I have to ask: When exactly did Hermione treat Ron badly in HBP? The only possible times which come to my mind are the bird scene and (maybe) Hermione trying to make him jealous with McLaggen. But the later was her good right and shouldn't have hurt Ron at all, if he was honestly in love with Lavender. If anything it was unfair towards McLaggen, but certainly not towards Ron. And Hermione paid the prize for this anyway in having McLaggen on her heels. But both cases were anyway *after* Ron hugged up with Lavender. Prior to this I remember no scene where she treated him badly, or worse than he treated her. In fact, Ron started to snog Lavender pretty much right after Hermione invited him to go to Slughorn's Christmas party with her, which was a slap in the face, if I ever read about one. I think both are pretty much even par and always were. I remember being definitely on Hermione's side during the Yule Ball scene, since it was Ron's own fault for not asking her earlier. But since then a lot of happened and both gave each other a lot of help and a lot of annoyances. But I do not think that either one treated the other particularly horrible or that Hermione was oh-so-awful to Ron, that she deserved to endure the Ron/Lavender snogging time. Hickengruendler From yblitzka at hotmail.com Tue Apr 25 22:44:14 2006 From: yblitzka at hotmail.com (Bex) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 22:44:14 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151452 > Betsy Hp: > Oh, yes. Definitely. Hermione isn't a machine by any means, but > she does have a hard time putting herself in someone elses shoes > (something Ron does without thinking) Agreed, somewhat - Hermione has a hard time puttingherself into people's shoes and getting it right - she thinks Tonks is upset over Sirius, she's convinced that the elves need freedom, and she assumes in GoF that Ron is "just jealous" of Harry, when he's really betrayed, and not in on the secret of getting into the tournament, among the examples. When it comes to facts she can look up, she's perfectly fine, but emotional analysis is something she hasn't got a firm grip on - though her analysis of Cho in OotP was dead on. > Betsy Hp: > An excellent example. Hermione didn't have a single conversation > with a single house elf. Because *they* weren't important except in > what they stood for, in *her* opinion. Dead on! > > >>Susan: > > The girl who sits besides Ron's bedside white faced and jaw > > clenched? > > Betsy Hp: > Yes, that same girl. As I said, she's not a machine. But she's not > the empathetic member of the trio either. That was one of her more human moments, I think. And a lot of it is regret, I'm sure - Ron is one of her closest friends, and she has barely spoken to him in ages (granted, he was usually wrapped around Lavender). The thoughts of "What if..." keep running through one's mind when one faces that sort of situation. > > > >>Susan: > > Ron is SO immature. But he did some major growing up in HPB, emotionally - the shift from Lavender (a relationship which he admitted didn't have much talking in it) to Hermione (which has much more depth) shows that, IMO. And even though he initially hides from Lavender when he wants to break it off, eventually he steps up, (be a man, durn you!) and does it. Some emotional growth, for sure. He has matured. > Betsy Hp: > Oh, I think Ron has behaved well within his age bracket. Both he > and Harry were bad dates at the Yule Ball. But then, neither of > them had mothers telling them the proper way to treat a date. > (Harry because his is dead, Ron because his is Molly.) They were 14 at the time. And neither one was with the one they wanted to be with. Usually makes for a rotten time; I speak from experience. > But, speaking of GoF, as we are: I think it becomes strongly > apparent that Ron is a rock for Harry. His loyalty and support (and > sense of humor!) is something Harry needs, and misses, and is > relieved to get back. > HEAR HEAR! Ron is definitely Harry's solid support. Up until HBP, Ron was willing to follow Harry's lead almost unquestionably when it came to "Who's the bad guy in this book?" or "Something bad's gonna happen! What should we do?" I think that Harry's obsession with Draco in HBP stems in part from the fact that both Ron and Hermione dismiss his worries throughout the entire book. Harry probably wasn't surprised by Hermione doing this; she'd done it the previous year too. But Ron? That was extremely unnerving - Harry spent so much time concerned with Draco to prove that he was right all along (for once ) to his friends; mostly Ron. > > >>Susan: > > > > He has NO interest in Lavender as a person -- actually he just > > uses her to get sexual experience -- and uses her to inflate his > > own ego. > > > >>Joe: > > Surely you mean in your opinion? Because I don't think we ever get > > a look inside Ron's head regarding the entire issue. > > > > Betsy Hp: > I'm going to agree with Joe here. How can we assume that Ron is > just after Lavender for the sex? He's attacked, rather ruthlessly, > on just about every level by Hermione. And meanwhile, there's > Lavender making it very plain that she sees something fairly smoking > in Ron. Why would he not decide to take what's being offered? But Ron does admit that the relationship with Lavender is mostly snogging (HBP, A Very Frosty Christmas, I believe, maybe). And Lavender spends most of the time that Ron is in the hospital talking to Harry about her relationship with Ron - that tells me that it's something she and *Ron* don't talk about. I think Ron was more in it for the fun of it (which I'm sure it was /very/ fun), and Lavender was probably on board that ship for the same reasons at first. I think that Ron starts looking for more in the relationship at hand after Christmas (and *My Sweetheart*) and comes up lacking, and starts wanting to move on. > Betsy Hp: > On the other hand, Hermione goes out with a boy *specifically* to > hurt Ron's feelings. She even takes a few moments to hem and haw > over which date would sting the most. (Did it even work? I can't > recall Ron reacting to it at all.) I don't recall seeing his reaction - he wasn't at the ball, but if he was, I am **sure** it would have had a pronounced effect on the evening. Again - neither one with the one they wanted to be with. Usually makes for a rotten time. Would have been interesting. > > >>Susan: > > I have NO clue what Hermione sees in him. I like Ron as a character (but don't get me started on Rupert Grint - ugh). He does seem to have an old fashioned sense to him. I think, though, that Hermione seems to not have much faith in him - the Quidditch tryouts were a good example of that. I don't doubt that McClaggen would be a horrible addition to the team (he was, in fact) but Hermione Confunded him so that he'd be less competition for Ron (and it helped calm Ron's nerves a bit, I'm sure, so he could perform better). I am 150% certain that Harry would have chosen Ron over McClaggen for keeper, even if both had saved all five, but Hermione wasn't going to take that chance. Letting him (and Harry) copy off her notes? Not very Hermione-like, IMO, unless she was concerned that her friends would fail. She doesn't bail them out in the Golpagott's Law class, but that was because she was annoyed at them relying on the Prince (and cheating). Hermione underestimates Ron, but I don't think it is so much disrespect as just not giving him enough credit. ~Yblitzka, who hasn't posted in forever (or a year and 8 months) From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 23:59:24 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 23:59:24 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151453 > Alla: > > > > Harry cannot stand Dursleys, that is understandable due to how they > > treat him, IMO. But as I said above I find it perfectly reasonable > > that Harry may at the same time want the love of those who treat him > > horribly and it is canon that he does. > > Pippin: > No, it's canon that he resents being deprived of it. Not quite the same > thing. But you're painting yourself into my corner here. If Harry, after > fifteen years of abuse, still craves Petunia's love, and presumably > would respond if only she treated him with kindness and respect, > how can we possibly say that Kreacher wouldn't have responded to > Sirius? Alla: Erm... if you say so :). But just to point out that the other corner also exists - Harry is not Kreacher, I saw no indication from Kreacher that he is upset over Sirius dislike of him, so since Harry and Kreacher are two different people ( forgive me for referring to Kreacher as person, it is just too tiresome to type up every time - intelligent being of different race), I think I will stay in mine. Having said that, I of course accept the POSSIBILITY that Kreacher may have responded to Sirius' kindness. I mean, I made a judgment that he would not do so based on Kreacher and Sirius' past and today life, but I cannot make a definite determination. What I am trying to say is that I did not see a sign that Kreacher would have responded to Sirius affections if such ever existed, but it does not mean that it could not have happened, of course. Pippin: > One more question for you, Alla. Should Snape die in the next book, > can we expect you to keep silence about his flaws in order to respect > the feelings of all us poor broken-hearted Snape lovers? :) > Alla: Trying really hard to remember about keeping silence about Sirius' flaws and respecting the feelings of us poor broken-hearted Sirius lovers and drawing a blank here :) ( Erm... this is of course not a remark for you Pippin, but just in case again to avoid the arguments of this type, since I did get them in the past discussions - we are joking here and I am not asking anybody to refrain from discussing the flaws of the characters.) But, Pippin, I promise to think about it if you can prove that you belong to Snape immediate relations :). From cass_da_sweet at yahoo.com Tue Apr 25 23:34:03 2006 From: cass_da_sweet at yahoo.com (cass_da_sweet) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 23:34:03 -0000 Subject: Something Suspicious about Severus (was :Requiescat in Pace, Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151454 Rebecca: **The three Death Eaters fell back without a word. Even the werewolf > seemed cowed.**" > > My question is who is Snape in the LV Death Eater World that other DE's > would either respect or fear him? And why would the werewolf be "cowed"? I don't think that they fear him. Maybe they were just looking to see what he does. To see which side he's really on. If he kills DD then he proves (to them) that he is on their side. cass_da_sweet From spirittalks at gmail.com Tue Apr 25 23:48:32 2006 From: spirittalks at gmail.com (Kim) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 19:48:32 -0400 Subject: Harry's ability to detect traces of magic References: Message-ID: <013001c668c2$c3a5e090$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> No: HPFGUIDX 151455 Najwa wonders: Angie I think you're on to something. Maybe its not traces of magic that we need to be worried about him sensing, but think about it, he has the ability to sense when Voldimort is near or just about anything Voldimortish really. So if he's near a horcrux, I wonder if his scar will hurt as well? Great like of thinking you've got us on...that could help him find them a little easier. Kim now: This would be a great tool but I don't think it's the case. He's already been in contact with at least 1 Horcrux... the diary. It didn't hurt him to hold it. And the locket may be one as well and I don't recall reading that his scar hurt when he was near that one. But when you think about it, they contain part of Voldy's soul so they really should cause his scar to hurt. We need to elect someone from our group to confront JKR and explain the need for a book 8 and possibly 9 because there are just too many loose ends to tie up in one book if she intends to make it a spectacular story as well. So who's game? Kim From spirittalks at gmail.com Tue Apr 25 23:57:26 2006 From: spirittalks at gmail.com (Kim) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 19:57:26 -0400 Subject: Voldemort as a Ghost? (Was: Voldemort's ideology?) References: Message-ID: <014301c668c4$0202e260$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> No: HPFGUIDX 151456 coldsliversofglass: I like your idea of him competing with the Bloody Barron to be the ghost of the Slytherin house. I also have this image of Snape still being a teacher and driving Voldemort's Ghost absolutely crazy taunting him in that cold bored tone...in front of the students no less. Kim: Wouldn't it be fun if the Bloody Baron was the Dark Wizard Grindelwald? Baron Grindelwald! I always thought there was more to him than was told because the blood was never explained but was asked about. He and Voldemort could be duo Slytherin ghosts or maybe duke it out for who gets to hang around Slytherin house since perhaps it isn't big enough for the two of them. Kim From spirittalks at gmail.com Tue Apr 25 19:53:24 2006 From: spirittalks at gmail.com (Kim) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 15:53:24 -0400 Subject: Portraits and a Pensieve / Re: Dumbledore lodged in Harry's pocket References: Message-ID: <00d701c668a1$eb78e570$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> No: HPFGUIDX 151457 >Potioncat: Am I the only one not looking forward to DD's portrait waking up? Meeting Portrait!Phineas Nigellus is one thing. We never knew the living Professor Black. Facing Portrait!DD is another. I think it'd be like calling the home of a deceased friend to speak some other family member and getting his voice on the answering machine. Not pleasant, I wouldn't think. I would assume to members of the WW it's no different than watching an old family movie, but that can be painful too. Potioncat, who wouldn't mind getting a few bottles of memory Kim: The portrait will be fun, yes. But see, in this little secret pocket in my mind, the reason DD is asleep in the portrait is because he's in a coma while his Phoenix sings and cries on him and heals him. So the portrait could disappear at any moment and DD will wake up. Hey, it's MY pocket, and MY mind. So I can have my fantasy, right? Kim From silmariel at telefonica.net Wed Apr 26 00:43:53 2006 From: silmariel at telefonica.net (silmariel) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 02:43:53 +0200 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Golpalott's Third Law In-Reply-To: <444E8DEF.2568.2AB2748@drednort.alphalink.com.au> References: <20060425022933.34331.qmail@web80612.mail.yahoo.com> <444E8DEF.2568.2AB2748@drednort.alphalink.com.au> Message-ID: <200604260243.53932.silmariel@telefonica.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151458 Silmariel wrote: > > Have to agree. I think Hermione is supossed to be gifted, but she has to > > study too much and put too much work into her studies to achieve her > > academic levels. I can't see her as truly gifted. It should be easier for > > her, after all, she is not in a gifted children school competing with her > > peers, to be over the top, she shouldn't have to work so hard. Just IMO. > Shaun: > Well, your opinion is as valid as anyone elses, but let me explain > as someone whose done a lot of work with a lot of gifted kids over > the years, why I would say Hermione is definitely gifted and more > than gifted. Silmariel I knew your opinion, and I don't doubt you are right and JKR intended Hermione to be 'the brightest witch of her generation', or something to the effect. What I'm saying is that, not being an expert in the field, it's perfectly acceptable not perceiving her as gifted. As I have three gifted cousins in the family, I'm used to them. The one that dedicates to collect Phds (chemistry, physics and mathematics the last time I asked) is quite lazy (procastinator?) and would never work so hard. Shaun: > First of all, just because Hermione studies very hard doesn't mean > that she actually needs to study that hard. Hermione seems to be > what we would generally describe as a gifted perfectionist - and > that's an area I know a lot about. It's the area of giftedness, I'm > most cited on. > > http://tinyurl.com/oolxd Silmariel: Yep, I'm aware, as a long time lurker that read your posts, in some groups. Shaun: > I should that some gifted children actually do need to study quite a > bit. Giftedness has different forms and some of those actually > require a lot of study to express themselves - the giftedness in > those cases is more in the ability to synthesise and express ideas, > rather than in the area of having such a good memory that study can > be minimised. Personally I don't think Hermione has that type of > giftedness - I think she probably does have a good memory - but > there are gifted kids like that. Silmariel: Ok, if you say so, you are the expert. Maybe I'm confused because I'm used to the combination of factors. My family mixes creativity with reasoning and a lot of memory. If it puts it in context, I'm a black sheep in the family and I was able to prepare and pass 300 sheets of mathematical theory exam regarding optimization (3rd year at College, computer field) in 3 days, and I had no idea of the asignature, I had not gone to classes. Shaun: > But I say, I think Hermione is a gifted perfectionist and that is > the reason for her excessive amount of studying. I really don't > think Hermione needs to do as much study as she does to perform > well, but being a perfectionist, she does a lot more than she needs > to (one of the two ways perfectionism most often expresses itself - > the other is in not studying at all, because if you don't try, you > have an excuse for failure). Silmariel: Ok, I get it. Still, I suposse I would have like her seeing fully dedicated to knowledge but not only to studies. A bit of hobbies related to but not included in the OWL race, like -muggle example warning- astronomy. I understant that Hermione is driven by knowledge, but, as Joe says, she can be interpreted as a new Percy - achiever of marks. I think Percy is gifted, but not 'the brightest wizard'. Shaun: > No, Hermione is not in a special school for gifted children. > > But she's doing eleven OWLs when it seems it is normal to do nine. Silmariel: So? That's not remarkable. Oh, sorry, it is, just not amazing, in my book. See the Weasleys records. Shaun: > She also does *exceed* the highest level expected of students at > least twice that we know of. > > In first year, she gets 112 percent in her Charms exam. > > In third year, she gets 320 percent in her Muggle Studies exam. Silmariel: Pity that she has to devote all that time, and she can't do it with two weeks work -at most- per subject. And do something as intellectual but not so workaholic the rest of the time. Shaun: > This indicates that Hermione does study more than she needs to. This > girl doesn't stop studying when she knows she's passed. She doesn't > even stop studying when she's met the standard her school regards as > perfect - worth 100%. She keeps studying even after she's done more > than enough. So viewing the fact she studies very hard as an > indication that she isn't as smart as she appears, seems to me to be > rather unjustified. She studies because she is driven to. The > standard the school requires doesn't interest her - she's aiming to > do as well as she possibly can whether that is at the standard of > the school, or even higher. Silmariel: Written that way, it even may seem that Hermione is driven by studies instead of knowledge. Unjustified, but understatable? Well, how do I know if she is driven to for the knowledge of for the marks? My experience of what is if gifted differs a lot. Shaun: > Hermione works to her potential. Not to the potential expected of a > student of her age. But a quite academic potential, sadly. Silmariel From kellyglessner at hotmail.com Tue Apr 25 20:33:56 2006 From: kellyglessner at hotmail.com (FrisbeeK) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 20:33:56 -0000 Subject: Sectumsempra and the DEs In-Reply-To: <21E69B28-AD43-4C06-9F73-C941BBFF0DC1@stevenmcintosh.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151459 > stevemac: > > He does try to use several curses at the very end as Snape and Draco > try to flee the grounds (the key word being TRIES). > > He tries (one assumes) CRUCIO twice, a few others, then SECTUMSEMPRA. > It's seems to be blind rage and assumed self-defense in the cases > where Harry does KNOWINGLY use Dark Magic, but he does try it - it's > not "below" him. > Frisbeek: And remember when Harry tries to use the Crucio curse against Bellatrix; she laughs at him and tells him he has to mean to hurt someone when he does it. I think when Harry is chasing Snape, he is just angry and can't control his anger. The anger makes him try and lash out and hurt Snape - who he blames for DD's death - and use curses that he probably wouldn't choose consciously to use. It sounds like it has to be a choice to use dark magic unlike regular magic that just happens. Similar to the choice Harry has/had to make to go after Voldemort despite the vision/prediction. Remember DD getting frustrated and making Harry realize the distinction between facing Voldemort because it was predicted it would happen and CHOOSING to face Voldemort because it was the right thing to do and he was the only one that could do it. I think Harry would have to consciously choose to use dark magic for it to work effectively. From dontask2much at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 01:26:37 2006 From: dontask2much at yahoo.com (rebecca) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 21:26:37 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Something Suspicious about Severus (was :Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix) References: Message-ID: <00cc01c668d0$76cf9640$6501a8c0@MITRE.ORG> No: HPFGUIDX 151460 >>Kim: >> Is it possible that it was the one who murmered the name "Severus" >> that they feared? >> >> I don't know, it makes no sense in any way I read it unless I >> attribute their fear to Dumbledore, rather than Snape. > Betsy Hp: > Snape scares them. That's the bottom line. He's tight enough with > Voldemort, smart enough in his own right, and really, really > powerful. He's the man in charge. And these folks, especially > (being not all that bright) are not going to challenge him. Not to > his face, anyway. Rebecca: I'm with Betsy and Talisman (whom I didn't quote, but do so very much agree with ;)), methinks. Well, let's try looking at how Narcissa treated Snape. Now, I know she's not confirmed DE (JKR hasn't explicitly said ), but it's still telling: "When Snape said nothing, Narcissa seemed to lose what little self-restraint she still possessed. Standing up, she staggered to Snape and seized the front of his robes. Her face close to his, her tears falling onto his chest, she gasped, "You could do it. You could do it instead of Draco, Severus. You would succeed, of course you would, and he would reward you beyond all of us -"" And Bellatrix, the arrogant minx, apparently views Snape as a rival for the Dark Lord's affections in this chapter. That's got to mean something, maybe? I go back to the description of the werewolf being "cowed", as he wasn't "cowed" earlier when Snape wasn't there; Greyback offered to do Dumbledore for "afters." That doesn't denote fear of Dumbledore to me, anyway. :) > > >> >>Najwa: >> >> Wasn't the werewolf the leader of werewolves as well? >> > > Betsy Hp: > I'm betting Snape is an expert at taking down werewolves. After > all, he was nearly killed by one in his sixth year at Hogwarts. > Knowing what we know about student!Snape, I think it's not hard to > imagine him researching, refining and perfecting the art of fighting > werewolves. And Fenrir would know it. Snape would be sure he knew > it. Rebecca: Just to reinforce what Betsy is saying here, I think I have something to add. I think, as Najwa questions, Greyback was the baddest, meanest...well, you get the picture. (However, I'm not so very sure that Greyback *is a wizard* , but that's another thread.) What's interesting is the "brutal faced" Death Eater used magic against Fenrir and he only looked furious afterwards: "I'll do it,' snarled Greyback, moving towards Dumbledore with his hands outstretched, his teeth bared. 'I said no!' shouted the brutal-faced man; there was a flash of light and the werewolf was blasted out of the way; he hit the ramparts and staggered, looking furious. Harry's heart was hammering so hard it seemed impossible that nobody could hear him standing there, imprisoned by Dumbledore's spell -if he could only move, he could aim a curse from under the Cloak - " Furious, not "cowed". You might be right, Betsy, Snape might be a master at fighting werewolves, and if that's the case he never really fought Lupin as a werewolf that night in PoA, did he? What's that say, I wonder... Rebecca From kchuplis at alltel.net Wed Apr 26 01:38:05 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (kchuplis) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 01:38:05 -0000 Subject: Harry's ability to detect traces of magic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151461 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "gelite67" wrote: > > I've noticed two places in the series where Harry has possibly > noticed the "presence" of or traces of magic: > > First, in Ollivanders: "...the back of his [Harry's] neck prickled. > The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle with some secret > magic." U.S. Edition, softcover at 82. > > In HPB, at the cave: "Harry could not tell whether the shivers he > was experiencing were due to his spine-deep coldness or to the same > awareness of enchantments." U.S Edition, Hardcover at 557-58. > > I'm wondering if anyone can think of any more instances? > > I'm also wondering if magic leave traces why/if traces of magic can > be sensed at Hogwarts, or if it is more easily detectible where magic > otherwise shouldn't be practiced??? > > Finally, I'm wondering if detecting traces of magic something that > can be learned? DD sure didn't give much guidance on the subject, > which seems very odd if Harry is going to need to rely on being able > to detect traces of magic in order to find the Horcruxes. > kchuplis: Possible example: PoA: When the trio are leaving Hagrid's cabin before Buckbeak's execution and we know (now) that future!Harry and Hermione are nearby: "They followed him tot he door into his back garden. *Harry felt strangely unreal and even more so when he saw Buckbeak a few yards away, tethered to a tree behind Hagrid's Pumpkin patch.*" From puduhepa98 at aol.com Wed Apr 26 02:19:04 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 22:19:04 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? No: HPFGUIDX 151462 >ET: >>Given Harry's history, I don't think the idea of Draco having a scar or two would have bothered Harry too much! ;) >As for Harry visiting Draco in hospital, I don't think he would have gotten a warm reception if he'd been allowed in at all! >Now as regards Quiddich, I'm afraid I can understand why Harry felt the way he did. He was Captain of the team & it was the last match of the season too! Harry, in spite of all he's been through, is still a teenager! Nikkalmati: Yes, Harry is behaving like a teenager, but he is supposed to show us a better way, victory through "love" or "compassion" or some such positive emotion. He is not there yet. If Harry had behaved in a less juvenile way, Draco would have had the opportunity to rethink his plan. Just imagine if Harry had said "Yes, Professor Snape, I found that spell in a book and I didn't know what it did. I'll be glad to show it to you. " Can't Harry be honest for once? What if he went to the infirmary and told Draco " I didn't really intend to kill you, it was a mistake" ? This situation reminds me of another thread where listees are discussing whether DD was right to criticize Sirius for not being nicer to Kreacher and would it have made a difference. Whether it makes a difference or not, there is a right and a wrong way to handle things and Harry is doing it the wrong way. >ET >>He used poor judgement in using that spell, but remember the other spell in the book & what it did? It hoisted people into the air by their ankles- it was more of a prank than dangerous & may have predisposed Harry to believe the Sectumsempra would be an innocuous spell as well. (SS) had used that very same spell on James when they, (SS & James), were teenagers. I think Snape held back some when attacking James, because the damage to James wasn't on a par with what happened to Draco, but still it appears to have been the same spell. Nikkalmati: Yes, I proposed that the spell used in the Pensieve was Sectumsempra in a post I wrote last December (whose number I can't find for various technical reasons related to my total incompetence with computers). What I was trying to say here was that the strength of the spell depends on the intent of the wizard. Harry had murder in his heart. I guess that means that he will be able to kill LV, if he can only direct his anger toward him. I wonder BTW if the PS/SS trial is a precursor of the final confrontation. That would mean that the Trio starts out together, unfortunately Ron is lost; he sacrifices himself; Hermione helps Harry but has to turn back, but Harry goes on alone to confront LV. Something about his blood protection (and LV's use of it) destroys LV. >ET >Perhaps Snape gave Harry this punishment because he knew it would pain Harry- I have a hard time picturing SS as a benevolent teacher based on JKR's description...although I know anything is possible! :) Nikkalmati: I was not proposing a benevolent teacher :>), but a practical man focused on a goal for which Harry is a necessary evil. Nikkalmati Before posting to any list, you MUST read the group's Admin File! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin_Files/HBF_Text__MUST_R EAD Please use accurate subject headings and snip unnecessary material from posts to which you're replying! Yahoo! Groups Links [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From ms_petra_pan at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 02:17:47 2006 From: ms_petra_pan at yahoo.com (Petra Pan) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 02:17:47 -0000 Subject: WOMBAT Grade 1: Magical Law In-Reply-To: <331.327d23b.3177acae@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151463 > 9. Which of the following wizarding laws, in your view, > stands in most urgent need of change? Of all the questions, this one is the most interesting to me. The answers consist of areas of wizarding laws and what is wrong with each of these laws or with the enforcement of them in parenthesis. The implication here is that *all* five laws are flawed and there is not a clear consensus as to which is in the most urgent need of being fixed. Though this question is asking for a personal view and therefore any of the answers can be correct, the judgments of the laws as stated in the parenthesis here seem incontrovertible. After all, if the problems as defined in parenthesis are arguable, their inclusion in the answers would really muddy up the test taking. For example, if a test taker thinks that c. stands in most urgent need of change but disagrees with the assessment of that law as implied in the answer, is s/he still to pick c. as representative of his/her view? The parenthetical phrases here are worth closer examination. So, can we consider the critical assessments of these laws to be JKR's criticisms of these Magical Laws? Does this then contribute to our understanding of the themes in HP as JKR develops them? > a. The detection of underage magic in all-magic households > (currently impossible) This problem with this law is not news, having already been established in canon during the exposition of how the young Tom Riddle had blamed the 3 murders on Morfin. How might changing this law benefit the WW at this time especially since detection remains impossible? > b. The ban on goblin possession of wands > (ought to be lifted) Have there been mentions in canon that would support the lift of the ban on goblin possession of wands? Under what circumstances might the ban have been imposed in the first place? How might lifting this ban benefit the WW at this time? > c. The re-classification of centaurs and merpeople > (ought to take their views into account) JKR has touched upon this in her depictions of the centaurs in the books and the discussion of the classification process in FBaWtFT. Does this imply that others either are happy with how they are classified or have no views to be taken into account? How might the re-classification of centaurs and merpeople to better reflect their views of who they are benefit the WW at this time? > d. The guidelines on house-elf welfare > (need to be enforced) Have we heard about such guidelines in canon? What might they be? Under what circumstances might the guidelines have been set forth in the first place? Why aren't they being enforced? Not that it sounds as if it would enforce these guidelines, but in MoM there is that Office of House-Elf Relocation. When might that office actually take action? Are the relocations done on behalf of house-elves or on behalf of the owners? How might the improvement of house-elf welfare benefit the WW at this time? > e. Definitions of 'Muggle-baiting' > (needs to be made less stringent) What might this imply about the consequences of Muggle-baiting? We do know that convicted anti-muggle pranksters (ex.: Willy Widdershins) can be punished if caught, even if they are considered, by the portrait behind Dumbledore's desk, to be merely 'petty criminals'. Remember also that the MoM/Umbridge traded Willy's punishment for his info on the DA. Does 'needs to be made less stringent' imply that *not* enough acts of Muggle-baiting are defined as being legally punishable at this time? Would a *less* stringent definition mean that *more* acts would be considered punishable? (My reading of this part seems to differ from Belinda's as published at the Lexicon quite a bit.) What circumstances might have brought about the need to define this? How might changing the definitions benefit the WW at this time? Now for the rest of the post at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151138 > Which Ministry of Magic department(s) and/or committee(s) > would you contact to resolve each of the following > dilemmas? > > 1. Your neighbour is concealing a stash of flying carpets, > some of which he is allowing to fly loose around his back > garden. Is there an obligation to resolve this dilemma just because one lives next door? > a. Wizengamot Would the Wizengamot deal with something as mundane as this? > b. Department of International Magical Cooperation Though flying carpets are probably not native to the UK, does dealing with them require multi-national cooperation? > c. Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office Why are flying carpets misuse but flying brooms not? Does a magical broom in the hand of a muggle not have the potential to cause problems for the WW the way a magical carpet might? > d. Obliviators Unknown: did muggles see these flying carpets? > 2. Your friend C possesses a Muggle Penny Farthing (old > bicycle) that has been enchanted to skim an inch above > the ground, achieving speeds of over 100mph. C did not > personally enchant the Penny Farthing, never rides it > and merely wishes to keep it 'for sentimental reasons' > as it was her grandmother's. > > a. Department of Magical Transport Does this dept. deal with any mode of magic transport except those sanctioned by the MoM? > b. Improper Use of Magic Office Does keeping an improperly enchanted object constitute improper use of magic? > c. Obliviators Unknown: did muggles see the bike in action? > d. Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office Would the loophole in the law as written by Arthur keep C from getting into trouble or might C face an inquiry someday? > e. Committee on Experimental Charms What do we know of this committee? > 3. Your sixteen year old nephew, D, has hexed his seventeen- > year-old sister, E. E has retaliated with a Stunning Spell > that missed D and hit a Muggle motorist, who smashed into a > lamppost. (And surely this test is geared more toward adults than children: how many school kids have 16 and 17 year old nephews and nieces?) > a. Department of Magical Accidents & Catastrophes > b. Department of Magical Accidents & Catastrophes and > Obliviator Squad > c. Department of Magical Accidents & Catastrophes, > Obliviator Squad and Improper Use of Magic Office > d. Department of Magical Accidents & Catastrophes, > Obliviator Squad, Improper Use of Magic Office and > Wizengamot Well, pretty sure Department of Magical Accidents & Catastrophes is involved since it's a part of every choice we are given and is certainly called for. Obliviator Squad would be needed for the muggle(s) involved. Since there's one underage wizard here, the Improper Use of Magic Office would be appropriate. Would going to the Wizengamot be overkill for this situation? > 4. Your Friends wizard A and wizard B are in dispute over > which of them owns a field in which Mooncalfs dance > periodically. A accuses B of using nightly a Summoning > Charm to collect the precious Mooncalf dung which is > rightfully A's. > > a. Improper use of Magic Office Does the Improper Use of Magic Office deal with anything other than use of magic by underage wizards? Is the magic here improperly used per se? > b. Wizengamot The dispute here has been defined as being over the ownership of a field, which in turn seems to lead to ownership of the dung. Would the Wizengamot be used to settle a property dispute? > c. Pest Advisory Board Since mooncalf dung is considered to be precious, no pests are involved here. > 5. Witch F fed love potion to a Muggle man, who has > married her. When you went around with a wedding gift you > discovered that she is using him as an occasional table. Hmm...safe to guess that the honeymoon is over. (How often are school kids going around giving wedding gifts?) > a. Auror office Are love potions considered Dark Magic? Does turning a muggle into furniture constitute Dark Magic? > b. Misuse of Magic Office On what occasion would transfiguring a person into furniture and the use of love potions *not* be misuses of magic? > c. Obliviators For the occasional table, once he is no longer. > d. Wizengamot Does this situation warrant the use of the Wizengamot? Since I'd definitely call both b. and c., the only answer that include both of these groups is "e. All of the above" so does that imply that a. and d. are appropriate for this occasion too? > 6. Which of the following should be most SEVERELY > punished by the Wizengamot? > > a. The injury of three Muggles due to a poorly performed > Forgetfulness Charm > b. The death of a chicken due to a poorly aimed Bat- > Bogey Hex Both of these curses are trumped by uses of the Unforgivable Curses below. > c. The use of the Cruciatus curse on a shark about to > attack a Muggle Is an Unforgivable Curse unforgivable when performed on non- humans? Does c. imply that the Cruciatus curse is effective on a shark? > d. The use of the Imperious curse on a Muggle mugger Unknown: is the Muggle mugging the witch/wizard doing the cursing? Aren't there plenty of alternatives to an Imperious curse? > 7. Which of the following should receive the LIGHTEST > punishment from the Wizengamot? > > a. Horns created accidentally on a culprit's mother, > caused by broken wand Does the fact that this was unintentional come into play? What about the fact that the culprit used a broken wand which s/he should have known would be unreliable? > b. Jellylegs Jinx performed on threatening Muggle So much for keeping magic a secret from Muggles... > c. Breeding fanged Puffskeins If Puffskeins are things expected to be completely harmless, breeding fangs in them seems akin to planting a nasty surprise. Besides that aspect, is this a serious breach of the Ban on Experimental Breeding a la fire-breathing chicken? > d. Underage witch performs Cleaning Charms in privacy of > own home The idea of a child being punished for cleaning tickles me... > 8. Which of the following does NOT require a Ministry of > Magic license? > > a. Crup ownership Crup licenses are canon - see FBaWtFT. > b. Sale of magical artefacts Probably requires a license but is there canon for assuming thus? > c. House-elf ownership Does Harry have a license for owning Kreacher? > d. Apparition Apparition licenses are canon. Petra a n :) P.S. Is there anyone here up for coming up with discussion questions for the other 3 discussion posts on WOMBAT? Please see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151140 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151141 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151142 and email PenapartElf @aol.com (minus that extra space). From kchuplis at alltel.net Wed Apr 26 02:31:25 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 21:31:25 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! Yeah or Nah?? References: <3f0.5b4f94.31803298@aol.com> Message-ID: <938D338D-5399-4F21-8C44-32F55DE4D058@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151464 On Apr 25, 2006, at 9:19 PM, puduhepa98 at aol.com wrote: > Nikkalmati: > Yes, Harry is behaving like a teenager, but he is supposed to show > us a > better way, victory through "love" or "compassion" or some such > positive emotion. > He is not there yet. > If Harry had behaved in a less juvenile way, Draco would have had the > opportunity to rethink his plan. Just imagine if Harry had said > "Yes, Professor > Snape, I found that spell in a book and I didn't know what it > did. I'll be > glad to show it to you. " Can't Harry be honest for once? What > if he went to > the infirmary and told Draco " I didn't really intend to kill you, > it was a > mistake" ? kchuplis: Well, I don't know about you, but I am surrounded by people everyday who can't say "I was wrong" or "I don't know". I've decided where I work to just take the blame for everyone. I always tell them, "That's OK, it's my fault" when it is totally one of the other workers because, well, *someone* should say it. Usually, no one argues. We all generally know whose fault something really is. But can they admit it or say anything? Nope. And that is over teeny tiny things. Seriously. Things that don't even matter! Harry is just normal. I think if it had been anyone but Snape, he might just have said that. I don't think he would ever go visit Draco though. I wouldn't either. I must be evil :D I guess Draco did go visit Ron that one time. I think it was basically to gloat, and apparently try to find something on him (which he did by finding Charlie's letter). I'm thinkin' he wasn't practicing his candy striper skills. C'mon. It wouldn't happen in the real world, let alone in Harry's world. From gelite67 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 03:19:19 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 03:19:19 -0000 Subject: Harry's ability to detect traces of magic In-Reply-To: <20060425122003.51649.qmail@web37006.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151465 Najwa now: > Angie I think you're on to something. Maybe its not traces of magic > that we need to be worried about him sensing, but think about it, he > has the ability to sense when Voldimort is near or just about anything > Voldimortish really. So if he's near a horcrux, I wonder if his scar > will hurt as well? Great like of thinking you've got us on...that > could help him find them a little easier. > > Catherine: > Except that he had the diary in his hands during CoS and never felt it as Voldemort. If the locket at Grimauld Place is a horcrux, he didn't feel it then either. Unless he fine tunes his Volde-senses I don't know if it will help him to find them. I do think it helps protect him to destroy them however. He has a lot to learn in book 7. Hopefully he'll be up to the challenge.... > > Catherine > Angie again (wondering if anyone realizes that, for the first time in this series, we actually know the rough plot line for the next book -- "Harry Potter and the Great Horcrux Hunt" or somesuch. I'd settle for "Harry Kicks You Know Who's You-Know-What"): I think you both have good points. There was nothing of Voldemort's that we know of in Ollivander's, when Harry did feel something. However, if the locket at Grimmauld place is the Horcrux that RAB had already destroyed, should Harry have felt anything? Regarding the diary, OK, so there was no tingling or hair standing up, but remember, Harry felt like Tom Riddle was a friend he'd had when he was small and had half-forgotten. And, Harry did instinctively know how to destroy the diary, (as if he'd been meant to do it all along, or something like that) and I believe that has something to do with Harry's connection to Voldemort and Voldemort's memory of how the Horcruxes were created that Harry has latent access to that will hopefully serve him when needed. I posted on that subject a few weeks ago, but I can't remember the thread. One thing is for certain, Harry's got to figure out how to detect and destroy Horcruxes. It would be too easy if his scar would hurt when he got near one, wouldn't it? And nothing's been easy for Harry, it seems, so I'd be surprised if that turned out to be the case. > Before posting to any list, you MUST read the group's Admin File! > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin_Files/HBF_Text __MUST_READ > > Please use accurate subject headings and snip unnecessary material from posts to which you're replying! > > > > > > SPONSORED LINKS > Adult education Culture club Organizational culture > > --------------------------------- > YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS > > > Visit your group "HPforGrownups" on the web. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > HPforGrownups-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. > > > --------------------------------- > > > > > > --------------------------------- > 7 bucks a month. This is Huge Yahoo! Music Unlimited > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > From gelite67 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 03:26:46 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 03:26:46 -0000 Subject: Sectumsempra and the DEs In-Reply-To: <21E69B28-AD43-4C06-9F73-C941BBFF0DC1@stevenmcintosh.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151466 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, stevemac wrote: > > Beatrice23: > > > Probably for the same reason that he doesn't use avada, > > imperio, or crucio. It is dark magic. PERIOD. One doesn't use > > it on another human being. Harry is plagued by guilt when he > > does use it on Malfoy and lets face it, if anyone deserves it.... > > > > He uses it in the cave because he is facing an opponent that is > > not alive so technically it is like blasting away a rock or > > something else. He uses it out of desperation. He may be > > angry when battling the DE, but he shows that he has to some > > extent learned to master that enough not to stoop to the level of > > the DE. > > > > Quite a difference from OotP when he attempts to use crucio on > > Bellatrix. > > > stevemac: > > He does try to use several curses at the very end as Snape and Draco > try to flee the grounds (the key word being TRIES). > > He tries (one assumes) CRUCIO twice, a few others, then SECTUMSEMPRA. > It's seems to be blind rage and assumed self-defense in the cases > where Harry does KNOWINGLY use Dark Magic, but he does try it - it's > not "below" him. Angie again: Oh, it's definitely not below him, but apparently, he has to be able to control his rage to do it properly and so far, he's been unable to do that. I just wonder what this foreshadows about the final smackdown with Voldemort -- will Harry be able to kill Voldemort without resorting to Dark Magic? How can he -- isn't the AK curse Dark Magic? And I guess that raises another question: are wizards forbidden to use Dark Magic even in self-defense? From gelite67 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 03:34:51 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 03:34:51 -0000 Subject: Weasleys' Wands? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151467 I'm just wondering if Fred and George might try a new line of work -- making wands. Apparently, Hagrid and Professor Sprout teach the students about wand trees and bowtruckles. And Fred and George obviously know how to make wands since they make the fake ones. I know Mr. Ollivander explained about the three (I think) magical cores. I'll bet it's common knowledge in the WW what the magical cores of wands consist of. I feel like things are going to be really heavy (understatement of the year) in the final book, and I also wonder if the joke shop might not be a little out of place or at least, not in popular demand, given the circumstances that seem certain to come. Hence, the new line of work for the twins, who are obviously gifted wizards. Even Hermione admitted that! :) From puduhepa98 at aol.com Wed Apr 26 04:23:58 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 00:23:58 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) Message-ID: <293.9240e33.31804fde@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151468 >Pippin >And we can make Dumbledore's words mean anything we want, but >since he warned Sirius that Kreacher "could be dangerous to us" >even though presumably he himself was treating Kreacher with >kindness and respect, he obviously wasn't saying that Sirius was >betrayed solely because he wasn't kind. But Sirius's lack of compassion >made it difficult for him to see Kreacher as dangerous. I think >that is something Harry would not have seen on his own. Nikkalmati: Here is something that has been puzzling me. How can Kreacher be dangerous? I mean, based on what we have seen of Dobby and Winkey the loyalty of a house elf is absolute. Even the thought of criticizing the Malfoys sends Dobby into a fit of self-punishment, regardless of how cruel Lucius is to Dobby. How can Kreacher betray Sirius, the heir of the house of Black, even by trickery or deception? Even with the collusion of Narcissa? Winkey goes downhill when she is fired for supporting Barty Jr. against the orders of Barty Sr. Kreacher's treachery does not seem to fit what we have seen of house elves. Has this been discussed? Nikkalmati [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From tonks_op at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 04:24:19 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 04:24:19 -0000 Subject: Weasleys' Wands? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151469 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "gelite67" wrote: > I'm just wondering if Fred and George might try a new line of work -- > making wands. Apparently, Hagrid and Professor Sprout teach the > students about wand trees and bowtruckles. And Fred and George > obviously know how to make wands since they make the fake ones. (Snip)> > I feel like things are going to be really heavy in the final book, and I also wonder if the joke shop might not be a little out of place or at least, not in popular demand, given the circumstances that seem certain to come. Hence, the new line of work for the twins, who are obviously gifted wizards. Tonks: I get the sense that wand-making is an art that takes some time to learn and may be handled down father to son or at least Master to apprentice. So I don't see the twins, talented that they are, going into the magic wand business, if for no other reason than that it is too mundane for them. The twins will probably use their talents to make things that can be used in the war effort. This is what happened in WWII when civilian factories got Government contracts to make things for the war. These factories might not have made the same sort of things that they made before or after the war, but it was a related item or something that the factory was able to be switched over to quickly and the expertise of the workmen still used. So the question becomes; what sort of things can the twins make that would help to bring down LV, or protect Muggles, wizards, etc? They already sell some things that protect wizards. Wasn't it some kind of smoke bomb or something? And with their talents they created mayhem at Hogwarts under Umbridge, so there are many ways that they can help the war effort. I am sure we will see a few new inventions from the twins in book 7. Tonks_op From tonks_op at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 04:36:48 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 04:36:48 -0000 Subject: Portraits and a Pensieve / Re: Dumbledore lodged in Harry's pocket In-Reply-To: <00d701c668a1$eb78e570$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151470 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Kim" wrote: > > Kim: > The portrait will be fun, yes. But see, in this little secret pocket in my mind, the reason DD is asleep in the portrait is because he's in a coma while his Phoenix sings and cries on him and heals him. So the portrait could disappear at any moment and DD will wake up. > Tonks: I have thought that this might be a possible event in book 7 too. Except that DD is really dead. He is not in a coma. When Fawkes was singing over DD's body I wondered about what that meant. Remember we have been set up by the author just a few chapters earlier to see healing happen with a song by Snape. Draco would probably have died if Snape had not been there. And we know that Phoenix tears can heal a person near death. Can Phoenix song bring the dead back to life? Tonks_op From kchuplis at alltel.net Wed Apr 26 04:52:46 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 23:52:46 -0500 Subject: One thought Message-ID: <106313E5-EE08-4413-B4F3-CCE411C62564@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151471 before I go to bed. How was Harry planning on killing Sirius in PoA? He didn't know the AK at the time, nor the SS. What was this 13 y.o. going to do? Harry wasn't equipped with anything, really, but rage. So any thoughts? kchuplis From kjones at telus.net Wed Apr 26 05:37:46 2006 From: kjones at telus.net (Kathryn Jones) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 22:37:46 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Something Suspicious about Severus (was :Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix) In-Reply-To: <00cc01c668d0$76cf9640$6501a8c0@MITRE.ORG> References: <00cc01c668d0$76cf9640$6501a8c0@MITRE.ORG> Message-ID: <444F072A.3050101@telus.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151472 > > Betsy Hp: > > > Snape scares them. That's the bottom line. He's tight enough with > > Voldemort, smart enough in his own right, and really, really > > powerful. He's the man in charge. And these folks, especially > > (being not all that bright) are not going to challenge him. Not to > > his face, anyway. > > Rebecca: snip > Well, let's try looking at how Narcissa treated Snape. Now, I know she's > not confirmed DE (JKR hasn't explicitly said ), but it's still telling: > > "When Snape said nothing, Narcissa seemed to lose what little self-restraint > she still possessed. Standing up, she staggered to Snape and seized the > front of his robes. Her face close to his, her tears falling onto his chest, > she gasped, "You could do it. You could do it instead of Draco, Severus. You > would succeed, of course you would, and he would reward you beyond all of > us -"" snip > >> >>Najwa: > Rebecca: snip > Furious, not "cowed". You might be right, Betsy, Snape might be a master at > fighting werewolves, and if that's the case he never really fought Lupin as > a werewolf that night in PoA, did he? What's that say, I wonder... > Rebecca KJ writes: If I might add to this discussion, I think that it is interesting that throughout the books, we see more of Snape's skills and talents. I think that we are meant to understand that he is a powerful and respected wizard among the DE. He inspires fear and respect in them, and he is obviously looked to as someone to obey implicitly. Could it be that Snape, who so desires respect and position and power, to the extent that he became a DE, has chosen to give it all up to fight for the Order? This does actually have a feel that JKR might be going for. Perhaps that is what makes him so bitter. Maybe that is why Dumbledore trusts him. Snape has all he ever wanted and has found it to be ashes. Dumbledore knows that there is nothing more to tempt him. KJ From drednort at alphalink.com.au Wed Apr 26 05:47:55 2006 From: drednort at alphalink.com.au (Shaun Hately) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 15:47:55 +1000 Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Golpalott's Third Law In-Reply-To: <444F072A.3050101@telus.net> References: <00cc01c668d0$76cf9640$6501a8c0@MITRE.ORG> <444F072A.3050101@telus.net> Message-ID: <20060426054600.M15397@alphalink.com.au> No: HPFGUIDX 151473 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, silmariel wrote: > Shaun: > > Well, your opinion is as valid as anyone elses, but let me explain > > as someone whose done a lot of work with a lot of gifted kids over > > the years, why I would say Hermione is definitely gifted and more > > than gifted. > > Silmariel > I knew your opinion, and I don't doubt you are right and JKR intended Hermione > to be 'the brightest witch of her generation', or something to the effect. > > What I'm saying is that, not being an expert in the field, it's perfectly > acceptable not perceiving her as gifted. Shaun: Indeed, you are correct. Hermione's giftedness cannot be proven - it's definitely a matter of opinion, and certainly it's valid to feel that she isn't. > Silmariel: > As I have three gifted cousins in > the family, I'm used to them. The one that dedicates to collect Phds > (chemistry, physics and mathematics the last time I asked) is quite lazy > (procastinator?) and would never work so hard. Shaun: That's not uncommon among gifted people either. Giftedness expresses itself in a lot of different ways, based on so many different factors. Some gifted people take advantage of their giftedness by not working particularly hard at all - after all, why work any harder than you have to when you can achieve what you want to achieve with less work? But others are incredibly driven. The differences come from so many different places - experiences, personality, etc. > Shaun: > > First of all, just because Hermione studies very hard doesn't mean > > that she actually needs to study that hard. Hermione seems to be > > what we would generally describe as a gifted perfectionist - and > > that's an area I know a lot about. It's the area of giftedness, I'm > > most cited on. > > > > http://tinyurl.com/oolxd > > Silmariel: > Yep, I'm aware, as a long time lurker that read your posts, in some groups. Shaun: Sure, but I felt it was worth pointing out that this issue of 'perfectionism' is one I am particularly interested in. It's an issue I had to deal with personally, and not always very successfully. When I look at Hermione, I really do tend to see a girl wrestling with the same problems I wrestled with at times (only at times - I had a somewhat unsteady childhood in this regard - at other periods I was incredibly lazy - though in my case even that partly came from my perfectionism - being lazy gave me an excuse not to be perfect). Incidentally, I see some of this in Percy as well - I'm afraid to say I was probably a lot like Percy! - but because we see so much less of him, it's harder to work out how much of what I see in him is real and how much is projection. > Shaun: > > I should that some gifted children actually do need to study quite a > > bit. Giftedness has different forms and some of those actually > > require a lot of study to express themselves - the giftedness in > > those cases is more in the ability to synthesise and express ideas, > > rather than in the area of having such a good memory that study can > > be minimised. Personally I don't think Hermione has that type of > > giftedness - I think she probably does have a good memory - but > > there are gifted kids like that. > > Silmariel: > Ok, if you say so, you are the expert. Maybe I'm confused because I'm used to > the combination of factors. My family mixes creativity with reasoning and a > lot of memory. If it puts it in context, I'm a black sheep in the family and > I was able to prepare and pass 300 sheets of mathematical theory exam > regarding optimization (3rd year at College, computer field) in 3 days, and > I had no idea of the asignature, I had not gone to classes. Shaun: Giftedness can be expressed in so many different ways - memory is common as part of it, but it's not universal. I have a rather poor short term auditory memory myself - it's on the low end of the average range - for example. My visual memory is excellent - but not my auditory memory. If it was the other way around, I would need to do an awful lot of studying to do well academically - but I'd still have the same general mental ability. Personally I think Hermione's memory is very good - I think she studies so much because she studies a great deal more than she actually needs to - but I mention the memory issues, just in case. > Shaun: > > But I say, I think Hermione is a gifted perfectionist and that is > > the reason for her excessive amount of studying. I really don't > > think Hermione needs to do as much study as she does to perform > > well, but being a perfectionist, she does a lot more than she needs > > to (one of the two ways perfectionism most often expresses itself - > > the other is in not studying at all, because if you don't try, you > > have an excuse for failure). > > Silmariel: > Ok, I get it. Still, I suposse I would have like her seeing fully dedicated to > knowledge but not only to studies. A bit of hobbies related to but not > included in the OWL race, like -muggle example warning- astronomy. I > understant that Hermione is driven by knowledge, but, as Joe says, she can be > interpreted as a new Percy - achiever of marks. I think Percy is gifted, but > not 'the brightest wizard'. Shaun: Being gifted certainly doesn't always mean a person makes the wisest of choices, and I would say this - if I had Hermione Granger referred to me as one of my telems (the gifted kids I mentor) there are certainly issues that I would hope we could work together to address. Her perfectionism is most definitely one of them, her obsession with school work beyond what seems to be necessary for high performance being an expression of that. And it is the type of issue I have to address reasonably often, because it's not exactly an uncommon problem. And, yes, I suffered from it myself. I'm 31 - yesterday I had an assignment to do for university. I did it in about two and a half hours, and I am confident I will get a H1 (the highest grade my university awards). Ten years ago when I was 21, I would have probably spent at least two and a half *days* on the same assignment - and if I had the time, two and a half *weeks* wouldn't have been an impossibility. And my final grade wouldn't have been significantly better. In my last year of secondary school I averaged nine hours of homework a night - did I need to do that? Not really. But I was obsessed and I was a perfectionist. I do think that Hermione may be dealing with similar issues - and it's not wise and it's not particularly healthy to be this way. But it's not a sign that a person isn't gifted either. (And, incidentally, just for the record, even though this is not the best situation, sometimes you have to let it be, because forcing the child to change can actually wind up hurting them more - but if I had Hermione in my sphere of influence, I'd be trying to help her deal with this). > Shaun: > > No, Hermione is not in a special school for gifted children. > > But she's doing eleven OWLs when it seems it is normal to do nine. > > Silmariel: > So? That's not remarkable. Oh, sorry, it is, just not amazing, in my book. See > the Weasleys records. Shaun: I'm not sure if it's remarkable or amazing - I just think it might be. (-8 The trouble with assessing this is that we don't know exactly how the educational and qualifications of the Wizarding World work - and in the real world, depending on the model of education used, this may or may not be remarkable. When I was at school, in the standard education system I was in, it really was truly remarkable to be doing extra subjects. That was a result of decisions taken by the educational bureaucracy to make it very, very unusual for a student to be allowed to do this. Today, a decade and a half later, it's not at all uncommon for a students to be doing one or even two extra subjects. My point is that we don't know how common this is. We've no way of knowing. Maybe 1 in 10 students do it. Maybe 1 in 100 do it. Maybe 1 in 1000 overall? A lot of people believe that the OWLS are based on the old British O-Levels, and that seems to make sense, although we don't know it for certain. From talking to people who know British education and who know gifted kids, 11 or 12 O-levels would have been quite a uncommon haul even for a highly gifted student, though higher numbers were possible. And back at the time JKR was at school, even 10 would have been impressive (in a single year at least). Or so I am told. > Shaun: > > She also does *exceed* the highest level expected of students at > > least twice that we know of. > > > > In first year, she gets 112 percent in her Charms exam. > > > > In third year, she gets 320 percent in her Muggle Studies exam. > > Silmariel: > Pity that she has to devote all that time, and she can't do it with two weeks > work -at most- per subject. And do something as intellectual but not so > workaholic the rest of the time. Shaun: It'd probably be nice and maybe even healthier if she did, yes. But if she's a perfectionist, it's unlikely she sees it that way. > Shaun: > > This indicates that Hermione does study more than she needs to. This > > girl doesn't stop studying when she knows she's passed. She doesn't > > even stop studying when she's met the standard her school regards as > > perfect - worth 100%. She keeps studying even after she's done more > > than enough. So viewing the fact she studies very hard as an > > indication that she isn't as smart as she appears, seems to me to be > > rather unjustified. She studies because she is driven to. The > > standard the school requires doesn't interest her - she's aiming to > > do as well as she possibly can whether that is at the standard of > > the school, or even higher. > > Silmariel: > Written that way, it even may seem that Hermione is driven by studies instead > of knowledge. Unjustified, but understatable? Well, how do I know if she is > driven to for the knowledge of for the marks? My experience of what is if > gifted differs a lot. Shaun: It's very possible that she is driven by studies rather than knowledge, yes. It's also possible she doesn't make a distinction between the two. To be honest, what I see in Hermione is quite a common pattern in some of the kids I work with, and I wonder if it's possible she might be dealing with some of the issues they have dealt with. Being a gifted child can sometimes be a pretty miserable experience for a number of reasons - but one of the most significant reasons is a lack of challenge in school - and I know this was a problem in some British schools in the 1980s (it was also a problem in a lot of Australian schools). Especially in primary schools. We have some indications that Hermione, when she comes to Hogwarts, doesn't have the best developed social skills in the world. Her attitude on the train gives some indication of a lack of social graces, and Ron comments that she doesn't have any friends. When we see this in gifted children aged about ten or eleven, it's very commonly (although not always) an indication that their primary education wasn't all that it could have been. This is getting quite long, so I won't go into all the psychology of it, but Hermione-at-11 presents to me as a gifted child who had an adequate-to-good primary school education, which nonetheless failed to challenge her academically. Not an uncommon problem. When children who have had these experiences suddenly find themselves in an environment that *does* challenge them (and with the kids I work with, that is quite commonly the case, because of issues of identification, etc) one of two things often happens. They either crash and burn (because they have never learned the basic skills needed to do well academically in a challenging environment - this is roughly what I did at first) or, for the first time in their life, faced with the challenge they crave, they... well, they go a little nuts. It's like they've been half starved all their life - and now they have a smorgasboard before them. They dive into it head first and barely come up for air (which I did after a year or so, once I was cured of chronic laziness!). That's really what I see with Hermione - slightly modified (though only slightly) by her contact with Harry and Ron, which has forced her to see that other things are important as well. Hermione exhibits some of the classic behaviours I see in these kids - actually I have to laugh. One of my kids - aged 12, and at the start of this year started at an exclusive private school here - yesterday demanded I borrow the history of her school from my university library for her. She wants to read it so much - really reminds me of Hermione and Hogwarts. But this girl really has a lot of Hermione like characteristics. > Shaun: > > Hermione works to her potential. Not to the potential expected of a > > student of her age. > > Silmariel: > But a quite academic potential, sadly. Shaun: I'm not sure I'd call it sad. What counts to me is whether Hermione herself is happy. When a kid is like this and it leads to them missing out on other opportunities that they would like to have, that's sad. But if academics are the child's hobby and source of pleasure - then in my view, they are as valid as any other hobbies. Percy, to me, comes across as rather sad. Hermione doesn't. Even though I think they've probably made a lot of the same choices. Hermione has features that would concern me if I was responsible for her welfare. I'd want to explore them, and some of them I am sure I would want to address. But whether they are 'sad' or not - I'd need to wait and see what she had to say about them. Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html (ISTJ) | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 "You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia From finwitch at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 06:30:07 2006 From: finwitch at yahoo.com (finwitch) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 06:30:07 -0000 Subject: Weasleys' Wands? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151474 "gelite67" : > > I'm just wondering if Fred and George might try a new line of work -- > making wands. Apparently, Hagrid and Professor Sprout teach the > students about wand trees and bowtruckles. And Fred and George > obviously know how to make wands since they make the fake ones. Finwitch: Well -- that'd be really funny, because Hogwarts has (at Filch's demand, no doubt) banned all WWW-products. The ban serves as advertisement for pranksters, of course -- much like Umbridge's ban of the Quibbler (particularly the article of Harry's interview). If they'd start making wands (real ones, not fakes), well... Hogwarts would have to lift that ban, wouldn't they? There's at least the wandmaker who made Krum's wand... Still, where IS Ollivander and why has he disappeared? Finwitch From bboyminn at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 06:36:04 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 06:36:04 -0000 Subject: Harry's ability to detect traces of magic In-Reply-To: <013001c668c2$c3a5e090$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151475 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Kim" wrote: > > Kim now: > ... He's (Harry) already been in contact with at least 1 Horcrux > ... the diary. It didn't hurt him to hold it. And the locket > ... as well .... But when you think about it, they contain part > of Voldy's soul so they really should cause his scar to hurt. > > ...edited... > > Kim bboyminn: Pure speculation of course, but here is my take on that. The core soul as well as the soul bits are morally neutral just as all souls are. When Voldemort is near Harry, it is his hate, fear, anger, and other emotions that Harry feels as pain in his scar. Those are all earthly aspects of Voldemort. They are part of his earthly physical essense, whereas the soul bits are part of his spiritual essense, and that is why Harry doesn't react to them. Just a thought. Steve/bboyminn From finwitch at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 07:36:57 2006 From: finwitch at yahoo.com (finwitch) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 07:36:57 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron/Golpalott's Third Law In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151476 > Neuman: > Alright then, I'll bite. What does Golpalott's Third Law mean? > > "The antidote for a blended poison will be equal to more than the sum > of the antidotes for each of the separate components." > > How would one antidote be more than another? Did Golpalott also invent > some kind of rating system? Finwitch: Well, I think it's that - first, you DO need the separate antidotes for each component-poison. However, it's well possible that these poisons (and the antidote-components) also *react* with each other, so you must take those reactional products into account when making it... Of course, bezoar, being the antidote for all components AND several more, would work even by itself... (and Snape usually mixed a bezoar with the antidote-components...) Finwitch From sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 03:48:50 2006 From: sugaranddixie1 at yahoo.com (sugaranddixie1) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 03:48:50 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore can be alive, if you squint just right (long) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151477 >> Najwa wrote: >> If DD was alive >> he pulled off some fancy footwork and a great sharade. I'd love to >> believe he still was, but I highly doubt it. On the other hand, he's >> got a portrait in Professor McGonagall's new office, so we haven't >> heard the last of him. Sure he can't do much but talk and sleep, but >> he can at least be there for advice and moral guidance, much like >> Sirius was when he used the floo network to contact Harry. ET: My personal wild and crazy theory about this is that the potion DD drank in the cave was the Draught of Living Death. I don't think he swapped places with anyone. The potion put him a in a coma-like state that is so close to death it evoked the portrait. Snape's "murder" of him was a feint designed to deceive LV. LV will let his guard down as a result thinking he now only has to "take care of" Harry. (Not discounting the remaining members of the OOP, but DD was the one LV feared the most.) ET: who went down the rabbit hole with Alice, but may have landed on her head....she really can't recall.... :D From h.m.s at mweb.co.za Wed Apr 26 08:31:44 2006 From: h.m.s at mweb.co.za (H.M.S) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 10:31:44 +0200 Subject: Harry using Dark Magic Message-ID: <001901c6690c$0d6d51b0$58d517c4@Sharon> No: HPFGUIDX 151478 There are many posts discussing how Harry will kill Voldemort, possibly with the AK curse. (In South Africa, the AK 47 is the weapon of choice for criminals, as well as being a rifle the defence force used - is still using? - for many years) Back to topic - I believe we have already seen the fore-runner in GoF. When Harry's & Voldemort's wands connected in the graveyard, Harry's wand forced shadows of Voldie's previous AK's out of his (Voldie's) wand. Harry had done something basic like expelliaramus (sorry - don't have my book with me), plus of course, his strength of will. What will happen if they both do equally powerful spells, plus Harry's determination, love, etc??! Sharon From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Wed Apr 26 10:16:09 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 10:16:09 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Golpalott's Third Law In-Reply-To: <200604260243.53932.silmariel@telefonica.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151479 Silmariel: > Ok, I get it. Still, I suposse I would have like her seeing fully dedicated to knowledge but not only to studies. A bit of hobbies related to but not included in the OWL race, like -muggle example warning- astronomy. I understant that Hermione is driven by knowledge, but, as Joe says, she can be interpreted as a new Percy - achiever of marks. I think Percy is gifted, but not 'the brightest wizard'. Ceridwen: I'm just going to jump in on this one point. I think the primary reason JKR makes Hermione study so much is that's what kids think about smart kids. They have no life, they always must be studying. This is primarily a kids' series, after all, and we see a lot of kid story stereotypes. Where smart kids do seem to study a lot, sometimes it is only in pursuit of a hobby (like Astronomy). But I can see another reason as well, which is probably not what Rowling intended. Hermione is like an immigrant into a new and fascinating world. It's in her best interest to study up on it, not just the classwork, but things like reading 'Hogwarts: A History'. If she's going to assimilate, which she does seem to be doing, she needs the extra boost that another student born into the WW doesn't need. Also, most people are just a little conceited, reading their own horoscope rather than someone else's, unless their interest is in astrology in general, and showing more interest in topics which interest them and which make them seem to be smarter. A person who likes sports will watch sports shows, a person who likes astronomy will watch more shows like 'Cosmos'. And both will probably throw their newfound knowledge around when the subject comes up because, due to interest, both will remember more about that topic. This is just my opinion on that one point. Smart kids come in as many varieties as there are smart kids, though there will tend to be a pattern. Hermione remembers a lot of what she reads, and puts it to use. So to me, she does seem to be smarter than average, as well as worried about her grades. Ceridwen. From kernsac at earthlink.net Wed Apr 26 04:32:28 2006 From: kernsac at earthlink.net (Peggy Kern) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 21:32:28 -0700 Subject: Hagrid and non-verbal spells Message-ID: <03a601c668ea$6de7c6a0$6401a8c0@user2b3ff76354> No: HPFGUIDX 151480 Hi, all. I've started rereading (for the ten zillionth time) the Harry Potter books, and I noticed today that Hagrid appears to have done a couple non-verbal spells. In Sorcerer's Stone, when he and Harry were going to buy Harry's stuff in London, Hagrid tapped the boat with his umbrella/wand pieces to speed it up, but didn't say anything. And when they got to Diagon Alley, he tapped the magical brick to open the passageway. I wonder if Hagrid can do non-verbal spells, and if so, how he learned, after just having studied for about three years. Thoughts? Peggy From sherlocksridhar at fastmail.fm Wed Apr 26 06:44:35 2006 From: sherlocksridhar at fastmail.fm (sridharj_ap) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 06:44:35 -0000 Subject: Something Suspicious about Severus (was :Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix) In-Reply-To: <444F072A.3050101@telus.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151481 > KJ writes: >I think that we are meant to understand that he is a powerful and > respected wizard among the DE. He inspires fear and respect in them, and > he is obviously looked to as someone to obey implicitly. My first post and it is on one of my favourite characters - Snape. I offer the following theory: Snape joined the Death Eaters because he saw his Muggle father beating up his mother and hated his father for it. He saw Voldemort's "pure-blood" ideas appealing to the revengeful part of his heart and joined the DEs. Lily defended him in the Prank and there might have been more such instances. Snape might have also been with Voldemort on the night Lily was killed. He saw the power of Love and also the lengths Voldemort would go gain mastery over death. This knowledge Voldemort would never share with anyone. So, what would Snape be left with: A superior servant till the end of his life! and for what? For killing and torturing people so that his master should live? Lily's sacrifice must have changed Snape and he repents. To prove his worth, he offers to remain in the Voldemort camp and spy. As to some questions on why he is still passing some information to Voldemort, what do you expect a double agent to do? Voldemort would definitely become suspicious about Snape if no information was being sent to him. So between Dumbledore and Snape, selectively filtered information is sent to Voldemort. Now, the Malfoy question. There is a different theory on whether Dumbledore has really died? Lets assume he has. Snape wouldn't want Draco to kill Dumbledore. Remember, killing another human being would have torn his soul. Draco would have no other option except to join the DEs, which means another wizard lost to Voldemort. Similarly, Snape didn't allow Harry to use the Unforgiveable Curses. Hence he agreed to the unbreakable vow. To digress a little, Snape and DD might have had some plan where Avada Kedavra is the spoken curse, but the non-verbal spell is something else. Draco would have not been able to do this and the plan would have failed. Regards Sherlocksridhar From mandorino222 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 04:53:39 2006 From: mandorino222 at yahoo.com (mandorino222) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 04:53:39 -0000 Subject: Weasleys' Wands? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151482 "gelite67" > wrote: Apparently, Hagrid and Professor Sprout teach the > > students about wand trees and bowtruckles. > Tonks: > I get the sense that wand-making is an art that takes some time to > learn and may be handled down father to son or at least Master to > apprentice. I wouldn't rule out wand making for the last book. First of all, Ollivander is gone. Why make a point of saying that if it's not somehow significant? Second, in "After the Burial" Harry's use of Felix Felicis results in the unlikely meeting of Slughorn and Hagrid. In the course of the evening, Hagrid and Slughorn, blessed by the virtue of the lucky potion, 1) discuss bowtruckle husbandry 2) exchange unicorn hair (which is, as we know, a viable wand core). Perhaps a wand for Hagrid is in the works? Nick From speedy_j_g at yahoo.de Wed Apr 26 05:54:35 2006 From: speedy_j_g at yahoo.de (speedy_j_g) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 07:54:35 +0200 Subject: One thought In-Reply-To: <106313E5-EE08-4413-B4F3-CCE411C62564@alltel.net> References: <106313E5-EE08-4413-B4F3-CCE411C62564@alltel.net> Message-ID: <444F0B1B.2070609@yahoo.de> No: HPFGUIDX 151483 Karen wrote: > before I go to bed. > > How was Harry planning on killing Sirius in PoA? He didn't know the > AK at the time, nor the SS. What was this 13 y.o. going to do? Harry > wasn't equipped with anything, really, but rage. So any thoughts? > Don't you think Harry was powerful enough to perform dangerous accidental magic even as a 13 y/o? I wouldn't put it past him, as he blew up his aunt with little to no effort. I don't know but I think accidental magic can do quite a bit of damage, of course it usually doesn't but that's because there are not many that are as powerful as Harry. speedy From sherlocksridhar at fastmail.fm Wed Apr 26 08:19:02 2006 From: sherlocksridhar at fastmail.fm (sridharj_ap) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 08:19:02 -0000 Subject: Something Suspicious about Severus (was :Requiescat in Pace, In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151484 "cass_da_sweet" wrote: > I don't think that they fear him. Maybe they were just looking to see > what he does. To see which side he's really on. If he kills DD then he > proves (to them) that he is on their side. I think they fear him, since the canon clearly states that. I think they realize that Snape is a very powerful wizard and in my opinion the next Dumbledore. Even during his Hogwarts days, he invented so many spells, which even James Potter and his friends could not. They stole *his* spells and used it on him. Also, the DEs who were there were not very great witches or wizards. Bellatrix might not have been frightened if she had been there, I guess. Regards Sherlocksridhar From silmariel at telefonica.net Wed Apr 26 12:11:27 2006 From: silmariel at telefonica.net (silmariel) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 14:11:27 +0200 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Golpalott's Third Law In-Reply-To: <20060426054600.M15397@alphalink.com.au> References: <444F072A.3050101@telus.net> <20060426054600.M15397@alphalink.com.au> Message-ID: <200604261411.27754.silmariel@telefonica.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151485 Silmariel: I'll try to keep it short - difficult when replying to you, but I'll cross my fingers and start. Also, don't have much to disagree to. Shaun: > Her perfectionism is most > definitely one of them, her obsession with school work beyond what seems to > be necessary for high performance being an expression of that. And it is > the type of issue I have to address reasonably often, because it's not > exactly an uncommon problem. > > And, yes, I suffered from it myself. > > I'm 31 - Silmariel: Me too, to both points. It's a long way learning to control it. > > Shaun: > > > No, Hermione is not in a special school for gifted children. > > > But she's doing eleven OWLs when it seems it is normal to do nine. > > > > Silmariel: > > So? That's not remarkable. Oh, sorry, it is, just not amazing, in my > > book. See the Weasleys records. > > Shaun: > > I'm not sure if it's remarkable or amazing - I just think it might be. (-8 > > The trouble with assessing this is that we don't know exactly how the > educational and qualifications of the Wizarding World work - and in the > real world, depending on the model of education used, this may or may not > be remarkable. Silmariel: Tsk, tsk, I don't know, but both Bill and Percy got 12 OWLs, one more than her - and I'd like to know Snape, Dumbledore and Riddle academic records, really. Hermione in HBP worried me a bit. Shaun: > When I was at school, in the standard education system I was in, it really > was truly remarkable to be doing extra subjects. Silmariel: Oh, I was just commenting that the load of two subjects more shouldn't be an amazing burden as Bill and Percy shows, not on the attention the school paid to her, I think it suffices the Time Turner year to show Hermione is being given extraordinary treatment - it's obvious the school staff praises her as a star student. I just had to look past characters opinions - as in the case of Ginny, the fact that everyone praises her is a thing, and actual scenes are another. Shaun: > My point is that we don't know how common this is. We've no way of knowing. > Maybe 1 in 10 students do it. Maybe 1 in 100 do it. Maybe 1 in 1000 > overall? Silmariel: Hum, this leads to an interesting point. How many gifted adults she's going to have the chance to meet in the very small, very isolated ww? Frustrating? > > Shaun: > > > Hermione works to her potential. Not to the potential expected of a > > > student of her age. > > > > Silmariel: > > But a quite academic potential, sadly. > > Shaun: > > I'm not sure I'd call it sad. What counts to me is whether Hermione herself > is happy. When a kid is like this and it leads to them missing out on other > opportunities that they would like to have, that's sad. But if academics > are the child's hobby and source of pleasure - then in my view, they are as > valid as any other hobbies. > > Percy, to me, comes across as rather sad. Hermione doesn't. Silmariel: No? In HBP, I see her so internally angry and conflicted, so trying to be controlled and failing. She comes to me as unhappy, but I have to say it's only a gut feeling. Shaun: > But whether they are 'sad' or not - I'd need to wait and see what she had > to say about them. Yes, if I perceived with less issues, I wouldn't consider it sad. I don't know if we'll ever see expressed her pov on the matter - she's not Harry, her detatchment from her parents is not even commented, just stablished as a matter of fact. The 'wait' part brings another point - being muggleborn and having so a poor net in the ww, she "needs" her marks to fit in it as an adult, that's a thing I think runs subconsciosly in Hermione. (if this last phrase doesn't make sense, it means I'm reached my English skill limit, sorry). But she's been also so good at creating enemies, I'd be more worried that she isn't going to survive. Silmariel From yblitzka at hotmail.com Wed Apr 26 12:14:34 2006 From: yblitzka at hotmail.com (Bex) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 12:14:34 -0000 Subject: Something Suspicious about Severus (was :Requiescat in Pace, In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151486 Sherlocksridhar: > I think they fear him, since the canon clearly states that. I think > they realize that Snape is a very powerful wizard and in my opinion the > next Dumbledore. I like what someone said earlier on this topic: Snape is one BMF. They are watching this scene play out with the "Greatest Wizard in Modern Times" near death on the floor of the tower. This is the guy that their *boss* didn't mess with - from what I cna gather, *ever*. He taught most if not all of them up there, and even without a wand, he is talking Draco down. To see him like that, is quite unnerving for them though they don't show it. Then Snape walks in. He exudes an aura (to the DEs) much like Dumbledore does when he's angry. Unbelievable power, though in Snape's case, a dash of "What the fork are you twits waiting for?" is thrown in. He's angry, (probably about mostly Draco getting himself into that spot to begin with combined with the fact that they're storming the castle, and particularly ruining his evening) and they can feel it. And the greatest wizard of modern times starts pleading him /for his life/. Dumbledore is begging Snape to /spare/ him. Buddy, I'd be pretty cowed, too. Sherlocksridhar: > Also, the DEs who were there were not very great witches or wizards. > Bellatrix might not have been frightened if she had been there, I guess. I would imagine she would have been encouraging Draco, telling him to ignore DD, and possibly even doing it for him out of frustration, but I am willing to bet she *wouldn't* let Snape do it - my take on it is that if Draco failed, and Snape *didn't* complete the task assigned to him, the UV would kick in, and Snape would die, then Trixie would finish DD off, and be LV's favorite pupil again, etc. That would have been interesting, if she was in that scene. ~Yblitzka, now starting to wonder and wander From brahadambal at indiatimes.com Wed Apr 26 12:34:32 2006 From: brahadambal at indiatimes.com (latha279) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 12:34:32 -0000 Subject: Something Suspicious about Severus (was :Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151487 wrote: > Snape might have also been > with Voldemort on the night Lily was killed. He saw the power of Love > and also the lengths Voldemort would go gain mastery over death. This > knowledge Voldemort would never share with anyone. So, what would > Snape be left with: A superior servant till the end of his life! and > for what? For killing and torturing people so that his master should > live? > > Lily's sacrifice must have changed Snape and he repents. To prove his > worth, he offers to remain in the Voldemort camp and spy. > Sherlocksridhar > Brady: But Sridhar, coming to the Snape point again - we all have deduced enough of the canon to understand that Snape agreed to become a spy long before Lily was murdered by LV. So I donot think the repentence was because of that. On the same note, this is a general question. If *WE* are able to put two and two together and come to conclusion that Snape was already a spy for DD before GH happened, how come people in the Order (Remus and Minerva) agree to Harry's account in the hospital wing that DD trusted him because Snape repented being the cause for James' and Lily's deaths? Are they acting or not-in-the-know or plain dumb as far as mathematics is concerned? Just wondering, Brady. From yblitzka at hotmail.com Wed Apr 26 12:45:10 2006 From: yblitzka at hotmail.com (Bex) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 12:45:10 -0000 Subject: Something Suspicious about Severus In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151490 > Brady: > > But Sridhar, coming to the Snape point again - we all have deduced > enough of the canon to understand that Snape agreed to become a spy > long before Lily was murdered by LV. So I donot think the repentence > was because of that. > > On the same note, this is a general question. If *WE* are able to put > two and two together and come to conclusion that Snape was already a > spy for DD before GH happened, how come people in the Order (Remus > and Minerva) agree to Harry's account in the hospital wing that DD > trusted him because Snape repented being the cause for James' and > Lily's deaths? Are they acting or not-in-the-know or plain dumb as > far as mathematics is concerned? Did they /know/ that Snape was the one who heard the prophecy? Perhaps the shock of the news made them forget their numbers. Also, it is most likely that Dumbledore was the only one in the order who trusted Snape fully - perhaps Remus and McGonagall were close seconds, but after the shock of what happened, everyone is questioning his loyalty. Give them time, surely one of them will start working it out. ~Yb From yblitzka at hotmail.com Wed Apr 26 12:37:46 2006 From: yblitzka at hotmail.com (Bex) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 12:37:46 -0000 Subject: Golpalott's Third Law In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151491 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "finwitch" wrote: > > > > Neuman: > > Alright then, I'll bite. What does Golpalott's Third Law mean? > > > > "The antidote for a blended poison will be equal to more than the sum > > of the antidotes for each of the separate components." > > > > How would one antidote be more than another? Did Golpalott also invent > > some kind of rating system? > > Finwitch: > > Well, I think it's that - first, you DO need the separate antidotes > for each component-poison. However, it's well possible that these > poisons (and the antidote-components) also *react* with each other, so > you must take those reactional products into account when making it... > Of course, bezoar, being the antidote for all components AND several > more, would work even by itself... (and Snape usually mixed a bezoar > with the antidote-components...) > > Finwitch I love this scene, not just for Harry's big mouth, but for the chemistry and alchemy innuendos and references. Sluggy says that if we take it is true (and I sure do want to), that not only do we need the antidotes of all of the poisons within the blended poison (each component poison), there is one other ingredient which, through an almost alchemical process, will complete the antidote for the blended poison. I would have LOVED to be in that class!!! To explain it by example - We have a blended poison consisting of poison A and poison B mixed together (I would imagine that it's simply mixing them, anyway). When the poisons are mixed, some sort of chemical reaction must occur, so that they work together, linked somehow. To find an antidote for this poison cocktail, we need the antidote to poison A (I'll call A*) and the antidote to poison B (B*), which would seem like common sense - you have a cold and a headache, your most likely thoughts would be to reach for the Tylenol Cold (aches + cold medicine) or the Advil and the NyQuil. But just the antidotes mixed together won't wortk. You'll also need something else - something that will link the /antidotes/ together, like a catalyst in a chemical reaction, thereby counteracting the chemical reaction that occured when the poisons were mixed. This one extra ingredient will tyransform the two antidotes into one blended antidote, and then (and only then) the antidote will work on the blended poison. I would think that if bezoars are somewhat easy to come by, throwing one into the antidote wouldn't be a bad idea, in case you got something wrong. What Hermione was doing was determining what the component poisons were in her cauldron, through the Revelaspell (Specialis Revelio). I don't know how one would go about determining what the "extra ingredient" would be - the book has a list of antidotes for various poisons, Harry sees it in that class. Maybe there's a way to determine what it is based on the component poisons. I think that's sort of what JK was going for. ~Yblitka, who got all tingly when she reread that scene. From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Wed Apr 26 12:51:43 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 08:51:43 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Something Suspicious about Severus (was :Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060426125143.92629.qmail@web37009.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151492 latha279 wrote: Brady: On the same note, this is a general question. If *WE* are able to put two and two together and come to conclusion that Snape was already a spy for DD before GH happened, how come people in the Order (Remus and Minerva) agree to Harry's account in the hospital wing that DD trusted him because Snape repented being the cause for James' and Lily's deaths? Catherine: Well, in a way he (Snape) had a hand in James' and Lily's deaths, being the one who yold Voldemort about the prophesy. Voldemort was the "cause of death" but Snape was at least a contributing factor. Like in hospitals, cause of death is quite often "pneumonia" but that wasn't the reason they were in hospital. They had an illness that put them in hospital, and they develop pneumonia, and due to weakened immune systems they pass away. Had they not had an underlying disease, the pneumonia would likely not have been life-threatening. In a sense, Snape is responsible for the disease, and LV is an opportunistic virus that cause the deaths of Lily and James. Harry had been given passive immunity from Lily's sacrifice, therefore survived. All this to say, Harry wasn't really wrong in saying that Snape had a part in his parent's death, but I don't believe that GH was the reason for Snape's repentance. I believe DD when he says that Snape had turned spy *before* LV downfall. Who knows what the others in the order know about Snape. Obviously, not too much. Catherine --------------------------------- Make Yahoo! Canada your Homepage Yahoo! Canada Homepage [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From kchuplis at alltel.net Wed Apr 26 13:59:33 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 08:59:33 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: One thought References: <106313E5-EE08-4413-B4F3-CCE411C62564@alltel.net> <444F0B1B.2070609@yahoo.de> Message-ID: <001e01c66939$a5bbf9d0$b301010a@ConsolidatedTelephone.local> No: HPFGUIDX 151493 ----- Original Message ----- From: speedy_j_g To: HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2006 12:54 AM Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: One thought Karen wrote: > before I go to bed. > > How was Harry planning on killing Sirius in PoA? He didn't know the > AK at the time, nor the SS. What was this 13 y.o. going to do? Harry > wasn't equipped with anything, really, but rage. So any thoughts? > speedy: Don't you think Harry was powerful enough to perform dangerous accidental magic even as a 13 y/o? I wouldn't put it past him, as he blew up his aunt with little to no effort. I don't know but I think accidental magic can do quite a bit of damage, of course it usually doesn't but that's because there are not many that are as powerful as Harry. kchuplis: Sure but Harry is standing over him in rage thinking of killing him deliberately. How? What curse? What does he know that he could use. Accidental magic is just that. Harry was thinking deliberate thoughts directly at Black in rage and nothing happened accidentally. He's pointing his wand..... thinks he'll have to kill Crookshanks too. I was just wondering what on Earth he would do. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From foxmoth at qnet.com Wed Apr 26 17:28:10 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 17:28:10 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151494 > Alla: > > Trying really hard to remember about keeping silence about Sirius' > flaws and respecting the feelings of us poor broken-hearted Sirius > lovers and drawing a blank here :) ( Erm... this is of course not a > remark for you Pippin, but just in case again to avoid the arguments > of this type, since I did get them in the past discussions - we are > joking here and I am not asking anybody to refrain from discussing > the flaws of the characters.) > > But, Pippin, I promise to think about it if you can prove that you > belong to Snape immediate relations :). > Pippin: I suspect a lot of people will be more devastated to lose Snape than their immediate relations :-) And of course I was joking -- if you feel so sorry for your favorite characters that you can't stand to hear negative things about them you probably aren't reading this list :) I suppose that is what you are saying, that Dumbledore should have realized that Harry couldn't stand to hear such things about Sirius and that Harry needed a comforting narrative he could cling to in order to come to grips with what happened. But Dumbledore was grieving too. He wasn't emotionally attached to Sirius, but he was emotionally attached to Harry, and so he too had suffered a dreadful blow. He was not just lecturing here, IMO, he too had an emotional need to construct a story of what happened. It may be that hearing Harry's view of Sirius was just as painful to DD as hearing Dumbledore's view of Sirius was to Harry. They were inventing conflicting narratives to explain to themselves what had happened, and it wasn't only the plot of these narratives that conflicted but the type. Harry was inventing a melodrama, in which Sirius was a pristine hero destroyed by a foul scheming villain. He understood the story Dumbledore was telling as a melodrama also, in which Sirius was a villain who had abused Kreacher and deserved to die. But it wasn't. Dumbledore perceived a tragedy, in which Sirius was flawed, and his flaws made him vulnerable to forces which, no matter how valiantly he struggled, eventually took matters beyond his control. This was no insult to Sirius. Only the great can be heroes of tragedy, because only the great can struggle against those forces at all. For Dumbledore, the story of Sirius's downfall did not begin with the villains, as it would in a melodrama. It began with a lie: the belief that wizards are a superior race who do no wrong. It is interesting that in HBP he begins telling Harry the story of Voldemort in the same place, with the Gaunts who took this belief to its most extreme absurdity. Sirius had the greatness to reject this lie, but it was all around him, woven into his life even in the isolation of Grimmauld Place. In Dumbledore's narrative Sirius did not understand that even though he didn't consciously believe the lie, and fought against it all his life, it was its influence that led him to see Kreacher as unimportant. Harry, though he also did not realize it, echoed the lie when he objected to acknowledging any flaws in Sirius or any latent good qualities in Kreacher. I think that is why Dumbledore was so forceful with Harry. It can't have felt good or right to let Harry embrace the very lie that, in Dumbledore's view, got Sirius killed. Nor would it have comforted Harry for long. It might have numbed the pain for a while, but it would only have been worse when Harry realized the truth, just as Harry's idealized vision of his father made the pain of learning that he'd been a bully while he was at school all the worse for him. Pippin From foxmoth at qnet.com Wed Apr 26 17:51:44 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 17:51:44 -0000 Subject: House Elf loyalty was Re: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: <293.9240e33.31804fde@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151495 > Nikkalmati: > Here is something that has been puzzling me. How can Kreacher be dangerous? > I mean, based on what we have seen of Dobby and Winkey the loyalty of a > house elf is absolute. Even the thought of criticizing the Malfoys sends Dobby > into a fit of self-punishment, regardless of how cruel Lucius is to Dobby. > How can Kreacher betray Sirius, the heir of the house of Black, even by > trickery or deception? Even with the collusion of Narcissa? Winkey goes downhill > when she is fired for supporting Barty Jr. against the orders of Barty Sr. > Kreacher's treachery does not seem to fit what we have seen of house elves. > Has this been discussed? Pippin: I think the spells that control House Elves produce only the illusion of loyalty, just as love potions produce only the illusion of love. As Dumbledore says, Kreacher had no genuine loyalty to Sirius. Provided he could endure the pain of punishing himself, he could do things that Sirius had not directly forbidden even if they were disloyal, just as Dobby could. Sirius forbade Kreacher to tell anyone any of the Order's secrets. But he never thought of forbidding him to say that Sirius and Harry were coming to care for one another. Sirius did not realize that information would be useful to Voldemort. But Narcissa did. OTOH, House Elves can be genuinely loyal to their masters. Winky was truly loyal to the Crouch family and remained loyal even after she'd been dismissed, because her true loyalty was not commanded by enchantments. Pippin From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 19:06:50 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 19:06:50 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151496 Alla wrote: > > I think it denigrates Kreacher to say that wizards > made him who he is and that is why and only why he chose what he did. > > I view him as an intelligent human being (well, human being of > another race, but human being nevertheless), or intelligent being > would be the better way to say it? I am not sure. > > I have very little sympathy for Kreacher on pure emotional level , > but on the intellectual level I sympathize with his situation > of course. Nevertheless I refuse to say that he is a robot incapable > to choose for himself because he is enslaved. > > As I said, I think Kreacher truly loved Sirius' parents and that is > what determined his actions towards Sirius. Carol responds: I actually agree with most of what you say here, except that Kreacher is not human: he's a Being as opposed to a Beast according to the MoM classification. But house-elves in general seem to be neither more nor less intelligent than humans and don't require a wand to perform magic. It's only their size and appearance and their apparently inborn desire to serve humans that makes Wizards in general judge them as inferior. Leaving emotions out of it, to what extent is Kreacher "what Wizards have made him"? First, there's his name. Kreacher = Creature. Surely no house-elf mother would give her child that name, especially given the family resemblance among the heads on the wall: he probably looked just like her. And there's no reason why a house-elf wouldn't love her child like any other mother. I'm guessing that Walpurga Black or at least *a* Black who lived in 12 GP named him. But a name like that would help to shape his self-image as something inferior to humans, even contemptible. So would his servitude and whatever punishment he received from them, along with constant exposure to pureblood doctrines in which "creatures with near-human intelligence" (as Umbridge would say) are regarded with contempt, perhaps even beneath Muggles. I'm guessing, too, that whatever happened to his mind to make him mutter to himself and live in filth, wearing only a loincloth rather than a togalike towel, was the fault of wizards or witches, too (my theory, as you may know, is that he drank the poisoned memory potion on Regulus's orders). Still, as you say, Dobby was also brought up, and probably born into, a household of Dark wizards who spouted the same pureblood doctrines, yet Dobby chose to support the "Light" side, or whatever we should call the forces opposing Voldemort. Dobby hated and feared the "bad Dark Wizards" he was forced by the code of house-elves to obey; Kreacher loved them, especially Walpurga and her niece, "Miss Bellatrix." Why? Was Kreacher never made to iron his hands for failure to obey them? That seems unlikely. He shows up with bandaged hands after attacking Buckbeak, and while Buckbeak could have attacked him, I think it's more likely that he ironed his hands after doing something to thwart his hated master, Sirius. Walpurga at some point seems to have gone mad, judging from her portrait, but Kreacher, mad himself, seems devoted to her. And Sirius, who hates his mother and his house, treats Kreacher with supreme contempt because of that devotion and Kreacher's general attitude and appearance. (Oddly, he never orders him to change to a clean loincloth or put on a tea towel.) So while Sirius didn't drive Kreacher insane, surely his attitude doesn't help matters. How much of what Kreacher is is the result of how he has been treated (indoctrination from birth, if not outright abuse, and neglect and contempt from Sirius), how much is inborn (the house-elf mentality shared by Dobby and Winky?) and how much is his own choice? Certainly we have three very different house-elves, all apparently deviations from the norm represented by the house-elves of Hogwarts (though Winky was also a "normal" house-elf until she was sacked), but are they all *only* what wizards have made them? How much responsibility does Kreacher bear for his own decisions and attitudes? I would argue, and here I think we agree, that Kreacher is responsible for his own decision to interpret Sirius's order "Out!" as an order to leave the house and for his choice to go to Narcissa (his dear Bellatrix being in Azkaban and not accessible). It was also his own decision to obey her, providing whatever information about Sirius and Harry that he could give without violating a direct order, injuring Buckbeak, and lying to Harry when Harry's head appeared in the fireplace. (Yes, of course, Narcissa and probably Lucius bear a large share of the blame for giving him those orders.) Kreacher *chooses* to obey those orders, gleefully thwarting his rightful master (who holds all the "wrong" views and hates Kreacher's dear dead mistress). I would argue, however, that Kreacher can't be blamed for Sirius Black's death. He was trying to help the Malfoys and Voldemort get *Harry* to the MoM (hardly a commendable aim, and if Harry had died, he would have a share of the blame). But when Kreacher informed Harry that "Master will not return from the Ministry of Magic," "Master" was safe at home tending Buckbeak. Sirius's later decision to go with the Order members, despite Snape's request that he stay and wait for Dumbledore, was his own. And that, I think, is what Dumbledore was saying. Yes, Sirius would not have died if it weren't for Kreacher's treachery, but Kreacher did not plot to kill him. Nor could he have known that Sirius would die if he went with the other Order members to the MoM. He didn't even know that Snape would send them to save Harry and his friends. So I agree that despite his slavery and the miserable conditions he lives in and even his mental degeneration, Kreacher is capable of making his own decisions in certain circumstances. He chose to provide information to the Malfoys and to act on their orders. And yet perhaps, in another household, with a different name and a clean tea towel, he might have had some modicum of self-respect instead of giving his devotion to people who didn't deserve it and would not have become an agent of the Dark side. I doubt that he would have been a rebel like Dobby, but he might have been more like Winky before she was sacked. And perhaps, if Sirius had treated him as Dumbledore treated the Hogwarts house-elves, giving him duties and a clean tea towel and respecting his desire to serve the Black family, Kreacher would not have betrayed him. Tragically for both of them, however, it was probably too late. Each was blind to the other's views and feelings, and Sirius had too much contempt for Kreacher to realize that he was dangerous. IMO, Kreacher does bear some responsibility for his actions and decisions, yet paradoxically, like Gollum, he is more to be pitied than hated. Setting aside his mental state, he is both a slave and to some degree a free agent, interpreting Sirius's orders as he chooses and deciding for himself where his loyalties lie; both a victim of circumstances and what he has chosen to become. Perhaps Dumbledore understood, as he talked to Harry at the end of OoP, that Harry was likely to be Kreacher's new master and that it would be extremely dangerous to treat Kreacher as Sirius had done. So without overtly criticizing Sirius or blaming him exclusively for what Kreacher had become, Dumbledore had no choice but to indicate that Kreacher could not be blamed for Sirius's death and that he must not be dismissed as beneath contempt as Sirius had done, with dire consequences for himself (Sirius) and potentially dire consequences for Harry and the WW. It was more important to keep Harry from repeating Sirius's mistake than to falsely exonerate the dead man. Harry's life, as ever, was more important than his feelings of the moment. This was a matter that he *must* understand, and Dumbledore could not pass up the opportunity. Nor could he deny that Sirius's own decision to go to the MoM was no fault of Kreacher's or Harry's or anyone else. Anger and hatred on Harry's part, blaming Kreacher for Sirius's death, cannot mend matters and might make them even worse, and that, IMO, is what Dumbledore wanted Harry to understand. For DD to say, "Poor Sirius. It's all that wretched house-elf's fault that he died" would have been both false comfort and a lie. There is no comfort for the loss of a loved one, and whatever temptation we feel to blame others (or ourselves) cannot "make it better." Ultimately, the only healing we have is acceptance. The loss itself is irreparable, but blame and anger make the suffering worse. I know. I've been there. In some ways, I'm still there. But Harry can't remain there. He must move on to acceptance, not only of Sirius's death but of Dumbledore's, if he's going to save the WW through Love. Carol, aware that her conclusions regarding Kreacher are inconclusive but at least sure that she doesn't hate him for who he is or what he's done From belviso at attglobal.net Wed Apr 26 19:53:27 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (sistermagpie) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 19:53:27 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151497 Carol: And yet perhaps, in another household, with a different name and a clean tea towel, he might have had some modicum of self-respect instead of giving his devotion to people who didn't deserve it and would not have become an agent of the Dark side. I doubt that he would have been a rebel like Dobby, but he might have been more like Winky before she was sacked. Magpie: That's the funny thing about House Elves. To me Kreacher's got a modicum of self-respect. More than a modicum. He's a servant who's internalized the class system in which he lives and doesn't see it as a shameful thing. He seems to get pride from his place as servant to this important family. If Kreacher in his younger days met with other House Elves he might have had great authority over them because his Masters were more important, for instance. To us they may seem like the Blacks don't deserve it, but nor does Kreacher believe some other Wizards deserve the love they get. One could say Harry doesn't particulary deserve the great worship lavished upon him by Dobby. But neither Dobby, Kreacher or Winky appear to be faking their feelings. We have to be careful to know why we're re-interpreting their feelings if we do. This is what makes the House Elf question so difficult, imo. House Elves are always associated with some degree of rebellion. Dobby is a rebel in going against the Malfoys; he spends every day after adoring the great Harry Potter who freed him. Kreacher (and I don't think we can assume that this is not a perfectly respectable House Elf name and couldn't have been given to him by a mother) is completely rude to the people he considers interlopers in his house and makes his hatred of Harry clear. Winky is loyal to the Crouches and defends them. Winky and Kreacher may both be suffering depression to account for their filthy clothes and wonky behavior. The House Elves at Hogwarts protest Hermione's attempts to trick them into freedom by refusing to clean Gryffindor Tower--and Dobby silences them by taking the clothes himself. (Why? Here Dobby supposedly supports House Elf freedom, so why is he embarassed when they exercise freedom and being sort of a scab?) So yes, I think you would say that Kreacher is a product of his upbringing and world, just as all the House Elves are. But it's hard to separate him from himself at this point without projecting our own mindset onto things. Like many things in the Potterverse I think they slip from one idea to another. They're I think based on brownies who help around the house but get offended and leave if you try to pay them. We get Dobby who's reminiscent of one kind of ideal. He adores Wizards like Harry who granted him his freedom. Winky and Kreacher remind me sometimes of the stereotype of the family servant who has no problem with a class system and takes pride and comfort in his/her own place in it. (Those kinds of people don't make the class system right, but it's part of human nature that some people thrive this way.) Kreacher in particular has a bit of a Mrs. Danvers quality about him to me. Dumbledore saying that Kreacher is what Wizards made him reinforces that because he (like Hermione, imo) overrides Kreacher's own definition of himself and says he's just that which he was created to be by Wizards. A Wizard (DD) has thus "made him" again by defining him as this. But there have been human beings who have shared Dobby's view of things just as there have been human beings who have been like Kreacher, identifying with the family they serve rather than wishing for freedom. I honestly think if you made Kreacher and Dobby both human tomorrow it would be Dobby who would disturb people more. -m From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 20:12:01 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 20:12:01 -0000 Subject: Golpalott's Third Law In-Reply-To: <20060425032453.88094.qmail@web30204.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151498 DA Jones wrote: All this law means is that if you take two separate potions with there separate anti-dotes and blend or mix them together then the new antidote is both of the previous antidotes plus something else as a result of the effect of mixing them together. > Only a chemist or pharmacist could tell you if there is an equivalent law in real life, but I would suspect so. I think this is also a concept for homeopathic medicine where they take small minuscule amounts of ingredients and mix them together. Carol responds: I agree with this definition. However, I thought that JKR was simply spoofing the aphorism attributed to Euclid, "a whole is greater than the sum of its parts." Teen!Snape and Hermione, being logically oriented, would have no trouble with it, but Harry, if he attempted to understand it at all, would see it as counterintuitive, much as teen!JKR, whom we know to have problems with "maths," would have found Euclid's maxim puzzling and paradoxical. Like the plays on words in the titles and authors of the imaginary books in the series, or the "Griffin door" knocker, it's simply fun, IMO, and nothing more. Except, of course, that the assignment enables Harry, who has no clue what the Law means, to be rewarded for the *HBP's* cheek ("Just stuff a bezoar down their throats") at the expense of Hermione, who understands and applies Golpalott's Law with no reward. (Makes me dislike Slughorn rather intensely, but that's beside the point.) Carol, not entirely sure what Euclid meant or whether he's been translated correctly but pretty sure that *Golpalott's* Law is simpler than it appears to Harry From foxmoth at qnet.com Wed Apr 26 20:14:38 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 20:14:38 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151499 Carol: > > I would argue, and here I think we agree, that Kreacher is responsible > for his own decision to interpret Sirius's order "Out!" as an order to > leave the house and for his choice to go to Narcissa (his dear > Bellatrix being in Azkaban and not accessible). It was also his own > decision to obey her, providing whatever information about Sirius and > Harry that he could give without violating a direct order, injuring > Buckbeak, and lying to Harry when Harry's head appeared in the > fireplace. (Yes, of course, Narcissa and probably Lucius bear a large > share of the blame for giving him those orders.) Kreacher *chooses* to > obey those orders, gleefully thwarting his rightful master (who holds > all the "wrong" views and hates Kreacher's dear dead mistress). Pippin: This is the only part of Carol's post I would disagree with. Sirius says that Kreacher is "supposed to do whatever anyone in the family asks him." I think that Kreacher could not disobey direct orders from Narcissa, who, unlike Tonks, was a fully acknowledged member of the Black family. He was, however, responsible for the decision to go to Narcissa, for lying to Sirius about where he'd been, and for whatever he did for Narcissa beyond what was commanded of him. I don't know why Sirius never ordered Kreacher not to lie, but I suspect that wizard lore is full of cautionary tales about the possible effects of such an order. For example, if Winky had been under orders to tell the truth, she couldn't have helped Crouch conceal that she had been minding his son. Pippin From the4bodingdawn at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 04:33:58 2006 From: the4bodingdawn at yahoo.com (the4bodingdawn) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 04:33:58 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's protection of Hogwarts Halls Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151500 Has anyone noticed how many near misses have happened in the halls of Hogwarts? All of the petrifying attacks in the Chamber of Secrets were not sucessful. In the Half Blood Prince all of the fighting that takes place in the halls yet no one on our side dies(or has to kill). Even the worst injury of Greyback attacking Bill is not compleated and the damage is somewhat minimized. Even Flitwick doesn't go down until he leaves the hall. We are led to believe by Ginny that it was all Felix Felices, but that doesn't explain the Order's luck. Dumbledore's strong statment to Harry "do you think that I have once left the school unprotected during my absences this year?" I have not. Tonight, when I leave, there will be additional protection in place." Perhaps one of the reason DD had the Order in the Halls was to keep them safe as well? Can anyone cite any other near misses in the Halls? the4bodingdawn From the4bodingdawn at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 04:11:18 2006 From: the4bodingdawn at yahoo.com (the4bodingdawn) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 04:11:18 -0000 Subject: Weasleys' Wands? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151501 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "gelite67" wrote: > > I'm just wondering if Fred and George might try a new line of work -- > making wands. Apparently, Hagrid and Professor Sprout teach the > students about wand trees and bowtruckles. And Fred and George > obviously know how to make wands since they make the fake ones. > > I feel like things are going to be really heavy (understatement of the > year) in the final book, and I also wonder if the joke shop might not > be a little out of place or at least, not in popular demand, given the > circumstances that seem certain to come. Hence, the new line of work > for the twins, who are obviously gifted wizards. Even Hermione > admitted that! :) the4bodingdawn: You could be on to something there. The twins did recount how there sheild hats became very useful for the ministry. There other iteam have been used in the war like the darkness powder. I am sure that there "side business" will become more of a primary focus. Maybe Jo got rid of Ollivander for just that purpose. From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Wed Apr 26 15:27:01 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 11:27:01 -0400 Subject: Dumbledore can be alive, if you squint just right In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151502 >ET: My personal wild and crazy theory about this is that the potion >DD drank in the cave was the Draught of Living Death. I don't think >he swapped places with anyone. The potion put him a in a coma-like >state that is so close to death it evoked the portrait. >Snape's "murder" of him was a feint designed to deceive LV. LV will >let his guard down as a result thinking he now only has to "take care >of" Harry. (Not discounting the remaining members of the OOP, but DD >was the one LV feared the most.) Rachel here: But Snape clearly stated "Avada Kedavra" and pointed his wand directly at DD. Harry saw DD get thrown out of the window by the curse. Perhaps if we did not actually see the scene I would have more doubts about DD's being dead, but IMO Snape killed him. Not to mention that's quite a fall, even for someone in a coma, to survive. ~ Rachel From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Wed Apr 26 15:34:16 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 11:34:16 -0400 Subject: Something Suspicious about Severus (was :Requiescat in P In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151503 >Sherlocksridhar: >Lily's sacrifice must have changed Snape and he repents. To prove his >worth, he offers to remain in the Voldemort camp and spy. Rachel: I really loved this argument - sorry for snipping most of it! However; I thought that Snape turned to DD before the fall of Voldemort and that is why DD trusted him so much (or is at least one of the reasons)? Even if Snape was with Voldemort that night he would already have been on DDs side and Lily's sacrifice would have reinforced his loyalty to DD if fanships hold true. Snape would have been on DD's side prior to Godric's Hollow. ~ Rachel From lauciricad at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 19:49:49 2006 From: lauciricad at yahoo.com (Don L.) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 19:49:49 -0000 Subject: Something Suspicious about Severus (was :Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151504 Brady Writes: "On the same note, this is a general question. If *WE* are able to put two and two together and come to conclusion that Snape was already a spy for DD before GH happened, how come people in the Order (Remus and Minerva) agree to Harry's account in the hospital wing that DD trusted him because Snape repented being the cause for James' and Lily's deaths? Are they acting or not-in-the-know or plain dumb as far as mathematics is concerned?" My Thoughts Harry's account of Dumbledore's death at the hand of Snape must surely have been very convincing indeed. Remus, McGonagall and other OOTP members, I suspect, were certainly relying on DD confidence and trust of Snape, however with the shock of DD's death they may well have not had the time to digest the events. How much Order members knew of Snape's various missions given to him by DD, his collaboration with LV and relationship with the events at GH is somewhat speculative. I believe that Snape is DD's man, but the proof of that will be the big plot line for Harry, OOTP and readers in final book. Don L. From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Wed Apr 26 18:07:47 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 14:07:47 -0400 Subject: Something Suspicious about Severus (was :Requiescat in P In-Reply-To: <00b401c66899$0d2b14d0$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151505 Kim wrote: >Is it possible that it was the one who murmered the name "Severus" that >they >feared? I just finished rereading the series last night and this bothered >me too. But I finally read it to mean that it had called their attention >to >Dumbledore standing there. > >If it is Snape that they feared then perhaps he is Voldy's favorite but the >way the sentence reads makes no sense. Why would they have reason to fear >one of their own unless, like Voldy, he tortures them or causes them to >believe he will have Voldy do it. Rachel here: I'd have to disagree on that factor -- why would they be afraid of a whimpering old man who used to be the only one their master feared? This should give them an increased sense of self-worth (i.e. arrogance) as they put DD in such a position. No, I believe they were afraid of Snape because of his anger at that moment. Remember - DD fully trusted Snape and the DEs with him believe that he is on their side. Snape is about to prove (in their minds) whose side he is on and he does it with such control and anger that it's no wonder they were afraid. ~ Rachel From somedayalive at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 20:04:01 2006 From: somedayalive at yahoo.com (Jennifer Carlson) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 20:04:01 -0000 Subject: One thought In-Reply-To: <106313E5-EE08-4413-B4F3-CCE411C62564@alltel.net> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151507 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Karen wrote: > How was Harry planning on killing Sirius in PoA? He didn't know the > AK at the time, nor the SS. What was this 13 y.o. going to do? Harry > wasn't equipped with anything, really, but rage. So any thoughts? Jen: I don't think Harry had really thought about it. I can speak from experience that true rage is a VERY strong emotion, completely all- encompassing, and it tends to trump all rational thought...not to mention making you feel as though anything is possible. SO I doubt Harry had a "plan" at all...just that pure rage, which he thought would be enough. From somedayalive at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 20:00:04 2006 From: somedayalive at yahoo.com (Jennifer Carlson) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 20:00:04 -0000 Subject: Weasleys' Wands? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151508 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "gelite67" wrote: > I feel like things are going to be really heavy (understatement of the > year) in the final book, and I also wonder if the joke shop might not > be a little out of place or at least, not in popular demand, given the > circumstances that seem certain to come. Hence, the new line of work > for the twins, who are obviously gifted wizards. Even Hermione > admitted that! :) Jen: That's an interesting theory, and while I have no doubt that the twins *could* do it, I believe the joke shop represents something entirely different - it shows that even in the midst of darkness, the soul needs laughter...it shows a balance between light and dark. From mandorino222 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 20:05:11 2006 From: mandorino222 at yahoo.com (mandorino222) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 20:05:11 -0000 Subject: Harry's ability to detect traces of magic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151509 > Angie > > One thing is for certain, Harry's got to figure out how to detect and > destroy Horcruxes. Nick now: Obviously speculation... I've always thought that sensing magic would essentially be Ron's function in the HRH horcrux killing triumvirate. He's usually good with sensory things/sense of direction. He's the one who smells the Troll in SS, he's the first one to hear the Durmstrang ship in GOF and he also is good with sense of direction (finding their way to Trelawney's room in POA). Plus he's the only one who grew up in a wizard family, so he may have a better feel for these things than people who grew up with Muggles. From somedayalive at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 20:13:44 2006 From: somedayalive at yahoo.com (Jennifer Carlson) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 20:13:44 -0000 Subject: House Elf loyalty was Re: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151510 > Pippin: > I think the spells that control House Elves produce only the illusion of loyalty, > just as love potions produce only the illusion of love. Jen: I too think that is the key. Think for example of the slaves in American history...most of them would never have dreamed of plotting against their masters, because they knew what the consequences would be...but there were *some* who were so filled with hate who would venture in that direction...that is how I believe Kreacher has become. House elves are not puppets...they have minds of their own, and genuine emotions...wizards can force a *facade* of loyalty but cannot make them truly loyal as they are thinking, feeling beings. From mandorino222 at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 20:18:34 2006 From: mandorino222 at yahoo.com (mandorino222) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 20:18:34 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151511 Magpie: They're I think based on brownies who help around the house but get offended and leave if you try to pay them. Nick now: Haven't you guys read "The Shoemaker and the Elves"? Essentially there's a poor shoemaker who goes to sleep with enough leather for one pair of shoes. When he wakes up the next morning, they've been made into a perfect pair of shoes, which sell immediately. He then buys enough leather for two pairs of shoes, and when he gets up the next morning, there are two pairs of shoes pre made, both of which sell immediately. This goes on for awhile, unitl the shoemaker stays up at night to see who's making the shoes and he sees that they're elves that sneak into his window and work all night with big smiles on their faces. He notices that they haven't got any clothes, so he makes them some clothing. When he wakes up the next morning the clothes are gone, but the elves didn't make any more shoes. He never sees them again... From quick_silver71 at yahoo.ca Wed Apr 26 21:02:50 2006 From: quick_silver71 at yahoo.ca (quick_silver71) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 21:02:50 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151512 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" wrote: > I suppose that is what you are saying, that Dumbledore should have > realized that Harry couldn't stand to hear such things about Sirius > and that Harry needed a comforting narrative he could cling to > in order to come to grips with what happened. > Nor would it have comforted Harry for long. It might have numbed > the pain for a while, but it would only have been worse when Harry > realized the truth, just as Harry's idealized vision of his father made > the pain of learning that he'd been a bully while he was at school > all the worse for him. I had to snip most of this excellent post unfortunately. I don't begrudge Dumbledore the right to comment on Sirius and Sirius's relationship with Kreacher, indeed it's important that he tells Harry that IMO (especially considering that Harry has to work with Kreacher in HBP). What bothers me is that Dumbledore really "kid gloves" Harry...he doesn't really point out that Harry bears a large amount of responsibility for what happened that night (among the "good" side Harry bears the most responsibility IMO...more then Snape, Sirius, or Dumbledore). So Dumbledore makes this is big speech about Sirius and what Sirius did wrong, and how Kreacher figures into it, etc...but he basically overlooks Harry and how Harry reacts to Snape's involvement in it. It bothers me because well Sirius's flaws and causes death are no doubt important they pale beside the flaws that caused Harry to rush to the Ministry or place all of blame and hatred onto Snape. In my mind Dumbledore broke a key rule...that "the living are more important then the dead". Sirius is dead and as major as his flaws are they can't be used against him anymore whereas Harry's flaws are very real and can still be used against him. And in HBP Harry remembers Dumbledore lesson about Kreacher and doesn't trust him but he continues to hate Snape (an understatement). So IMO Dumbledore put out a bonfire (Sirius and Kreacher) and ignored the forest fire (Harry and Snape). Quick_Silver From sherriola at earthlink.net Wed Apr 26 21:48:30 2006 From: sherriola at earthlink.net (Sherry Gomes) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 14:48:30 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151513 Quick_Silver What bothers me is that Dumbledore really "kid gloves" Harry...he doesn't really point out that Harry bears a large amount of responsibility for what happened that night (among the "good" side Harry bears the most responsibility IMO...more then Snape, Sirius, or Dumbledore). Sherry now: Oh my gosh, no, no, no! Harry does not bear any blame. Sirius does not bear any blame. Bella and Voldemort bear the blame. This is the line that will always get a response from me. It's like blaming the victim, and I can't bear it. Harry did exactly what any sane loving person would have done if they thought their loved one was in danger. He rushed off to help. Who would not have done the same thing? He had every reason to believe the vision was real, because of the very real vision of Arthur's attack. He could not risk the vision being correct and not helping. He had to try. He shows the depth of his love and concern by doing it. It doesn't matter about the occlumency lessons or what Snape supposedly tried to teach him. If Dumbledore had spoken to Harry straight all year, Harry might have hesitated. but he had no reason to have confidence in what he'd been told about Voldemort planting things in his mind because of the messenger who told him. No matter what you think of Snape, at the point of where their relationship is and knowing Harry is only 15, he couldn't be expected to take Snape's word, against the absolute truth that he had seen Arthur's attack and been able to get help to him on time. In my opinion, Harry did the absolute only thing he could have done under the circumstances, and still be true to his nature and his role as hero. The only blame goes on the ones who betrayed the depth of the bond between Harry and Sirius, and Bella and her master for setting it up. I think if I thought I was responsible for the death of someone I loved I'd kill myself. Could you imagine a child having to carry that burden? Shudder. Sherry From tonks_op at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 22:41:19 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 22:41:19 -0000 Subject: Golpalott's Third Law In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151514 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" wrote: > > DA Jones wrote: > All this law means is that if you take two separate potions > with there separate anti-dotes and blend or mix them together then the new antidote is both of the previous antidotes plus something else as a result of the effect of mixing them together. > > Carol responds: > I agree with this definition. However, I thought that JKR was simply spoofing the aphorism attributed to Euclid, "a whole is greater than the sum of its parts." Tonks: Or maybe she is giving us a clue to the outcome of the war. How will this play out in the 7th book? What potions or combination of potion and ?? will make it greater than the sum of its parts? What type of concoction can the kids put together that will help in the defect of LV. Will Slughorn help? I think that we will see many things helping Harry on different fronts. Everything from the Weasley's with their special talents to a new type of potion never used before. DD is right, it will take a combined effort to defeat LV and his followers. It will take different groups coming together as well as the houses and the combined talents of many. Tonks_op From lauciricad at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 22:33:52 2006 From: lauciricad at yahoo.com (Don L.) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 22:33:52 -0000 Subject: Tangent: Mr. Ollivander - Re: Weasleys' Wands? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151515 What is the current thinking on the disapperance of Mr. Ollivander. Has he gone to ground? Has the ministry hidden him - perhaps preventing LV for creating a weapon - super wand? Has LV killed or kidnapped him? For what purpose? Don L. From gav_fiji at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 00:58:04 2006 From: gav_fiji at yahoo.com (Goddlefrood) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 00:58:04 -0000 Subject: Tangent: Mr. Ollivander - Re: Weasleys' Wands? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151516 > Don L. posited: > What is the current thinking on the disapperance of Mr. Ollivander. At first I could only think that Ollivander had disappeared due to activities of Voldemort. The thinking behind this was that he would be perhaps (beside Gregorevich) the greatest expert on wands and their properties in the wizarding world. Voldemort, during the graveyard duel in GoF, is described as being rather perturbed by the effect of the wand link between his and Harry's wand. He, like Dumbledore, would most probably have later realised that this was due to the Priori Incantatem effect. He may not have known how to counter this effect, so in view of his anticipation of a further show down with Harry, he would need some information on how to counteract this effect. Who better than Ollivander to supply this information? Ollivander would then become a liability and have to be neutralised. This is perhaps the simplest explanation, but one that has not found favour with many theorists. Others have postulated that he ran away with Ravenclaw's wand that happened to be the one displayed in his window. This seems unlikely but could just be possible. The origin of Ollivander's name is, however of great interest and ties in with the date of the founding of his shop. My position on this is that it is an amalgam og OLynthus, LIVy and lysANDER. Olynthus was the site of a siege by the Apartans in 382 B. C. Titus Livy mentioned this in his histories and Lysander was one of the legendary kings of Sparta. Anyone else is invited to make of this what they will. TTFN Goddlefrood From somedayalive at yahoo.com Wed Apr 26 20:05:53 2006 From: somedayalive at yahoo.com (Jennifer Carlson) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 20:05:53 -0000 Subject: Harry using Dark Magic In-Reply-To: <001901c6690c$0d6d51b0$58d517c4@Sharon> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151517 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "H.M.S" wrote: > What will happen if they both do equally powerful spells, plus > Harry's determination, love, etc??! Jen: I think that's the key...it is the INTENT behind the magic which gives it its strongest power, and that love is stronger than hate. From bawilson at citynet.net Thu Apr 27 01:23:22 2006 From: bawilson at citynet.net (Bruce Alan Wilson) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 21:23:22 -0400 Subject: Relationships; House Elves Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151518 > >>Susan: > The girl who is grieved by the plight of the House Elves? Betsy Hp: >> An excellent example. Hermione didn't have a single conversation with a single house elf. Because *they* weren't important except in what they stood for, in *her* opinion. << BAW: Right. House Elves are by definition NOT HUMAN. Humans enslaving other humans is wrong; we all know that; no matter how well their masters treat them. But we have seen that most House Elves *like* serving their masters, no matter how ill-treated they are. Dobby is the only one we know who actually likes being free. Mr. Crouch presents freedom to Winky as a *punishment*, and she apparently agrees. Stockholm Syndrome? Perhaps, but that's a HUMAN reaction. > >>Susan: > Ron is SO immature. Betsy Hp: >> Oh, I think Ron has behaved well within his age bracket. Both he and Harry were bad dates at the Yule Ball. But then, neither of them had mothers telling them the proper way to treat a date. (Harry because his is dead, Ron because his is Molly.) << BAW: Even better than a mother to teach a young man how to deal with girls is an elder sister or a youngish aunt. Ron has no elder sister and Harry's aunt is worse than useless as far as that is concerned; even if Petunia had deigned to give Harry dating advice, it would probably have been most inapplicable. (BTW, when Harry got paired off with Ginny, my first thought was, "I certainly wouldn't want to date a girl with six older brothers; she'd probably know entirely too much about guys.") Nikkalmati: >> Whether it makes a difference or not, there is a right and a wrong way to handle things and Harry is doing it the wrong way. << BAW: Conceding that, a little goody two-shoes who handled things right all the time would be a rather dull character, wouldn't he? Would anyone read such a book, or find it very interesting if s/he did? Nikkalmati: >> Here is something that has been puzzling me. How can Kreacher be dangerous? How can Kreacher betray Sirius, the heir of the house of Black, even by trickery or deception? Even with the collusion of Narcissa? Kreacher's treachery does not seem to fit what we have seen of house elves. << BAW: Kreacher betrayed Sirius to a close blood-relative; Harry is not bloodkin to the Malfoys (or only very distantly). That makes a difference. BAW From katbofaye at aol.com Thu Apr 27 00:36:46 2006 From: katbofaye at aol.com (katssirius) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 00:36:46 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore might be alive Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151519 On the website the Red Hen, www.redhen-publications.com it has been theorized that Dumbledore was wearing a physical shield for the AK curse. Although no spell will block the AK, we know objects will block the spell from the graveyard scene in GOF. Dumbledore may have been sinking down with the weight of the object that was meant to protect him. It sure seems that he was not surprised to find Draco or to make the request of Severus. Shock was not described by JKR. Also when Draco says he lured DD there with the DE sign, Dumbledore answers Well yes and no ... This is the same answer he gives Harry in SS about the Mirror of Erised when Harry is not quite right about his guess of the mirror's purpose. I cannot understand the answer unless DD purposely showed up for the appointment with Draco and eventually Severus. Falls are not fatal to wizards. Neville is an example of this in SS when he tells how his family tested his magical ability. DD's fall is described as if it was in slow motion and no one saw him hit bottom. In addition AK does not blast the person into the air. The point I an unable to refute is the presence of DD's picture in the headmaster's office. I suppose those pictures can indicate the headmaster is simply former as opposed to dead and former. DD will be back but not before the end of Book 7. katssirius From dkrasnansky at hotmail.com Thu Apr 27 01:19:55 2006 From: dkrasnansky at hotmail.com (david_krasnansky) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 01:19:55 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore can be alive, if you squint just right In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151520 > >ET: My personal wild and crazy theory about this is that the > >potion DD drank in the cave was the Draught of Living Death. > >I don't think he swapped places with anyone. The potion put > >him a in a coma-like state that is so close to death it evoked > >the portrait. Snape's "murder" of him was a feint designed to > >deceive LV. > > Rachel here: > But Snape clearly stated "Avada Kedavra" and pointed his wand > directly at DD. Harry saw DD get thrown out of the window by > the curse. Perhaps if we did not actually see the scene I would > have more doubts about DD's being dead, but IMO Snape killed him. > Not to mention that's quite a fall, even for someone in a coma, > to survive. David: Another reason to think Wormtail is polyjuiced to look like Dumbledore is by what doesn't happen in book 6 (see beginning of the thread). In book 5 Harry on more than one occassion, after looking at Dumbledore, gets an urge to bite, to strike. In book 6 that never happens. With all the time HP spends with Dumbledore one would think that the urge to bite would have occured at least once. That leads me to believe it isn't Dumbledore. An explanation for Dumbledore in the portrait could simply be one of the other headmasters taking a polyjuice to look like Dumbledore. The idea that has been expressed elsewhere that Snape and Dumbledore have switched places doesn't hold for me because of the scene where Snape reveals he is the Half-blood Prince when Harry tries to use Snape's own spell against him. This reaction is so quick and personal I beleive it could only come from Snape himself. From kchuplis at alltel.net Thu Apr 27 01:54:46 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 20:54:46 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore can be alive, if you squint just right In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151521 On Apr 26, 2006, at 8:19 PM, david_krasnansky wrote: > Another reason to think Wormtail is polyjuiced to look like > Dumbledore is by what doesn't happen in book 6 (see beginning of the > thread). In book 5 Harry on more than one occassion, after looking at > Dumbledore, gets an urge to bite, to strike. In book 6 that never > happens. With all the time HP spends with Dumbledore one would think > that the urge to bite would have occured at least once. That leads me > to believe it isn't Dumbledore. kchuplis: That is because LV severs the link between them once he realizes it is a liability more than a benefit. It all had to do with Harry being an open connection to LV in OoTP. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 02:13:33 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 02:13:33 -0000 Subject: WOMBAT Grade 1: Magical Law In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151522 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Petra Pan" wrote: > > > 9. Which of the following wizarding laws, in your view, > > stands in most urgent need of change? > So, can we consider the critical assessments of these laws to be > JKR's criticisms of these Magical Laws? > > Does this then contribute to our understanding of the themes in HP > as JKR develops them? Alla: Hehe. I told you earlier that my answers to WOMBAT were often intuitive guesses, so I was not sure how much my answer would contribute but I could not resist trying. See, I don't know if those answers are JKR's critique or not. I mean obviously it is her critique as the creator of the Potterverse OR those reflect the unhappiness of the different population groups in Potterverse and JKR as an author does not really share this critique. I mean, I think it can be true at least for some answers. I for example really doubt that JKR thinks that definition of "mugglebaiting" needs to be made less stringent. I am thinking that she is more likely to think that "mugglebaiting" should be punishable more severely not less, but some "outstanding" citizens of Potterverse ( like dear Lucius and others) may think differently, no? > > a. The detection of underage magic in all-magic households > > (currently impossible) > > This problem with this law is not news, having already been > established in canon during the exposition of how the young Tom > Riddle had blamed the 3 murders on Morfin. > > How might changing this law benefit the WW at this time > especially since detection remains impossible? Alla: This is a great example of course of how changing this law may benefit WW. I mean, to prevent framing of the innocent person sure is worth the trouble. The funny thing is that I did not even for a second consider that this law needs changing ( I think I remember this one correctly, hopefully, because most of my answers I forgot by now. Oh well). The first thing that came to my mind was the mischief twins and Ginny and maybe other Weasleys kids were able to create because Ministry cannot catch them doing magic. And I was thinking that more Weasleys mischief is good. :) > > b. The ban on goblin possession of wands > > (ought to be lifted) > > Have there been mentions in canon that would support the lift of > the ban on goblin possession of wands? Under what circumstances > might the ban have been imposed in the first place? > > How might lifting this ban benefit the WW at this time? Alla: I speculate that it was emposed after another Goblin rebellion. I do think that it will benefit WW a great deal if not now, maybe in book 7 if that happens. That is if Goblins will join humans in the fight against Voldemort. > > c. The re-classification of centaurs and merpeople > > (ought to take their views into account) > > JKR has touched upon this in her depictions of the centaurs in > the books and the discussion of the classification process in > FBaWtFT. Does this imply that others either are happy with > how they are classified or have no views to be taken into > account? > > How might the re-classification of centaurs and merpeople to > better reflect their views of who they are benefit the WW at this > time? Alla: Oh, I have no clue. I guess it all goes towards the unity of all races at the end of the books, or at least the beginning of the such unity, since if all races join together in the happy dance at the end, I would consider it to be quite unrealistic, but I have no idea how that may play out. > > d. The guidelines on house-elf welfare > > (need to be enforced) > > Have we heard about such guidelines in canon? What might they > be? Under what circumstances might the guidelines have been > set forth in the first place? Why aren't they being enforced? > > Not that it sounds as if it would enforce these guidelines, > but in MoM there is that Office of House-Elf Relocation. When > might that office actually take action? Are the relocations > done on behalf of house-elves or on behalf of the owners? > > How might the improvement of house-elf welfare benefit the WW > at this time? Alla: Oh, the house elfs. I was not surprised to learn that such guidelines exist, since IMO it goes towards the argument that house elfs actually are enslaved and not just really like serving humans. I mean, if serving humans was in house-efs nature, why would guidelines needed to be there in the first place? On the other hand, I have to think about it. > > e. Definitions of 'Muggle-baiting' > > (needs to be made less stringent) > > What might this imply about the consequences of Muggle-baiting? > > Does 'needs to be made less stringent' imply that *not* enough acts > of Muggle-baiting are defined as being legally punishable at this > time? > > Would a *less* stringent definition mean that *more* acts would be > considered punishable? (My reading of this part seems to differ > from Belinda's as published at the Lexicon quite a bit.) > > What circumstances might have brought about the need to define > this? > > How might changing the definitions benefit the WW at this time? > Alla: Actually I also read "less" stringent definition as "more acts will be considered punishable", I mean less stringent means less strict, right? That would mean that more acts of Muggle baiting would be allowed, IMO, that is why I think that it would only benefit DE and DE wannabes. IMO of course. Thanks for a great post. From dontask2much at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 02:20:37 2006 From: dontask2much at yahoo.com (rebecca) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 22:20:37 -0400 Subject: Defeat vs Vanquish (was Re:Is Harry a Murderer / Killer) References: Message-ID: <01a101c669a1$2c8a9a90$6501a8c0@MITRE.ORG> No: HPFGUIDX 151523 > Carol, who thinks that Harry acquired the power of possession from LV > at Godric's Hollow and that his defeat of Voldemort will somehow > involve that power Rebecca: Well, let's look at the word "defeat". According to the prophecy, Harry has to "vanquish" his Dark Smarmy-ness. Vanquish is a very interesting word, since it can not only mean defeat in a contest or battle, it can also mean in an emotional sense to "overcome" or "subdue." This definition is particularly poignant to me, because as DD tells Harry several times, Harry doesn't realize how very special he is given all that he has been through. Love saved him once (in OoP) and perhaps it will do so again, along with inspiring those around him, namely Ron and Hermoine (perhaps others in the Order, too) to help find the Horcruxes. 3 heads are better than 1, maybe :) I've read several debates here and elsewhere specifically about the consideration that Harry would be a murderer should he kill Lord Voldemort. One can theorize logically that Harry might not have to kill him to "vanquish" him. rebecca From willsonkmom at msn.com Thu Apr 27 02:33:06 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 02:33:06 -0000 Subject: Golpalott's Third Law In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151524 > Carol responds: > I agree with this definition. However, I thought that JKR was simply > spoofing the aphorism attributed to Euclid, "a whole is greater than > the sum of its parts." Potioncat: Agreed, particularly when you look at the name, which I didn't pick up until I read it out loud to my son: Gulp a lot. Which is what you would have to do to get all the antidote down. From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 03:06:57 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 03:06:57 -0000 Subject: Something Suspicious about Severus (was :Requiescat in Pace, In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151525 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sridharj_ap" wrote: >> Even during his Hogwarts days, he invented so many spells, which even > James Potter and his friends could not. They stole *his* spells and > used it on him. Alla: Um, quick question. Could you provide canon for "stole" Snape's spells as opposed to seeing how Snape openly used it on somebody else and then using it? I mean, I am also speculating but considering the fact that Lupin tells Harry that at some point half of the school used Levicorpus ( paraphrasing), I find it a bit far fetched that half of the school would steal spells from Snape as in " go looking for his notes and taking those notes away from him". I speculate that he was not opposed to using his spells in public at all. JMO, Alla From AllieS426 at aol.com Thu Apr 27 03:16:00 2006 From: AllieS426 at aol.com (allies426) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 03:16:00 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: <20060423140537.311.qmail@web61312.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151526 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Joe Goodwin wrote: > Not to mention we don't really know that Krum adored Hermione. We do know she was the thing he would miss the most. That could however have simply been because she didn't follow him around because he was a Quidditch player. While we are on the subject did anyone else think it was really creepy that she was the thing he would miss the most? > > Fluer ,who people like to discount as shallow, would miss her little sister the most. Harry would miss Ron the most which also makes sense. Krum though would miss a girl he barely knew. Not his family, not his friends back at Durmstrang, not any of his Quidditch teammates. That struck me as very creepy. > Allie: I also found it very strange - Krum would miss Hermione the most, even though she can't even spare him the time of day after he pulls her out of the water? The whole situation with Krum was strange because he's so much older than she is. At that age, those years make a big difference. That aside, maybe his best friend was inaccessible and they couldn't very well kidnap his MOTHER. Imagine the headlines, "Triwizard Champion Rescues Mommy from Mermaids." The judges had to kidnap someone available and who in THEIR OPINION the champion would greatly miss. (What I also don't understand is why nobody told Fleur that they weren't really going to let Gabrielle drown after she was disqualified. But that's irrelevant.) From AllieS426 at aol.com Thu Apr 27 03:35:34 2006 From: AllieS426 at aol.com (allies426) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 03:35:34 -0000 Subject: "Go get your invisibility cloak" In-Reply-To: <39d.1859ecc.317e08f3@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151527 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, BrwNeil at ... wrote: > > I'm glad you pointed this out because it causes me to give more credit to > JKR. I thought she had just had him forget it to make it easier for herself as > a writer. Actually this show that as usual, she thought it out well. > > Neil > Allie: Except that Dumbledore would never have forgotten that Harry is supposed to carry his invisibility cloak at all times. Instead of telling him to get it, he would have asked, "Do you have your invisibility cloak, Harry?" From dkrasnansky at hotmail.com Thu Apr 27 02:23:33 2006 From: dkrasnansky at hotmail.com (david_krasnansky) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 02:23:33 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore can be alive, if you squint just right In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151528 > On Apr 26, 2006, at 8:19 PM, david_krasnansky wrote: > > > Another reason to think Wormtail is polyjuiced to look like > > Dumbledore is by what doesn't happen in book 6 (see beginning of the > > thread). In book 5 Harry on more than one occassion, after looking at > > Dumbledore, gets an urge to bite, to strike. In book 6 that never > > happens. With all the time HP spends with Dumbledore one would think > > that the urge to bite would have occured at least once. That leads me > > to believe it isn't Dumbledore. > > kchuplis: > > That is because LV severs the link between them once he realizes it > is a liability more than a benefit. It all had to do with Harry being > an open connection to LV in OoTP. > David: I hope that's not so. The link between LV and Harry plays a lot to my theory that Dumbledore plans to take advantage of what Voldemort sees. My theory is Dumbledore polyjuiced as Wormtail will learn of the Horcruxes locations from Voldemort when Voldemort "sees" Harry hunting for them. Voldemort will entrust the only person he does not fear, Wormtail, with the knowledge of the Horcrux locations. Voldemort, driven by paranoia, will command Wormtail to move the Horcruxs to safer locations. From tonks_op at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 03:36:45 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 03:36:45 -0000 Subject: Tangent: Mr. Ollivander - In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151529 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Goddlefrood" wrote: > > > Don L. posited: > > > What is the current thinking on the disapperance of Mr. Ollivander. Snip> Goddlefrood: > Others have postulated that he ran away with Ravenclaw's wand that > happened to be the one displayed in his window. This seems unlikely but could just be possible. > > The origin of Ollivander's name is, however of great interest and > ties in with the date of the founding of his shop. Tonks: I just did the anagram finder for Ollivander and came up with... 'Raven do ill'. It may be farfetched. But if that is Ravenclaw's wand in his window, could he be the last of the Ravenclaws? Tonks_op From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 03:31:34 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 03:31:34 -0000 Subject: WOMBAT Grade 1: Magical Law In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151530 > Alla: > > Actually I also read "less" stringent definition as "more acts will > be considered punishable", I mean less stringent means less strict, > right? That would mean that more acts of Muggle baiting would be > allowed, IMO, that is why I think that it would only benefit DE and > DE wannabes. IMO of course. > > Thanks for a great post. > Alla: Gah. Hate to waste a post, but I of course have to correct myself. It should be "I also read "less stringent definition" as "less acts of mugglebaiting will be considered punishable. From brahadambal at indiatimes.com Thu Apr 27 03:46:34 2006 From: brahadambal at indiatimes.com (latha279) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 03:46:34 -0000 Subject: Something Suspicious about Severus (was :Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix) In-Reply-To: <20060426125143.92629.qmail@web37009.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151531 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, catherine higgins wrote: > > > > latha279 wrote: Brady: > On the same note, this is a general question. If *WE* are able to put > two and two together and come to conclusion that Snape was already a spy for DD before GH happened, how come people in the Order (Remus and Minerva) agree to Harry's account in the hospital wing that DD trusted him because Snape repented being the cause for James' and Lily's deaths? > > Catherine: > Well, in a way he (Snape) had a hand in James' and Lily's deaths, being the one who yold Voldemort about the prophesy. Voldemort was the "cause of death" but Snape was at least a contributing factor. Like in hospitals, cause of death is quite often "pneumonia" but that wasn't the reason they were in hospital. They had an illness that put them in hospital, and they develop pneumonia, and due to weakened immune systems they pass away. Had they not had an underlying disease, the pneumonia would likely not have been life-threatening. > > In a sense, Snape is responsible for the disease, and LV is an opportunistic virus that cause the deaths of Lily and James. Harry had been given passive immunity from Lily's sacrifice, therefore survived. > > All this to say, Harry wasn't really wrong in saying that Snape had a part in his parent's death, but I don't believe that GH was the reason for Snape's repentance. I believe DD when he says that Snape had turned spy *before* LV downfall. Who knows what the others in the order know about Snape. Obviously, not too much. > > Catherine > I don't agree this point. Steve and I have given enough explaination on this and said that Snape is not as culpable for the Potters' deaths as Peter Pettigrew. Snape had no idea that it would be the Potters' who will be affected. If only the first part of the prophecy was *conveyed* to LV (i assume this sonveying part, because if Trelawney knew that somebody eavesdropped that night, it means she was out of her trance AND that means the prophecy was over. That also means that Snape knew everything the prophecy said. This indicates that it was around that time that Snape agreed to be DD's spy in LVs camp.), then Snape was already doing his double agent thing. All the more reason to not believe the circumstances given by DD for Snape's repentence. James' and Sirius' deaths are surely not something Snape would ever regret. Snape is not that type of a person. Snape (as much as I believe him to be DD's man) is still not an angel. JMO, Brady. From gelite67 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 03:43:30 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 03:43:30 -0000 Subject: Tangent: Mr. Ollivander - Re: Weasleys' Wands? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151532 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Don L." wrote: > > What is the current thinking on the disapperance of Mr. Ollivander. > > Has he gone to ground? > Has the ministry hidden him - perhaps preventing LV for creating a > weapon - super wand? > Has LV killed or kidnapped him? For what purpose? > > Don L. > Angie here: I'd love to think the MOM has hidden him, but I doubt that they'd have that much insight or foreplanning. However, I wouldn't put it past DD to hide him away. I'm sure DD knows that LV is getting desperate after the fiasco at the MOM in OOP -- he still doesn't have the prophesy, Harry's still alive, and Harry still has the wand that can "block" LV's (for lack of a better term). I would have thought LV would have attempted to kidnap Ollivander sooner, actually, to have him make another wand. But would a second wand "choose" LV while his other wand is still operable? From midnightowl6 at hotmail.com Thu Apr 27 04:19:37 2006 From: midnightowl6 at hotmail.com (PJ) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 04:19:37 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151533 Pippin: >But Dumbledore was grieving too. He wasn't emotionally attached to >Sirius, but he was emotionally attached to Harry, and so he too had >suffered a dreadful blow. He was not just lecturing here, IMO, he too >had an emotional need to construct a story of what happened. >It may be that hearing Harry's view of Sirius was just as painful to DD >as hearing Dumbledore's view of Sirius was to Harry. PJ: Sorry but I don't buy that for a minute because Sirius was the only one who, from day one, could've really upset all of Dumbledore's careful plans concerning Harry. In a way I think it was a bit of a relief to Dumbledore when Sirius died. We all sort of wondered why Dumbledore hadn't gone to see Sirius in prison after GH to determine his guilt or innocence, but the more I thought about Sirius and his bull in a china shop mentality the more I realized that the *last* person Dumbledore would have wanted freed was Sirius! Just think about it a minute... If Dumbledore had gone to AP he'd have had to admit Sirius was innocent and try to get him released. As his Godfather, Sirius would've had every right to take Harry from the Dursleys and move him into his own home. What was one of the first things he did when he finally did get out of prison? He offered Harry a home. Dumbledore knew that this was inevitable and that Harry's safety was at stake so he left Sirius in prison, purposely not going to talk to him so that he could claim ignorance, and put Harry with the Dursleys. Harry wasn't happy but he was *safe*. Since no one had ever broken out of AP, Sirius was effectively out of Dumbledore's way. Maybe he had plans to spring him after Harry's 17th, maybe not. Dumbleore wouldn't have had a problem with Harry living with Sirius once he came of age but he'd have done anything he could to keep Harry with the Dursleys till his 17th birthday. That includes making sure the Dursleys were intimidated enough to agree to one more year. (HBP) Honestly, while I don't feel Dumbledore *disliked* Sirius I do think he was a thorn in Dumbledore's side because of his attachment to Harry and his immaturity. Sirius *knew* the Dursleys... either through talking to Lily or having met them in person (that awful boy?)... so he knew they wanted nothing to do with magic, the Wizarding World or Lily's offspring. There was no way Dumbledore would ever be able to convince Sirius that Harry would be safer in a non magical household that didn't want him than he'd be in his own! The potential problems that Sirius brought to all Dumbledore's carefully constructed plans were enormous and I think that made Dumbledore impatient and unconcerned about Sirius's restlessness at 12 GP. He didn't wish him harm, he just wanted him safely tucked away and out of his hair... And once he died Dumbledore had to make sure that Harry didn't make a martyre of him and get off task. To me it was all pretty cold on Dumbledore's part, but he had a job to do and he did it well enough to where Harry quickly puts Sirius behind him and is soon ready to pick up the Horcrux hunt... PJ From bboyminn at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 06:18:45 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 06:18:45 -0000 Subject: House Elf Loyalty In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151534 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jennifer Carlson" wrote: > > > Pippin: > > I think the spells that control House Elves produce only the > > illusion of loyalty, just as love potions produce only the > > illusion of love. > > > Jen: > ... Think for example of the slaves in American history...most > of them would never have dreamed of plotting against their > masters, because they knew what the consequences would > be...but there were *some* who were so filled with hate who > would venture in that direction...that is how I believe Kreacher > has become. > bboyminn: I've always objected to people comparing house-elves to human slaves. While there are some parallels, and on occassion it does give us a framework to illustrate their plight, I don't think it really holds up well. Slaves are kidnapped and forced into service against their will. They are prisoners who either work or die; though usually it's both. House-elves on the other hand eagerly and actively seek out the service of humans, and they do this honorably. Unfortunately, the humans who take on house-elves are rarely as honorable as the Elves. > Jen: > > House elves are not puppets...they have minds of their own, and > genuine emotions...wizards can force a *facade* of loyalty but > cannot make them truly loyal as they are thinking, feeling beings. > bboyminn: I have my own theory about house-elves and their honor. I think a house-elves truest source of honor and deepest loyalty is to himself. By that I mean, honor and loyalty to their history and their ancestry. To betray a Master, is to betray your ancestors who made a commitment, who swore a solemn oath to serve a particular family - the Master's family. I think this makes a house-elves' honor much stronger because it is at the core of their history and it spans many generations of their own elf family. You can betray your 'employer', but it is much harder to betray your family. Elves are willing to be treated horribly by their Masters, many even willing to accept death, before they would betray their solemn oath or the oath of their ancestors. If you've read my other essays here on House-Elves then you know that my greater theory is that no external force of law or magic bind an Elf to his Master. What bind him is Elfin Honor. It is also my personal fan fiction extension of this theory that provides the key to house-elf freedom and civil rights. At some point, if Hermione ever wises up, she will take a new approach in which Elf owners either have to admit to slavery, which is a very politically INCorrect thing, or they have to admit that house-elves are free. If Elves are free, then that opens the door for the expansion of their rights in the magical community. It's a slightly more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it. Certainly, I can't prove any of this, but it's my instinctive sense of what is happening. Once again, House-Elves enter their agreement bond by the honor of their collective history and their ancestors. Wizards, over time, have taken house-elf honor and twisted it to their benefit, and in doing so, have essentially forced the circumstance that resembles slavery onto the Elves. With regard to Elves, there is very little honor amoung self-serving wizards. Short version: The Elves are fine, it's the wizards that need to be fixed. For what it's worth. Steve/bboyminn From ms_petra_pan at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 09:25:09 2006 From: ms_petra_pan at yahoo.com (Petra) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 02:25:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: WOMBAT Grade 1: Magical Law - definitions of Muggle-baiting In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060427092509.85329.qmail@web51914.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151535 Alla, at first: > Actually I also read "less" stringent definition as "more acts will > be considered punishable", I mean less stringent means less strict, > right? That would mean that more acts of Muggle baiting would be > allowed, IMO, that is why I think that it would only benefit DE and > DE wannabes. Then beating me to the punch, Alla corrects herself: > It should be "I also read "less stringent definition" as "less acts > of mugglebaiting will be considered punishable. Ah. Well, I beg to differ. There seems to be quite a lot of different readings and understandings of this. Belinda Hobbs of the Lexicon says, > I would think that Muggle-baiting guidelines would only be important > to unscrupulous wizards, and therefore making them less stringent, > not urgent at all (eek). at http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizworld/wombat.html But the text of the 9e is actually: > 9. Which of the following wizarding laws, in your view, stands in > most urgent need of change? > e. Definitions of Muggle-baiting (needs to be made less stringent) Guidelines to Muggle-baiting would make this activity one that the MoM sanctions. After all, why provide guidelines on *how* to Muggle- bait if this is something unlawful? But in this question we are being asked to contemplate the need to change the definitions of Muggle-baiting so that they are less stringent. Nothing here about guidelines. Not that this is the same as what you are saying, Alla... I think most of us can agree that the other options are within the themes that JKR is developing in the books. To read this option as Alla or Belinda has read it makes this choice the anomaly since JKR would certainly not advocate that Muggle-baiting be in some way encouraged. Would she? To read this option the way I suggest would bring this back in line with the other options given for question 9 as fitting in with JKR's various themes. Let me recap (but better this time, I hope) what I said in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/151463 Given: MoM punishes anti-muggle pranksters who Muggle-bait (we know this because of Willy Widdershins) Also a given: MoM would have to qualify an act as being Muggle-baiting before punishing the perpetrators for committing Muggle-baiting Then does it not follow that a strict definition of this crime would mean that *fewer* anti-muggle acts would qualify as being criminal acts of Muggle-baiting? Alla: > I for example really doubt that JKR thinks that definition > of "mugglebaiting" needs to be made less stringent. > > I am thinking that she is more likely to think that "mugglebaiting" > should be punishable more severely not less, You (and everyone else?) seem to have read the option as "we should be less strict about considering acts to be Muggle-baiting" which would indicate that Muggle-baiting-lite is to be considered acceptable. This is a social attitude that we would not want to encourage, of course. But remember, the subject here is "laws that require changing" so we need to pay attention to the likelihood that definitions of a crime that are too stringent (which I read to mean too narrow, too strict, too tight, etc.) could lead to people being let off the hook for committing acts that didn't *quite* qualify as being that crime. IOW, the WW can get tougher on criminals engaged in acts of Muggle- baiting by changing the law so that the definition is more encompassing (read: less stringent) and would apply to more acts of this nature. Hmm...in canon, JKR has already explored the flaws of some of the other laws mentioned in question 9: the patchy detection of underage magic, the classification of centaurs as being less than humans, and the abuse that can happen to house-elves. But have we been given to understand that the definitions of Muggle- baiting has been so strict or exacting as to make convicting someone of that crime difficult or impossible? Not really. JKR seems to have this in the back of her mind as part of her concept of the WW that informs the structure of Harry's universe. But she has yet to shine the spotlight on this part of the underpinning. With that in mind, this question and answer should have been written to make the ramification of such a change more clear. Petra, swimming against the tide here? a n :) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From OctobersChild48 at aol.com Thu Apr 27 03:23:27 2006 From: OctobersChild48 at aol.com (OctobersChild48 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 23:23:27 EDT Subject: Hagrid and non-verbal spells Message-ID: <37d.21341b8.3181932f@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151536 Peggy: > I noticed today that Hagrid appears to have done a couple > non-verbal spells. In Sorcerer's Stone, when he and Harry were going to buy > Harry's stuff in London, Hagrid tapped the boat with his umbrella/wand > pieces to speed it up, but didn't say anything. And when they got to Diagon > Alley, he tapped the magical brick to open the passageway. I wonder if > Hagrid can do non-verbal spells, and if so, how he learned, after just > having studied for about three years. Thoughts? He may have had only three years of formal training at Hogwarts, but by the time Hagrid took Harry his letter Hagrid had *been* at Hogwarts for 50 years. I would think that over all those years Hagrid would have picked up a thing or two. Also, perhaps Dumbledore gave Hagrid some private tutoring? Sandy From sherlocksridhar at fastmail.fm Thu Apr 27 05:09:11 2006 From: sherlocksridhar at fastmail.fm (sridharj_ap) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 05:09:11 -0000 Subject: Something Suspicious about Severus In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151537 Alla: > Um, quick question. Could you provide canon for "stole" Snape's > spells as opposed to seeing how Snape openly used it on somebody > else and then using it? Sridhar: I thought that the Levicorpus and Lebiacorpus spells were Snape's discovery and James used it against him. Also, in the HBP when Snape and Harry are battling, Harry tries to use SectumSempra and Levicorpus on Snape, but Snape says,""You dare use my own spells against me, Potter? It was I who invented them - I, the Half-Blood Prince! And you'd turn my inventions on me, like your filthy father, would you? I don't think so . . . no" If Snape had noted it down in his personal book and never used it on anyone, how could others get those spells? I deduced that James might have stolen it, but I could be wrong. Brady: > But Sridhar, coming to the Snape point again - we all have deduced > enough of the canon to understand that Snape agreed to become a spy > long before Lily was murdered by LV. So I donot think the repentence > was because of that. Sridhar: I guess I have come to the group late enough to have missed the deduction, having joined recently. I will search the archives, but if you can point out the thread, I will be grateful. Alternatively, if you can summarize the discussion using the canon, that would be really great. Regards Sridhar From jamesharry_voldemort at yahoo.co.in Thu Apr 27 09:35:24 2006 From: jamesharry_voldemort at yahoo.co.in (Shrilakshmi G) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 10:35:24 +0100 (BST) Subject: Harry - The heir of Gryffindor Message-ID: <20060427093524.51383.qmail@web8715.mail.in.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151538 Is Harry the heir of Gryffindor??? Maybe!!!! 1. When Harry tried out his wand in Ollivanders' (Book 1) red & gold sparks flew out. Red and gold are the colours of the Gryffindor House. 2. McGonagall mentions in Book 1 that the Potters lived in Godric's Hollow. 3. In Book 2, after Harry pulls out Gryffindor's sword from the hat, Dumbledore said that only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that out of the hat. Could this have a deeper meaning?? 4.Harry was born on July 31st. In the Zodiac calender: this would be Leo (lion) which is the Gryffindor mascot. 5. Gryffindor's sword is studded with rubies, the birthstone of July. 6. The Sorting Hat probably could not decide where to put Harry because Harry had Gryffindor's blood as well as LV's Part (Slytherin). From willsonkmom at msn.com Thu Apr 27 11:24:21 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 11:24:21 -0000 Subject: Something Suspicious about Severus In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151539 > Sridhar: > If Snape had noted it down in his personal book and never used it >on anyone, how could others get those spells? I deduced that James >might have stolen it, but I could be wrong. Potioncat: My opinion falls somewhere between Sridhar's and Alla's. It's one reason I think Severus's Potions book went missing while he was a student. Although the timing doesn't work out correctly. In the book Levicorpus is nvbl. So even if Severus used it, he wasn't saying it out loud. Either he taught someone who passed it on quite freely, or someone stole it. As to who that someone might be, I cannot say. > Sridhar: > > I guess I have come to the group late enough to have missed the > deduction, having joined recently. I will search the archives, but if > you can point out the thread, I will be grateful. Potioncat: If I've never said it before, welcome. Before you know it, you'll have all the theories in your head and you'll be referring to them too. And like most of us, you'll probably know them so well, you'll have a hard time remembering where theory ends and canon begins. :-) In GoF ch 30 during Karkaroff's trial, DD says that Snape "rejoined our side before LV's downfall and turned spy at great personal risk." So he had to turn in time to experience some danger and provide some information before the night LV showed up at GH. Weeks? Months? a year? I suspect Snape was already working for DD when he overheard Trelawney. From rdoliver30 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 09:35:43 2006 From: rdoliver30 at yahoo.com (lupinlore) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 09:35:43 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151540 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "PJ" wrote: > > > Sorry but I don't buy that for a minute because Sirius was the only > one who, from day one, could've really upset all of Dumbledore's > careful plans concerning Harry. In a way I think it was a bit of a > relief to Dumbledore when Sirius died. > > He didn't wish him harm, he just wanted him safely tucked away and > out of his hair... And once he died Dumbledore had to make sure that > Harry didn't make a martyre of him and get off task. > > To me it was all pretty cold on Dumbledore's part, but he had a job > to do and he did it well enough to where Harry quickly puts Sirius > behind him and is soon ready to pick up the Horcrux hunt... > And herein is why that particular scene was a disastrous failure on JKR's part. I don't agree with much of anything in the post, but I do acknowledge that the final scene of OOTP can be read that way. Indeed, simply on the face of it, and divorced from HBP, that is perhaps the most plausible way to read the scene. And herein is why, to use Carol's terminology, JKR "bowed to criticism" when it came to how she portrayed Dumbledore. JKR was simply not getting the message across very clearly. OOTP in general was a self-indulgent, neurotic, and sloppily-written book, but nowhere as much as in its conclusion -- i.e. Sirius' death and DD's reaction/explanation to the events of the year. That JKR recognized this and tried to mend it is not surprising, although her method of doing so, outside of DD's confrontation with the Dursleys, was largely to pretend that OOTP and all its issues did not exist, which elicited several guffaws of derision. Lupinlore From jamesharry_voldemort at yahoo.co.in Thu Apr 27 10:17:56 2006 From: jamesharry_voldemort at yahoo.co.in (Shrilakshmi G) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 11:17:56 +0100 (BST) Subject: Harry - the heir of Gryffindor Message-ID: <20060427101756.22608.qmail@web8712.mail.in.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151541 Shrilakshmi: Is Harry the heir of Gryffindor???Maybe!!!! 1.When Hary tried out his wand in Ollivanders'(Book 1)red & gold sparks flew out.Red and gold are the colours of the Gryffindor House. 2.McGonagall mentions in Book 1 that the Potters lived in Godrics Hollow. 3.In Book 2,after Harry pulls out Gryffindor's sword from the hat, Dumbledore said that only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that out of the hat.Could this have a deeper meaning?? 4.Harry was born on July 31st.In the Zodiac calender: this would be Leo(lion) which is the Gryffindor mascot. 5.Gryffindor's sword is studded with rubies,the birthstone of July. 6.The Sorting Hat probably could not decide where to put Harry because Harry had Gryffindor's blood as well as LV's Part(Slytherin). From, Shrilakshmi --------------------------------- Jiyo cricket on Yahoo! India cricket Yahoo! Messenger Mobile Stay in touch with your buddies all the time. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Thu Apr 27 11:41:40 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 07:41:40 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Something Suspicious about Severus (was :Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060427114140.90515.qmail@web37011.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151542 > > Catherine: > Well, in a way he (Snape) had a hand in James' and Lily's deaths, being the one who yold Voldemort about the prophesy.> Brady answered: I don't agree this point. Steve and I have given enough explaination on this and said that Snape is not as culpable for the Potters' deaths as Peter Pettigrew. Snape had no idea that it would be the Potters' who will be affected. If only the first part of the prophecy was *conveyed* to LV (i assume this sonveying part, because if Trelawney knew that somebody eavesdropped that night, it means she was out of her trance AND that means the prophecy was over. That also means that Snape knew everything the prophecy said. This indicates that it was around that time that Snape agreed to be DD's spy in LVs camp.), then Snape was already doing his double agent thing. All the more reason to not believe the circumstances given by DD for Snape's repentence. Catherine replies: I said that I believe that Snape had a part in the Potter's deaths, not the only cause, nor even the major cause, but he did play a part. As did Peter Pettigrew (who we weren't discussing at the time) and Voldemort of course. If we go back to my analogy to add Peter, then Snape would be the vector, Peter would be the portal of entry and Voldemort would still be the lethal virus. I have to disagree with you however on Snape knowing the full content of the Prophesy. Fisrt of all, if like you say, Snape heard the whole thing and only told Voldemort the first part because he was already working for DD....what gain is in it for DD for VM to know even a tiny bit of the prophesy? DD is too smart a man to allow such a tidbit of information fall into Voldemort's hands and not expect Voldemort to do something about it. I think that's being awfully blas? with the lives of Harry and/or Neville. I just can't fathom DD agreeing to this at all, as he explains to Harry, evil oppressors are always on the lookout for the one who will stand up against them. Why give him clues to the whereabouts of this child? It doesn't make any sense. Secondly, in the broomshed, DD says that the only two people who know the full contents of the prophesy are standing in the spidery, smelly broomshed. I believe him when he says this, he has no more time to hide the truth from Harry. (He does conceal Snape's part in it, but I think that was to protect Snape, and not Harry). I have not seen any canon to even make me think that Snape is a spider animagus, if JKR does that, it would be completely pulling it out of the blue. So unless Snape can transfigure himself into a broom, DD is saying that he and Harry are the only ones completely aware of the prophesy. Lastly, if you read the prophesy, the fisrt and the last lines are almost identical: "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches....born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies....." and " ...the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies...." So it's possible that he actually only heard the end of the prophesy, which was pretty much like the beginning. Granted DD says on several occasions that it was the beginning that was overheard. Even still, there are many "..." written into the prophesy, do we really know how much time elapsed between each part of the sentence. Could Snape have interrupted the trance, and DD "edited" his memory to put in the pensieve? He could have altered Trelawny's memory, she could have lapsed in and out of the trance. Many possibilities can explain her memory of Snape's intrusion, and not the prophesy. HBP is the story of DD telling Harry *everything*, and if the person who overheard the prophesy really overheard the whole thing, who still has contact with Voldemort. Wouldn't that be a liability? Voldemort can torture the information out of Snape if he had the whole thing. Voldemort wants to hear the prophesy so badly, as good an occlumens that Snape is, I really don't think he could keep such important information from him. If Voldemort had even the teensiest bit of doubt that Snape knew more of the prophesy than he had previously let on, do you really think Snape would be around for book 7? jmo, Catherine --------------------------------- Make free worldwide PC-to-PC calls. Try the new Yahoo! Canada Messenger with Voice [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From yaiaja at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 04:37:04 2006 From: yaiaja at yahoo.com (Arief Hamid) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 21:37:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Harry's assumption VS Everyone's assumption In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060427043704.80862.qmail@web34511.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151543 Hey all, I just finished re-read the first 5 books in order to have a better insight before reading the sixth book. One thing that's confusing me most, how come Dumbledore trusted Snape so much and seems like ignoring the statements and facts that given by Harry, that Snape is nothing more than a treacherous member of the order. What makes DD believes that Snape's is worthed every bit to be in the order and will protect the order with all his might. Damn, I couldn't find the reason why in the books, and it just kicks me in the nuts. Arief Hamid From marie.dunlop at gmail.com Thu Apr 27 10:54:19 2006 From: marie.dunlop at gmail.com (Marie Dunlop) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 12:54:19 +0200 Subject: Harry - The heir of Gryffindor In-Reply-To: <20060427093524.51383.qmail@web8715.mail.in.yahoo.com> References: <20060427093524.51383.qmail@web8715.mail.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151544 On 4/27/06, Shrilakshmi G wrote: > > Is Harry the heir of Gryffindor??? Maybe!!!! > > 1. When Harry tried out his wand in Ollivanders' (Book 1) red & gold > sparks flew out. Red and gold are the colours of the Gryffindor House. Marie: I think you're right that Harry is the heir of Gryffindor but the wand thing could be down to Fawkes' colouring. From yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com Thu Apr 27 14:02:17 2006 From: yahoo at stevenmcintosh.com (stevemac) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 09:02:17 -0500 Subject: Hagrid and non-verbal spells In-Reply-To: <37d.21341b8.3181932f@aol.com> References: <37d.21341b8.3181932f@aol.com> Message-ID: <153F9BC1-9937-404B-9531-EA26125C3F7C@stevenmcintosh.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151545 Sandy: > He may have had only three years of formal training at Hogwarts, > but by the time Hagrid took Harry his letter Hagrid had *been* at > Hogwarts for 50 years. I would think that over all those years > Hagrid would have picked up a thing or two. Also, perhaps > Dumbledore gave Hagrid some private tutoring? SteveMac: We've also seen that Hagrid has full access to the school and has looked up things in the library if he needs information... it might have been that he needed info on how to perform non-verbal magic and taught himself. From midnightowl6 at hotmail.com Thu Apr 27 15:36:50 2006 From: midnightowl6 at hotmail.com (PJ) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 15:36:50 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151546 Lupinlore: > And herein is why that particular scene was a disastrous failure on > JKR's part. I don't agree with much of anything in the post, but I > do acknowledge that the final scene of OOTP can be read that way. > Indeed, simply on the face of it, and divorced from HBP, that is > perhaps the most plausible way to read the scene. PJ: No two people will ever read it the same way but I'm curious why you feel that any of the other books contradict this view rather than reenforce it. As I see it, In POA Dumbledore helps H&H to get Buckbeak and Sirius away safely and that's the last thing Dumbledore does to assist Sirius in any way. He doesn't want an innocent man soul sucked but what happens after that? For instance, in GOF, rather than have the Order hide him, Dumbledore allows Sirius to live on rats - and it's clear Dumbledore knows exactly where Sirius is since they do communicate. Why isn't Sirius just as valuable a human being to Dumbledore as Draco is? Dumbledore offered in HBP to hide Draco's entire family! But not Sirius.... this doesn't seem just a bit odd to you? In OOtP the Order needs a safe house so Sirius gives them his parent's house. Where does JKR show ANY member who's treating Sirius as anything but a necessary annoyance? Molly and Snape both treat him like pond scum in his own home and JKR seems to think that's just fine since she never writes in anyone sticking up for Sirius by telling those two to knock it off! After Sirius dies there's no memorial service, no getting together the Order to say one or two nice things about Sirius - one of their own fallen members. It's treated almost like he never existed... Even Mundungus, another Order member, feels it's perfectly ok to steal from the Black home! Where is JKR showing even the smallest *hint* of respect for Sirius in any of the books? I sure don't see it. She even has Harry get over his death within a couple of weeks! Lupinlore: > > And herein is why, to use Carol's terminology, JKR "bowed to > criticism" when it came to how she portrayed Dumbledore. JKR was > simply not getting the message across very clearly. PJ: I have no idea what she was trying to write or what it is you read but I know what message I've gotten throughout the books. Dumbledore is the leader of the Order and if the leader shows no respect (how many times has he reminded Harry that it's PROFESSOR, rather than just Snape?) then neither do the underlings. It's that simple. PJ From enlil65 at gmail.com Thu Apr 27 15:34:31 2006 From: enlil65 at gmail.com (Peggy Wilkins) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 10:34:31 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Voldemort as a Ghost? (Was: Voldemort's ideology?) In-Reply-To: References: <20060425124606.5000.qmail@web37009.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1789c2360604270834v5efcb292j1ff7107e4fd8cd31@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151547 On 4/25/06, coldsliversofglass wrote: > coldsliversofglass: > Any other theories on what might happen to Voldemort when he dies? I'm > hoping it won't be the same ending as in the Chamber when the diary version > was defeated (Ray of light, or even convergence of shadows seems a bit > cliche). Peggy W: (adding the "W" because I see there are two Peggy's here) Funny you would mention this, because this is actually part of my Pet Theory on the Demise of Voldemort, which comes from thinking about what happened with the AK that night at Godric's Hollow. Voldemort fires an Avada Kedavra at young Harry, but it cannot kill Harry because of Lily's sacrifice and rebounds on Voldemort instead; however, it can't kill Voldemort either, because of his Horcruxes. This is what makes Harry and Voldemort equals as stated in the prophecy: Voldemort can't kill Harry because of Lily's protection, and Harry can't kill Voldemort because of his Horcruxes. This forms a kind of symmetry that is unique between them (AK will kill anyone else, but they can't use it to kill each other--this makes them exact equals, no one else can equal them in this regard). The mark of this symmetry ("mark him as his equal") is Harry's scar. What happened to the failed Avada Kedavra, did it simply dissipate? I don't think so. I think that since the Avada Kedavra was unable to complete its job, it (or rather, the energy of it) has been hanging around, held between Harry and Voldemort and making an active connection between them. Both Harry and Voldemort can travel along this connection: this is what enables Harry to feel Voldemort's emotions and be Voldemort in his dreams, and it is what enables Voldemort to plant ideas in Harry and see out of his eyes. It gives Harry his special knowledge and his connection to the Heir of Slytherin that enables him to open the Chamber of Secrets. The connection is active and holds energy. Its emblem is Harry's lightning bolt scar. This is very interesting because a lightning bolt is a sign of power (as in, High Voltage in the context of electricity). So my proposition is this: when Voldemort's final Horcrux is destroyed, Harry and Voldemort will cease being equals because Voldemort will again be mortal. This will break the symmetry between them, and the energy that has been held between them all these years from the failed Avada Kedavra will then be able to complete its job: it will rebound on Voldemort, from Harry. If Harry is physically near Voldemort when this happens (either must die at the hand of the other), it will probably kill Voldemort. Somehow I have always envisioned this, visually I mean, as appearing quite similar to what happened to the reformed Tom Riddle in the chamber: dissolving into light. And then Voldemort will simply no longer be. -- Peggy Wilkins enlil65 at gmail.com From belviso at attglobal.net Thu Apr 27 16:23:35 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (sistermagpie) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 16:23:35 -0000 Subject: Hagrid and non-verbal spells/Harry's Assumption In-Reply-To: <37d.21341b8.3181932f@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151549 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, OctobersChild48 at ... wrote: > > Peggy: > > I noticed today that Hagrid appears to have done a couple > > non-verbal spells. In Sorcerer's Stone, when he and Harry were going to buy > > Harry's stuff in London, Hagrid tapped the boat with his umbrella/wand > > pieces to speed it up, but didn't say anything. And when they got to Diagon > > Alley, he tapped the magical brick to open the passageway. I wonder if > > Hagrid can do non-verbal spells, and if so, how he learned, after just > > having studied for about three years. Thoughts? > >> Sandy > He may have had only three years of formal training at Hogwarts, but by the > time Hagrid took Harry his letter Hagrid had *been* at Hogwarts for 50 years. I > would think that over all those years Hagrid would have picked up a thing or > two. Also, perhaps Dumbledore gave Hagrid some private tutoring? > Magpie: Those things don't seem like non-verbal spells to me. They seem like they're something built into the magical boat or brick. Portkeys don't require you to say anything either, nor do you have to speak to enter the train platform, but they're not non-verbal spells of the kind Harry learns. Not that I'd be surprised if Hagrid did a non-verbal spell, I just suspect I'd think it was more flinty than significant. Potioncat: My opinion falls somewhere between Sridhar's and Alla's. It's one reason I think Severus's Potions book went missing while he was a student. Although the timing doesn't work out correctly. In the book Levicorpus is nvbl. So even if Severus used it, he wasn't saying it out loud. Either he taught someone who passed it on quite freely, or someone stole it. Magpie: But as I understand it there is no such thing as a verbal vs. non- verbal spell. A spell is a spell, and you can perform it either way. Snape may have started out saying Levicorpus. Presumably James never used Sectumsempra. Arief Hamid: I just finished re-read the first 5 books in order to have a better insight before reading the sixth book. One thing that's confusing me most, how come Dumbledore trusted Snape so much and seems like ignoring the statements and facts that given by Harry, that Snape is nothing more than a treacherous member of the order. What makes DD believes that Snape's is worthed every bit to be in the order and will protect the order with all his might. Damn, I couldn't find the reason why in the books, and it just kicks me in the nuts. Magpie: I think the key there is that you're supposed to feel that way! Dumbledore always makes a big point of trusting Snape but never ever says why he trusts him, just that he has a reason. None of the Order members know why he trusts him either. So we've no idea why Dumbledore trusts him (Snape claims he's got to believe the best in people, but there's no reason to assume Snape's telling the truth there, or if he is, that he really knows Dumbledore's thoughts), and other people trust him only because Dumbledore does. -m From sherriola at earthlink.net Thu Apr 27 16:47:09 2006 From: sherriola at earthlink.net (Sherry Gomes) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 09:47:09 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151550 PJ: I have no idea what she was trying to write or what it is you read but I know what message I've gotten throughout the books. Dumbledore is the leader of the Order and if the leader shows no respect (how many times has he reminded Harry that it's PROFESSOR, rather than just Snape?) then neither do the underlings. It's that simple. PJ Sherry now: I had never thought of it that way, but now you've got me going. You are absolutely correct, I think. I was appalled at the way people treated Sirius in his own home. Dumbledore, who is so big on respect allowed it, though he wasn't present at the molly and Snape moments. It is chilling to think of him that way, because it makes him pretty damn cold-blooded and uncaring, which is not supposed to be the impression we have of Dumbledore. He even sent Sirius off while Harry was still in the hospital wing at the end of GOF, when Harry so obviously wanted him to stay. Honestly, would an hour have made any difference? Wouldn't it have been nice to help comfort the all important prophecy boy with the one person whose presence Harry wanted? My only objection to your post is about Harry's grief. I do not believe Harry has gotten over the death of Sirius very quickly, or even at all by the end of HBP. Harry grieves inside, doesn't express it much. The beginning of HBP shows a very poignant glimpse of Harry's pain, I think. also, Harry can't bring himself to talk about Sirius. Whatever he says to Dumbledore about handling Sirius' death doesn't mean that's what he feels inside. I am that way when I grieve. I keep it inside, absolutely never talk about it and tell those who ask that I am fine. I find grief far too deep and personal to share with the world, and Harry's nature as its been revealed to us, is that of someone who has learned too well the lessons about keeping his feelings to himself. His reactions in HBP were very moving to me. Of course, there's the angle too, that JKR probably had to put any on stage grieving aside, to get on with the rest of what she wanted to do in HBP, but I still think she did a great job, in a few sentences of showing Harry's pain. Sherry From willsonkmom at msn.com Thu Apr 27 17:17:13 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 17:17:13 -0000 Subject: non-verbal spells/ In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151551 > Magpie: > Those things don't seem like non-verbal spells to me. They seem > like they're something built into the magical boat or brick. Potioncat: But unless we think the old man who rented the cottage to Uncle Vernon was a wizard, the boat was very Muggle. Of course, if you were talking about the Hogwarts boats, that could be different. > > Magpie: > But as I understand it there is no such thing as a verbal vs. non- > verbal spell. A spell is a spell, and you can perform it either > way. Snape may have started out saying Levicorpus. Presumably > James never used Sectumsempra. Potioncat: It does seem some spells can be either doesn't it? Snape is teaching the DADA students to perform a spell nonverbally that they know how to cast verbally. Harry and Ron didn't seem too good at it. Yet less than 100 pages later, Harry sees "Levicorpus(nvbl)" in the HBP's book. p239 (US) He's thinking that he still has trouble casting spells nonverbally, but believes the HBP is a much better teacher than Snape so: "Pointing his wand at nothing in particular, he gave it an upward flick and said 'Levicorpus' inside his head." Ron flies into the air, and Harry hunts for the counter spell which he also performs silently. I think this spell and counter spell were created to be nonverbal. Go back to OoP, to Snape's worst memory. James and Sirius say every spell, except James does not "say" the spell that jerks Snape into the air or the one that drops him down. Nor does Snape say the one that causes a cut on James's face. So, in summary: some spells can be either, some are one or the other. Which might explain why the DEs were casting verbal spells in the MoM. From susiequsie23 at sbcglobal.net Thu Apr 27 17:16:30 2006 From: susiequsie23 at sbcglobal.net (cubfanbudwoman) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 17:16:30 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151552 Betsy Hp: > And, ironically, I think Hermione has a very hard time reading > people emotionally. Whereas Ron is very good at it, IMO. SSSusan steps out into the light, after a long period in darkest Lurkerdom, to say: Ooooh, Betsy, I'll bite on this one! Can you give me an example or two of why you think Hermione has a hard time reading people emotionally? I'm thinking of the insight she gave to Ron & Harry that time in OoP on what girls want, as well as her comment to Ron that he had the emotional range of a teaspoon, as examples that she might not be totally clueless there. Also, I'd love an example or two of ways in which you've seen Ron being good at reading people emotionally. Maybe his guessing at Hermione's feelings for Viktor... but do we KNOW what those feelings were? I think he *was* guessing and might well have *mis*read friendly feelings as romantic ones. Anyway, I'd be curious to hear about times when you've seen this as a strength in Ron. Betsy: > Actually, I think that's where JKR is going when she sees Ron and > Hermione as a couple. She provides the cold calculation, he > provides the heart, and together they're unstoppable. SSSusan: Interesting! I see what you mean about Hermione's "cold calculation" at times, such as with the entire DA setup, but is she coldy calculating in her expressed concern for house elves and in the creation of S.P.E.W.? Is that not partly out of genuine emotional concern for the house elves and their well-being? I don't doubt that Ron has a big heart, but he can be blunt and almost heartless at times in his remarks, too. Maybe I'm interpreting "cold calculation" and "heart" differently than I should be, though, or thinking of them in different contexts than you are? Siriusly Snapey Susan From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 17:21:45 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 17:21:45 -0000 Subject: Tangent: Mr. Ollivander In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151553 Angie wrote: > > I'd love to think the MOM has hidden him [Ollivander], but I doubt that they'd have that much insight or foreplanning. However, I wouldn't put it past DD to hide him away. > > I'm sure DD knows that LV is getting desperate after the fiasco at > the MOM in OOP -- he still doesn't have the prophesy, Harry's still > alive, and Harry still has the wand that can "block" LV's (for lack > of a better term). I would have thought LV would have attempted to > kidnap Ollivander sooner, actually, to have him make another wand. > But would a second wand "choose" LV while his other wand is still > operable? Carol responds: Voldemort's wand is perfectly suited to him, with its yew wood and Phoenix feather core both symbolizing (earthly) immortality. It's also, according to Ollivander in SS/PS, extremely powerful. I doubt that LV would want to substitute some other wand for the one that he has used to commit so many "great but terrible" deeds. He would, perhaps, want to kidnap Ollivander to learn how to get around the "brother wands" effect. Or (less probably) he might wish to kidnap Ollivander to prevent the next group of Hogwarts children from having the wands ideally suited to them, a purely psychological move. More likely, IMO, Ollivander is being hidden by the Order in anticipation of some such move. And I rather suspect that he'd be a good person for Harry to consult about Horcruxes as he seems to be powerfully magical, extremely knowledgeable, and not entirely averse to Dark magic. As for Harry's wand, all Voldemort has to do is destroy it or have someone else destroy it with, say, a Reductor Curse or something that sets it on fire. (Not that such a thing will happen, of course, but Voldie would no doubt consider it a plausible and sensible course of action.) In the unlikely event that he wants a "fair" fight like the one in the graveyard, he can lend Harry a DE's wand. But I think he prefers a defenseless, wandless Harry at this point: First, perhaps, he would use Legilimency to explore his mind and determine his worst fears, then Crucio him, then starve and imprison him for awhile, then torture and kill a few friends in front of him, then, slowly kill him using something other than a quick, painless AK that might rebound on the caster. Or, at least, that's what I think Voldie would do at this point, given his way. It's not at all what I expect to happen, but I'm not a Dark Lord blinded by the desire for revenge and delusions of immortality (or misplaced trust in Severus Snape). At any rate, if Voldemort cares about the magical significance of the number seven, he will also care about the immortality symbolism of yew wood and Phoenix feathers. No new wand for him; I'm betting on it. Carol From orgone9 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 15:45:28 2006 From: orgone9 at yahoo.com (Len Jaffe) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 08:45:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Harry - The heir of Gryffindor In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060427154528.41875.qmail@web80615.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151554 shrilakshmi G wrote: > Is Harry the heir of Gryffindor??? Maybe!!!! Now Len: OK, I'm bursting to declare.... Harry is the Gyffindor Horcrux. Other theories/musings that are not well thought out: * Nagini will die when Pigwideon gets stuck in her throat, and she suffocates. * What happens to Wormtail's silver hand when he transforms? Does it become a silver paw? Will he fall victim to a bird of prey? * In a scene reminiscent of Bond/Q the trio will return to WWW and be outfitted with some truly amazing magical weapons, though while not quite dark, are serious offensive weapons. * Beware Prof Trewlawney's predictions, she's close/right too often to be scoffed at. * Ron will return to HW, as Head Boy and Quidditch Captain. After graduation, he turns pro. Fred and George make a killing selling singing crowns. However, they inadvertantly make Draco independently wealthy due to royalties from his music publishing rights. * Wouldn't it be cool if everybody survives book 7 and Harry and the Weasleys form a travelling celebrity Quidditch team and play matches for charities. * Neville is my hero. Len. From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Thu Apr 27 16:26:29 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 12:26:29 -0400 Subject: Hagrid and non-verbal spells In-Reply-To: <153F9BC1-9937-404B-9531-EA26125C3F7C@stevenmcintosh.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151555 >SteveMac: >We've also seen that Hagrid has full access to the school and has >looked up things in the library if he needs information... it might >have been that he needed info on how to perform non-verbal magic and >taught himself. Rachel: As much as I love Hagrid, I'm not sure if he's clever enough to teach himself non-verbal spells. IMO, Dumbledore may have taught Hagrid non-verbal spells so that he could help out around the grounds without getting in trouble for using magic because, obviously, no one would hear him speaking spells. I think Dumbledore always knew it wasn't Hagrid who opened the Chamber and felt bad that Dippet expelled him, and so tried to help him out anyway he could. ~ Rachel From mi_nai_leeloo at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 17:00:25 2006 From: mi_nai_leeloo at yahoo.com (Leeloo Volusia) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 10:00:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Voldemort as a Ghost? (Was: Voldemort's ideology?) In-Reply-To: <1789c2360604270834v5efcb292j1ff7107e4fd8cd31@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20060427170025.37582.qmail@web38502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151556 Peggy Wilkins wrote: Peggy W wrote: What happened to the failed Avada Kedavra, did it simply dissipate? I don't think so. I think that since the Avada Kedavra was unable to complete its job, it (or rather, the energy of it) has been hanging around, held between Harry and Voldemort and making an active connection between them. Both Harry and Voldemort can travel along this connection: this is what enables Harry to feel Voldemort's emotions and be Voldemort in his dreams, and it is what enables Voldemort to plant ideas in Harry and see out of his eyes. It gives Harry his special knowledge and his connection to the Heir of Slytherin that enables him to open the Chamber of Secrets. Leeloo writes: I think the AK curse did do its job in the terms of destroying Riddle's original body. It is referred to as the "killing curse" and it did, in fact, kill Voldemort's body. Now, I agree with you that this created an incredibly strong connection between the Dark Lord and the Boy Who Lived. However, I have a different theory. We know that Voldemort transferred some of his powers to Harry when he was given that scar. I.e. Harry can speak and understand parseltongue. Also, I believe that Voldemort had intended on making his final horcrux with Harry's murder, but Harry didn't die. My question is this: What happened to the item Voldemort intended to use as the horcrux to contain that final piece of soul? AND, what happened to that shred of soul when no one was there to place in the intended horcrux? Peggy W wrote: The connection is active and holds energy. Its emblem is Harry's lightning bolt scar. This is very interesting because a lightning bolt is a sign of power (as in, High Voltage in the context of electricity). So my proposition is this: when Voldemort's final Horcrux is destroyed, Harry and Voldemort will cease being equals because Voldemort will again be mortal. This will break the symmetry between them, and the energy that has been held between them all these years from the failed Avada Kedavra will then be able to complete its job: it will rebound on Voldemort, from Harry. If Harry is physically near Voldemort when this happens (either must die at the hand of the other), it will probably kill Voldemort. Leeloo writes: This brings up a theory (which is not entirely my own, it was first proposed on another HP group by someone else) that Harry's scar may contain that final piece of Voldemort's soul, which is how Harry received some of Voldemort's powers. There are many arguments for and against this theory, but I think it warrants some serious consideration. It just MAY be possible. Additionally, the part of the prophecy that Peggy quotes here (either must die at the hand of the other) suggests to me that only Harry can kill Voldemort, and only Voldemort can kill Harry. I have theorized before (again on another group) that this suggests that if ANYONE other than Voldemort kills Harry, then Voldemort may indeed die as a result and vice versa. I cite specific examples, such as the graveyard scene in GoF, the Dark Lord insists on killing Harry himself and not allowing anyone else to do it. I don't think this is just pride talking here. Also, in OotP, when Lucius stops (I believe) Bellatrix from cursing Harry in the MoM. I don't think it was just the prophecy Lucius was worried about. Conversely, Dumbledore has always insisted that this mission is Harry's and Harry's alone. Again, in OotP when they Order was battling Voldemort and his minions in the MoM, why didn't Dumbledore kill Voldemort then? And why did the hex he used on Voldemort seem to affect Harry so badly? I don't think it was just a simple case of possession there. I think there is more to it. And I think the most significant thing regarding this theory is the blood that was transferred to Voldemort from Harry when he was resurrected. This links them not only by death, but now by blood. This makes their bond even stronger. I'm sure this will prove to be a weakness Voldemort did not anticipate. ~ Leeloo mi_nai_leeloo at yahoo.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Do you write Harry Potter fan-fiction? Check out: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Harry_Potter_Creative_Writing/ Do you like Harry Potter Role Play? Check out this RPG: http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/Harry_Potter_Fans_Role_Playing/ Do you like to discuss Harry Potter with other HP nuts? Check out: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Harry-Potter-Anyone/ From belviso at attglobal.net Thu Apr 27 17:58:13 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (sistermagpie) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 17:58:13 -0000 Subject: non-verbal spells/SHIP Ron/Hermione In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151557 > > Magpie: > > Those things don't seem like non-verbal spells to me. They seem > > like they're something built into the magical boat or brick. > > Potioncat: > But unless we think the old man who rented the cottage to Uncle > Vernon was a wizard, the boat was very Muggle. > > Of course, if you were talking about the Hogwarts boats, that could > be different. Magpie: Oops--I totally thought I was talking about a Hogwarts boat. My bad, Hagrid's doing something wordlessly, you're right! I think another thing that makes things tricky is that magic isn't just about brains, necessarily, but growing up. Hermione is described as being smart by a Ravenclaw because she's doing NEWT level magic in OotP ("Why aren't you in our house?") but there's nothing particularly intelligent about it, that we know, she's just able to do a spell. There's intelligence in her seeing how to modify the spell to suit her purposes, but it's not like casting a Patronus, which impresses everyone, takes *brains* it just takes a certain kind of ability. That's my roundabout way of saying that all adults may be able to cast non-verbal spells, with the challenge being as much about growing up than skill. I would imagine it would start to come naturally after a while, if you say a spell a lot. Susan: Also, I'd love an example or two of ways in which you've seen Ron being good at reading people emotionally. Maybe his guessing at Hermione's feelings for Viktor... but do we KNOW what those feelings were? I think he *was* guessing and might well have *mis*read friendly feelings as romantic ones. Anyway, I'd be curious to hear about times when you've seen this as a strength in Ron. Magpie: I think maybe we're off track describing it as reading people etc. Sometimes Hermione grasps a situation the right way, sometimes Ron does. Hermione understands Cho's dilemma; Ron more effortlessly makes himself popular with the House Elves. But understanding is not the same as empathy, and to me it seems like Ron is more naturally empathetic. Which is not to say he's a pillar of sensitivity in the least--sometimes he's clueless. When he says about Hermione, "She's got to have noticed she's got no friends," he's being perfectly insightful about Hermione, but also insensitive (though not completely so, because he feels badly about what he said, even if he doesn't want to feel sorry for her). So it sort of comes down to what to make of the fact that as smart as Hermione may often be about reading people or grasping a situation, Ron's more socially skilled? We forget that in looking at all of Ron's blunders, of course, but in reality Ron's a perfectly affable guy who fits in just fine in school. Hermione makes enemies and annoys people and I wouldn't give her so much credit as to say she just doesn't care what people think of her. She often cares about other things more, but I don't think the responses she gets from people are always what she wants. She must realize, for instance, that although she's the brains behind the DA, she can't lead it. So I think maybe we're unfair to talk about one or the other being the feeling one...neither of them is super skilled at understanding people all the time. They just have different situations that they deal with more naturally. Hermione is good at certain things, like tricking Umbridge into the forest, blackmailing Rita, picking out which boy would make Ron angry. She's bad at other things. Ron, probably due greatly to his role in his large family, is very good at letting people be themselves and knowing when not to interfere (he doesn't so often take control of social interactions the way Hermione does either). He's bad at other things. Sometimes both their strengths get read as their being the one who's the best with people, but that might just be inaccurate. Or sometimes it may not be a case of not understanding but just not wanting to act. Ron, for instance, surely knows that going above the Twins' heads to Molly would make them listen, just as Hermione does in OotP. Only Ron also knows what the fallout for that would be if it were him to do it, and that the Twins will just continue what they're doing behind Hermione's back. As a couple I would imagine Ron would be doing a lot more smoothing over for Hermione than vice versa, even if Hermione would think otherwise. -m From enlil65 at gmail.com Thu Apr 27 18:17:00 2006 From: enlil65 at gmail.com (Peggy Wilkins) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 13:17:00 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Voldemort as a Ghost? (Was: Voldemort's ideology?) In-Reply-To: <20060427170025.37582.qmail@web38502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <1789c2360604270834v5efcb292j1ff7107e4fd8cd31@mail.gmail.com> <20060427170025.37582.qmail@web38502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1789c2360604271117v196f3b58x9cc4d99d8d8c212b@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151558 On 4/27/06, Leeloo Volusia wrote: > Peggy W wrote: > What happened to the failed Avada Kedavra, did it simply dissipate? I > don't think so. I think that since the Avada Kedavra was unable to > complete its job, it (or rather, the energy of it) has been hanging > around, held between Harry and Voldemort and making an active > connection between them....[snip] > Leeloo writes: > I think the AK curse did do its job in the terms of destroying > Riddle's original body. It is referred to as the "killing curse" and it > did, in fact, kill Voldemort's body. Peggy W. again: I can't consider that to be "killing" though. The AK definitely did something: it ripped Voldemort from his body, and because of the way Voldemort had altered his being, it also seems to have made his body disappear. But to me the ultimate (important) point is that the curse failed, because it had to fail: Voldemort cannot be killed while he has his Horcruxes, his is not mortal. Because of this, the curse never completed, even if some effects happened because of it. Perhaps this is getting into a technicality, but what I am saying is that a curse that doesn't complete (and this is a unique circumstance, as we have been told repeatedly) somehow lingers: it has effects that continue. I am explaining the effects that we do see as existing because the curse is lingering, clogged up, held up, etc. It is a way of thinking about it, and I find it useful for that reason, because it possibly accounts for the lingering connection between Harry and Voldemort. Also I consider the idea of the original curse finally doing its job nearly two decades later quite dramatic, especially beacause it would mean that Voldemort ultimately caused his own death. And it keeps Harry from having to murder him! Leeloo: > We know that Voldemort transferred some of his powers to Harry > when he was given that scar. I.e. Harry can speak and understand > parseltongue. Also, I believe that Voldemort had intended on making > his final horcrux with Harry's murder, but Harry didn't die. My > question is this: What happened to the item Voldemort intended to > use as the horcrux to contain that final piece of soul? AND, what > happened to that shred of soul when no one was there to place in the > intended horcrux? Peggy W: Those are of course interesting questions; they may or may not coincide into the same thing. You are proposing Harry's scar may be the Horcrux, if I am understanding correctly. I wouldn't rule out that possibility. I have mentioned another possibility before that would be an alternative: the soul fragment remained behind when Voldemort fled, and someone found it and did something with it: this could be a Horcrux that Voldemort doesn't know about, and could be used against him strategically. This unknown Horcrux could be Harry's scar by accident; or by the action of whoever found the soul bit. I have also proposed that Snape is the unknown Horcrux, and that is why Dumbledore trusts him: he is hiding this secret and planning to use it against Voldemort. Of course no one can know about it, and so Dumbledore can't reval the basis of his trust. Leeloo: > Additionally, the part of the prophecy that Peggy quotes here > (either must die at the hand of the other) suggests to me that only > Harry can kill Voldemort, and only Voldemort can kill Harry. I > have theorized before (again on another group) that this suggests > that if ANYONE other than Voldemort kills Harry, then Voldemort > may indeed die as a result and vice versa. I am not sure I understand this conclusion... Leeloo: > I cite specific examples, such as the graveyard scene in GoF, > the Dark Lord insists on killing Harry himself and not allowing anyone > else to do it. I don't think this is just pride talking here. Also, in OotP, > when Lucius stops (I believe) Bellatrix from cursing Harry in the MoM. > I don't think it was just the prophecy Lucius was worried about. Peggy W: But I don't think Voldemort or the Death Eaters were aware of that part of the prophecy. I thought that they only part they knew was that Voldemort's nemesis was born at the end of July, and who were the possible parents from the description (thrice defied); but nothing after that part is known, which is why they were after the prophecy. Leeloo: > Conversely, Dumbledore has always insisted that this mission > is Harry's and Harry's alone. Again, in OotP when they Order > was battling Voldemort and his minions in the MoM, why didn't > Dumbledore kill Voldemort then? Peggy W: I believe the answer to this is that Dumbledore knew he couldn't kill Voldemort, there would be no point in trying; it would only cause a longer delay in ending the whole affair if he were ripped from his body again. Dumbledore believed Voldemort had one or more Horcruxes then (he suspected it after the diary incident, as he explained to Harry), even if he didn't know how many (since he didn't yet have Slughorn's information obtained later by Harry in HBP). Leeloo: > And I think the most significant thing regarding this theory is > the blood that was transferred to Voldemort from Harry when he > was resurrected. This links them not only by death, but now by > blood. This makes their bond even stronger. I'm sure this will > prove to be a weakness Voldemort did not anticipate. Peggy W: I am sure there is something to the blood shared between them, but I haven't been able to figure out any ideas about what it could be. -- Peggy Wilkins enlil65 at gmail.com From midnightowl6 at hotmail.com Thu Apr 27 18:16:12 2006 From: midnightowl6 at hotmail.com (PJ) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 18:16:12 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151559 Sherry: > > I had never thought of it that way, but now you've got me going. You are > absolutely correct, I think. PJ: I don't honestly know if I'm right or not because I can't mesh what JKR says in her interview (she cried when she had to kill him off) and what she writes in her books. Sherry: >I was appalled at the way people treated > Sirius in his own home. Dumbledore, who is so big on respect allowed it, > though he wasn't present at the molly and Snape moments. It is chilling to > think of him that way, because it makes him pretty damn cold- blooded and > uncaring, which is not supposed to be the impression we have of Dumbledore. > He even sent Sirius off while Harry was still in the hospital wing at the > end of GOF, when Harry so obviously wanted him to stay. PJ: The only thing that made sense to me after reading all the books was that Dumbledore was afraid Harry and Sirius were getting much too close and that Harry would insist on moving in with Sirius rather than go back to the Dursleys. That would destroy the blood protection and leave Harry open to attack. But yes, I saw Dumbledore as rather cold myself. A slow but progressive change between books 1 and 5. He made somewhat of a turn around in book 6 but by then it was too little too late for me. Sherry: > My only objection to your post is about Harry's grief. I do not believe > Harry has gotten over the death of Sirius very quickly, or even at all by > the end of HBP. Of course, there's the angle too, that JKR probably had to put any on stage > grieving aside, to get on with the rest of what she wanted to do in HBP, but > I still think she did a great job, in a few sentences of showing Harry's > pain. PJ: Maybe you're right but let's face it...She spent so much of HBP on something as needless and pathetic as "snogging" , why couldn't she have shown us a bit more of Harry's (or anyone else's for that matter) grief over Sirius's death? A paragraph, a line.... *Anything*! He may as well never have existed at all. A throwaway character. PJ From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 18:57:36 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 18:57:36 -0000 Subject: Hagrid and non-verbal spells In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151560 Rachel wrote: > As much as I love Hagrid, I'm not sure if he's clever enough to teach > himself non-verbal spells. IMO, Dumbledore may have taught Hagrid > non-verbal spells so that he could help out around the grounds without > getting in trouble for using magic because, obviously, no one would hear him speaking spells. I think Dumbledore always knew it wasn't Hagrid who opened the Chamber and felt bad that Dippet expelled him, and so tried to help him out anyway he could. Carol responds: IIRC, Hagrid doesn't speak any spell when he tries to turn Dudley into a pig (which might be one of several reasons why he only gives Dudley a tail; surely "he was already too much like a pig anyway" is *not* the true reason that the spell doesn't completely work). Also, he starts the fire that he uses to toast the sausages without a spell. (Tapping the bricks in Diagon Alley, though, probably doesn't require a spell, only a wand--like the one concealed inside his umbrella.) Granted, these events take place in SS/PS, and it could simply be that JKR hadn't fully thought out the concept of nonverbal spells yet. (Squibs don't appear yet, either, and Hagrid is referred to as "the giant," which in Harry's POV he is, but according to the later storyline, he isn't. So Hagrid's nonverbal spells could simply be not so much a Flint as something that didn't concern JKR at that point.) However, my view (not a theory as I don't have any canon support for it) is that Hagrid is in some ways like a magical child who never completely grew up (note his tendency to burst into tears and his rudimentary magical education) but has passed beyond the point where he "makes things happen" through accidental magic; he knows quite well that his broken wand, fitted back together and concealed inside his umbrella, can help him focus his magical abilities. Since he doesn't want his concealed wand to be discovered and is not legally allowed to do magic, I'm guessing that he practiced secretly at every opportunity. He is, after all, nearly as old as Voldemort and has had plenty of time to do it. Possibly Dumbledore (or McGonagall, who doesn't mind occasionally breaking a rule if it aids someone sorted into Gryffindor) may have helped him, but I think he's like the little boy who used Daddy's wand to expand a slug in GoF, controlling his natural magic by sending his *will* through his broken wand without necessarily using real spells. After some fifty years of practice, using a wand that "chose" him in the first place (and doesn't backfire like Ron's because the umbrella holds it in place), he's become pretty good at it, IMO. Not as good as if he had a magical education, probably, but good enough for his own purposes. Of course, he's probably picked up a few real spells through overhearing them, and as a member of the Order, he must have been taught by DD to cast a Patronus to send a message. (Hope his Patronus isn't Fluffy or Aragog!) Carol, with apologies for not checking the pig quote, which I'm sure is rather badly mangled From gelite67 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 20:12:55 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 20:12:55 -0000 Subject: Tangent: Mr. Ollivander In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151561 ---> Angie wrote: > > > > I'd love to think the MOM has hidden him [Ollivander], but I doubt > that they'd have that much insight or foreplanning. However, I > wouldn't put it past DD to hide him away. > > > > I'm sure DD knows that LV is getting desperate after the fiasco at > > the MOM in OOP -- he still doesn't have the prophesy, Harry's still > > alive, and Harry still has the wand that can "block" LV's (for lack > > of a better term). I would have thought LV would have attempted to > > kidnap Ollivander sooner, actually, to have him make another wand. > > But would a second wand "choose" LV while his other wand is still > > operable? > > > Carol responds: > Voldemort's wand is perfectly suited to him, with its yew wood and > Phoenix feather core both symbolizing (earthly) immortality. It's > also, according to Ollivander in SS/PS, extremely powerful. I doubt > that LV would want to substitute some other wand for the one that he > has used to commit so many "great but terrible" deeds. > > < major snip>> At any rate, if Voldemort cares about the magical significance of the > number seven, he will also care about the immortality symbolism of yew > wood and Phoenix feathers. No new wand for him; I'm betting on it. > > Angie again: Ollivander is a crucial figure in the wizarding war due to his wand- making expertise and his knowledge about the LV's' and Harry's wands. Therefore, I believe (hope) that the Order has hidden Ollivander to avoid him making a new wand and/or telling LV how to get around the wand-locking problem. But assuming, for the moment, that LV has Ollivander.... I'm sure LV is quite attached to his wand, but I also think LV will do anything to defeat Harry, even if it means using a different wand (which, I would think he would consider a small price to pay). It's not like LV can't get another wand with a phoenix feather made of yew wood. Also, the possibility of Ollivander making another wand puts new light on his comment in SS that "I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it [caused Harry's scar]. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands ... well, if I'd known what that wand was going into the world to do...." SS U.S. softback edition at 85. If he'd known, then WHAT? What would he have done? This time, Ollivander WOULD know what the wand was going out into the world to do. Which makes me wonder -- would he somehow trick LV and make the wand "weaker" or somehow make it malfunction, but only when it meets Harry's wand? I love the idea of LV's wand sprouting flowers or something like that at the crucial moment! Can you imagine the look of horror on LV's face? Even if you think death is what you should fear most, as LV does, there is something worse than death: the split second in which you learn you are for certain going to die and you can do nothing about it, because you are holding a wand full of flowers! Oh, I'm sure it won't happen that way, b/c it would be too comical, but I still love the idea. Think about it -- From gelite67 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 20:25:17 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 20:25:17 -0000 Subject: The Sacrifical Element in Destroying a Horcrux Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151562 Has anyone else noticed that some sort of sacrifice was made to destroy each Horcrux? Allow me to summarize: The diary: Harry had to be willing to sacrifice his own life, in general, to go into the COS. Second, he had to be willing to risk his own life to fight the Basilisk. If he hadn't defeated the Basilisk, he wouldn't have had the fang with which he destroyed the diary. I suppose we could say he could have destroyed the diary with the sword, but even so, he still had to be willing to risk his own life to go into the chamber in the first place. The Ring: We don't know too much about this, but obviously, it cost Dumbledore the use of his hand, at the very least. (IMO, DD didn't do the "thrilling tale" "justice", as he said he wanted to do -- he never gave Harry the details, did he?) The locket: This required a blood sacrifice and apparently,led to RAB's death. Destroying any of the Horcruxes will obviously require Harry or whomever to be willing to risk their own lives. But I wonder what other sacrifices will be required? Angie (who is going away for the weekend, not Horcrux Hunting, and who will check her posts when she returns.) Maybe that is part of the reason LV feels so secure with his Horcruxes? Maybe be believes there are few wizards (let's face it, the Order are few) who 1) know about his Horcruxes, know how to find them, and know how to destroy them, and 2)would risk their own lives to destroy part of his soul. From gelite67 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 20:29:24 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 20:29:24 -0000 Subject: Harry's ability to detect traces of magic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151563 ---> > > Angie wrote: > > > > One thing is for certain, Harry's got to figure out how to detect and > > destroy Horcruxes. > > Nick now: > > Obviously speculation... > > I've always thought that sensing magic would essentially be Ron's > function in the HRH horcrux killing triumvirate. He's usually good > with sensory things/sense of direction. He's the one who smells the > Troll in SS, he's the first one to hear the Durmstrang ship in GOF and > he also is good with sense of direction (finding their way to > Trelawney's room in POA). Plus he's the only one who grew up in a > wizard family, so he may have a better feel for these things than > people who grew up with Muggles. > Angie again: I love that idea -- Ron finally has a purpose in the story, other than being Harry's shadow and confidant. I've been waiting for Ron to "come into his own" and was hoping for more of that than I saw in OOP and HBP. Do you have any theories on what Harry and Hermione's roles will be? Do you believe the trio will do it on their own or will anyone come with them? From saberbunny at yahoo.ca Thu Apr 27 21:37:01 2006 From: saberbunny at yahoo.ca (catherine higgins) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 17:37:01 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Tangent: Mr. Ollivander In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060427213701.42360.qmail@web37010.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151564 gelite67 wrote: ---> > Angie again: I love the idea of LV's wand sprouting flowers or something like that at the crucial moment! Can you imagine the look of horror on LV's face? Even if you think death is what you should fear most, as LV does, there is something worse than death: the split second in which you learn you are for certain going to die and you can do nothing about it, because you are holding a wand full of flowers! Oh, I'm sure it won't happen that way, b/c it would be too comical, but I still love the idea. Think about it -- Catherine: Maybe someone could just use a switching spell on LV's wand and one of F&G's trick wand's. Same results. It would be too funny, but I agree, JKR wouldn't end the series that way....You could have LV's wand turn into anything...I think we've already seen a rubber chicken.... Catherine (who now has amusing thoughts of LV getting his proverbial goose cooked...) Before posting to any list, you MUST read the group's Admin File! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin_Files/HBF_Text__MUST_READ Please use accurate subject headings and snip unnecessary material from posts to which you're replying! --------------------------------- YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "HPforGrownups" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: HPforGrownups-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. --------------------------------- --------------------------------- Make free worldwide PC-to-PC calls. Try the new Yahoo! Canada Messenger with Voice [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From silmariel at telefonica.net Thu Apr 27 21:54:28 2006 From: silmariel at telefonica.net (silmariel) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 23:54:28 +0200 Subject: [HPforGrownups] House Elf Loyalty In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200604272354.28188.silmariel@telefonica.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151565 > bboyminn: > I've always objected to people comparing house-elves to human slaves. > While there are some parallels, and on occassion it does give us a > framework to illustrate their plight, I don't think it really holds up > well. My instinct says Honor is only an excuse... but after a hunt, I've found the reference - I was starting to think I had imagined it. http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2005/0705-edinburgh-ITVcubreporters.htm JK Rowling: "The house elves is really for slavery, isn't it, the house elves are slaves, so that is an issue that I think we probably all feel strongly about enough in this room already." Pretty clear, isn't it? Silmariel From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 22:58:19 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 22:58:19 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/Hermione In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151566 > >>Magpie: > I think maybe we're off track describing it as reading people > etc. Sometimes Hermione grasps a situation the right way, > sometimes Ron does. Hermione understands Cho's dilemma; Ron more > effortlessly makes himself popular with the House Elves. But > understanding is not the same as empathy, and to me it seems like > Ron is more naturally empathetic. > > So I think maybe we're unfair to talk about one or the other being > the feeling one...neither of them is super skilled at > understanding people all the time. > Betsy Hp: Hmm, I agree with this. Especially as we're watching Ron and Hermione grow up, so naturally they both stumble along the way. And I'll admit I was using a bit of short-hand to describe the differences between the two of them. Obviously, Ron can be blind about some things, and Hermione certainly has feelings. But I do think Ron is the more people friendly. Which has something to do with his social skills (which you touched on in the part I snipped). I think it's also speaks to his ability to understand what other people are feeling on an intuitive level. (And I'm not trying to claim any sort of madly special or gifted skill, here. Just relating it to Hermione.) Hermione can work things out. I seriously doubt she figured out everything she did about Cho just by observing her. (Especially the stuff about Quidditch.) I'd imagine Hermione paid a bit more attention whenever Cho's name came up in her dorm room and in the girl's room. But it takes effort on her part. That's why she was able to come up with the Umbridge plan and then nearly destroy it by misreading the Centaurs so badly. > >>SSSusan: > > Also, I'd love an example or two of ways in which you've seen Ron > being good at reading people emotionally. > Betsy Hp: The easy answer is Harry. Ron is, generally, much more aware of how Harry is feeling and (possibly more importantly) knows what Harry needs from moment to moment. For example: Knowing that Harry would prefer to go flying than sit around talking about his feelings. Another example, I think, is when Lavender's pet rabbit dies. Hermione sees it as an opportunity to prove her point of view, Ron understands that Lavender is not in the mood to hear it. Then there's the article Rita wrote about Hermione. Hermione sees it as so much empty gossip. Ron understands that it could cause Hermione some real trouble. He understands the emotional reaction it will cause. And then there's Hermione herself. Ron has a much stronger handle on who Hermione is and what makes her tick than I think even Hermione realizes. The arrival of their OWL marks is a positive example of that, Ron knows how to talk Hermione down from her panic attack. And his mocking her in the classroom is a negative example, Ron knows exactly where to hit to hurt Hermione the most. Hermione, on the other hand, puts a lot of effort into hurting Ron, with little to no outcome (her own mocking of Ron, and her disaster date at Slughorn's party). (When Hermione *does* hurt Ron in HBP, she does so unconsciously. Which is why she's so surprised by his anger and his turning to Lavender.) I think the reason I'm sort of harping on this is that, according to Hermione, Ron is this big lug who wouldn't know how to get to his classes if someone didn't lead him by the hand. (Or how to get on a Quidditch team without a friend cheating him on.) And really, he's not stupid, and in fact, sometimes he's even worth listening too. (The House-elves are the best example of that. But I think the care and feeding of Harry is another.) And actually, I think I've figured out why this particular bickering couple just doesn't work for me: They have so very little in common. Which actually goes against, I think, the bickering couple template. I mean, look at Benedick and Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing". They're both very witty, and incredibly independent. They banter with each other *because* there's a connection. Even if they don't see it at first. And then there's (ahem) *Liz* and Mr. Darcy in "Pride and Prejudice", who both have a strong sense of their own dignity and worth. Which again, causes their conflict but also guarantees their compatability once they both realize that they each value the other. Princess Leia and Han Solo also spark more because of their similarities (independence and drive) rather than their differences. But with Ron and Hermione, they fight because they really *are* different. They have completely different ways of approaching problems, and completely different goals. Their differences aren't a falsehood that needs to be destroyed so they can finally get together. The differences are real and won't go away. Which also explains, I think, why readers are so split over who's the weak link. I doubt any of the above listed "bickering couples" had such polarized fans fighting over whether Mr. Darcy was potentially abusive or if Beatrice really cared. Betsy Hp (still thinks Hermione and Ron will walk off into the sunset by series end, but suspects there won't be much heartfelt sighing from the audience) From OctobersChild48 at aol.com Thu Apr 27 18:55:17 2006 From: OctobersChild48 at aol.com (OctobersChild48 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 14:55:17 EDT Subject: Voldemort as a Ghost? (Was: Voldemort's ideology?) Message-ID: <24a.a35ff40.31826d95@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151567 > Peggy W: (adding the "W" because I see there are two Peggy's here) > Funny you would mention this, because this is actually part of my Pet > Theory on the Demise of Voldemort, which comes from thinking about > what happened with the AK that night at Godric's Hollow. > The connection is active and holds energy. Its emblem is Harry's > lightning bolt scar. This is very interesting because a lightning > bolt is a sign of power (as in, High Voltage in the context of > electricity). So my proposition is this: when Voldemort's final > Horcrux is destroyed, Harry and Voldemort will cease being equals > because Voldemort will again be mortal. This will break the symmetry > between them, and the energy that has been held between them all these > years from the failed Avada Kedavra will then be able to complete its > job: it will rebound on Voldemort, from Harry. If Harry is physically > near Voldemort when this happens (either must die at the hand of the > other), it will probably kill Voldemort. > > Somehow I have always envisioned this, visually I mean, as appearing > quite similar to what happened to the reformed Tom Riddle in the > chamber: dissolving into light. And then Voldemort will simply no > longer be. > > -- I have read some pretty wild theories on this list, but this is one that makes sense and that I like and embrace. It also has the benefit of keeping Harry from having to commit murder, or at least from actively killing. If it happens this way, Voldemort, in essence, will have killed himself. I keep trying to find the loophole in the Prophecy that will keep Harry from actually killing Voldemort, but I never can. This covers it nicely as it will lead to one dying at the hand of the other without Harry actually actively killing Voldemort. Thanks, Peggy, you have given me some hope. Sandy From OctobersChild48 at aol.com Thu Apr 27 19:10:42 2006 From: OctobersChild48 at aol.com (OctobersChild48 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 15:10:42 EDT Subject: Hagrid and non-verbal spells Message-ID: <247.a38a5d5.31827132@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151568 > Magpie: > Those things don't seem like non-verbal spells to me. They seem > like they're something built into the magical boat or brick Whereas the bricks could be magical the boat is not. It is the same boat that Vernon used to get them all to the island. And that brings up the question of how Vernon, Petunia and Dudley got off the island. Sandy From hokukaua at aol.com Thu Apr 27 21:45:29 2006 From: hokukaua at aol.com (hokukaua at aol.com) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 17:45:29 EDT Subject: Would Draco's soul split after he kills DD? WAS: Re: something suspicious about Severus Message-ID: <3cd.1a21337.31829579@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151569 > KJ writes: >"Now, the Malfoy question. There is a different theory on whether >Dumbledore has really died? Lets assume he has. Snape wouldn't want >Draco to kill Dumbledore. Remember, killing another human being would >have torn his soul. Draco would have no other option except to join >the DEs, which means another wizard lost to Voldemort." ****************************************************************************** ******** Ley- I disagree with your statement about Draco killing Dumbeldore would cause his soul to split in two. I was under the impression that some sort of dark magic is required to create a horcrux, in which case, Snape wouldn't have been concerned about Draco's soul splitting from killing Dumbeldore. -Ley From lauciricad at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 21:21:32 2006 From: lauciricad at yahoo.com (Don L.) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 21:21:32 -0000 Subject: Tangent: Mr. Ollivander In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151570 Ollivander's disappearance was reported to be late June or early July 1996 and is too close to the Battle of the Department of Mysteries and the beginning of the Second War to be insignificant or mere coincidence, IMO. The significance of wand relationships to other wands and their owners and Ollivander's part in placing wands with wizards was not lost on me, but I was a little surprised that more was not forthcoming as the plot unfolded throughout HBP. I've an inkling that Ollivander's disappearance is significant, and will play some part in the last book. But I thought Ollivander would have a larger part from the beginning of the series as well, only to be wrong. Ollivander and the sorting hat are important rights of passage for 1st years. I guess they will have had to borrow wands, or bought from alternative European sources. I expect there wizarding pawn or second-hand shops exist, perhaps even mail ordering wizarding businesses ? wEbay maybe... ? not likely. Don L. From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Thu Apr 27 23:41:11 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 23:41:11 -0000 Subject: Would Draco's soul split after he kills DD? WAS: Re: something suspicious about Severus In-Reply-To: <3cd.1a21337.31829579@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151571 Ley: > I disagree with your statement about Draco killing Dumbeldore would cause his soul to split in two. I was under the impression that some sort of dark magic is required to create a horcrux, in which case, Snape wouldn't have been concerned about Draco's soul splitting from killing Dumbeldore. Ceridwen: Apparently, some sort of Dark Magic is required to create a horcrux, but the intention to create a horcrux is not necessary to split a soul. Murder splits the soul. After that, it can be removed to encase in a horcrux: (Tom asks Slughorn how to split the soul. Slughorn replies) "By an act of evil -- the supreme act of evil. By committing murder. Killing rips the soul apart. *The wizard intent upon creating a Horcrux would use the damage to his advantage*: He would encase the torn portion --" ~HBP US Scholastic hardcover, pg. 498 So, the damage is already there. The enterprising Dark Wizard then uses the damage which is already there to create a horcrux. Ceridwen. From celizwh at intergate.com Fri Apr 28 00:03:47 2006 From: celizwh at intergate.com (houyhnhnm102) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 00:03:47 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/Hermione In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151572 >>SSSusan: > > > > Also, I'd love an example or two of ways in which you've seen Ron > > being good at reading people emotionally. > > Betsy Hp: > The easy answer is Harry. Ron is, generally, much more aware of how > Harry is feeling and (possibly more importantly) knows what Harry > needs from moment to moment. For example: Knowing that Harry would > prefer to go flying than sit around talking about his feelings. > > Another example, I think, is when Lavender's pet rabbit dies. > Hermione sees it as an opportunity to prove her point of view, Ron > understands that Lavender is not in the mood to hear it. [etc.] houyhnhnm: I like this one: "Well--it's not funny really--but as it's Filch," he said. "A Squib is someone who was born into a Wizarding family but hasn't got any magical powers. Kind of the opposite of Muggle-born wizards, but Squibs are quite unusual. If Filch's trying to learn magic from a Kwikspell course, I reckon he must be a Squib. It would explain a lot. Like why he hates students so much." Ron gave a satisfied smile. "He's bitter." (CoS9) It's not just that Ron is able to view Filch with compassion, but the fact that he doesn't think the misfortune of being a Squib is funny, that shows his capacity for empathy in this example. Betsy HP: > And actually, I think I've figured out why this particular bickering > couple just doesn't work for me: They have so very little in > common. Which actually goes against, I think, the bickering couple > template. houyhnhnm: I agree somewhat. None of the teen romances really worked for me. Maybe I'm just too old to empathize. I do think the Ron/Hermione pairing makes a kind of sense, though. I think a lot of Hermione's attraction to Ron has to do with the fact that he's a Weasley. I don't mean that she is aware of this in a conniving sort of way. I doubt if she's aware of it at all. But for a Muggle-born witch who is anxious to be fully accepted into the Wizarding World, what could be better than to marry into a pure-blood Wizarding family which is also open-minded in its attitude towards Muggles? A prospective father-in-law who practically dotes on Muggles and a mother-in-law who has not only already welcomed her as one of the family, but appears also to have put her dibs on Hermione as a future wife for her son. Additionally, "there are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other," and being the two best friends of The Chosen One is one of them. From foxmoth at qnet.com Fri Apr 28 01:45:17 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 01:45:17 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/Hermione In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151573 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" wrote: > > I think the reason I'm sort of harping on this is that, according to > Hermione, Ron is this big lug who wouldn't know how to get to his > classes if someone didn't lead him by the hand. (Or how to get on a > Quidditch team without a friend cheating him on.) And really, he's > not stupid, and in fact, sometimes he's even worth listening too. > (The House-elves are the best example of that. But I think the care > and feeding of Harry is another.) > > And actually, I think I've figured out why this particular bickering > couple just doesn't work for me: They have so very little in > common. Which actually goes against, I think, the bickering couple > template. > Pippin: Um, they've been working hand in glove for six years straight (with a time out in PoA) and you think they've got nothing in common? Nothing except their devotion to Project Harry, their courage and determination, and their sense of justice. Hanging out with Harry stopped being all fun and games quite a while ago, but they've never faltered. Their quarrel over the House Elves is about strategy and tactics, not purpose -- they both want to see the Elves treated fairly. Ron can't see the point of freeing them if they don't want it and it's going to make them miserable, and so far Hermione has only tried, with an obstinancy that would put Fudge to shame, to deny that the problem exists. It isn't that Hermione lacks empathy, it's that she doesn't understand that not everyone finds logic as relevant or as persuasive as she does. It's true Hermione sneers at Ron's lack of intelligence, but as he sneers at her for being a swot, I'd say they're even. Neither of them seems to be horribly sensitive about it. Pippin From kernsac at earthlink.net Fri Apr 28 01:54:05 2006 From: kernsac at earthlink.net (Peggy Kern) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 18:54:05 -0700 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) References: Message-ID: <076801c66a66$a2876af0$6401a8c0@user2b3ff76354> No: HPFGUIDX 151574 Sherry said: He even sent Sirius off while Harry was still in the hospital wing at the end of GOF, when Harry so obviously wanted him to stay. Honestly, would an hour have made any difference? Wouldn't it have been nice to help comfort the all important prophecy boy with the one person whose presence Harry wanted? Peggy now: I think, when you're talking about someone as evil as Voldemort returning, speed makes all the difference. I remember Dumbledore talking (after Cedric's death) about choosing between what's right and what's easy. I'm sure Dumbledore would have loved to have left Sirius there with Harry for as long as Harry needed him. But the most evil and feared wizard there was had just returned to power and no one knew it yet, which put them in grave danger. So the more important decision was to do what would protect the most people, rather than doing something kind for just one person. Just my thoughts. Peggy From laurel.coates at gmail.com Fri Apr 28 02:36:56 2006 From: laurel.coates at gmail.com (Laurel Coates) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 19:36:56 -0700 Subject: The Sacrificial Element in Destroying a Horcrux In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3cd952930604271936s4a7dab9em79ab686a8931d3c3@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151575 gelite67: > Maybe that is part of the reason LV feels so secure with his > Horcruxes? Maybe be believes there are few wizards (let's face it, the > Order are few) who 1) know about his Horcruxes, know how to find them, > and know how to destroy them, and 2)would risk their own lives to > destroy part of his soul. Who knows about the Horcruxes and what items they are likely to be? Harry. AFAIK, no one in the Order even knows about Voldemort's use of Horcruxes. The only ones who know are the Trio and possibly Slughorn. Has Harry even told anyone what the Horcruxes are likely to be? I remember him repeating the list like a mantra in his head, but I don't recall him ever telling anyone else. McGonagall apparently didn't know what Dumbledore was doing during his excursions from Hogwarts -- she asked him about it after DD's death -- so it seems unlikely she knew anything about them. Laurel C. From winkadup at yahoo.com Thu Apr 27 18:10:27 2006 From: winkadup at yahoo.com (winkadup) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 18:10:27 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore dead? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151576 Do you believe he is really dead? Snape offered Malfoy to fake his death to save him & his family. Could this also be that faking Dumbledore's death is some sort of way to fake out the death eaters? winkadup From puduhepa98 at aol.com Fri Apr 28 03:03:13 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 23:03:13 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Relationships; House Elves Message-ID: <215.161292d9.3182dff1@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151577 Nikkalmati: >> Here is something that has been puzzling me. How can Kreacher be dangerous? How can Kreacher betray Sirius, the heir of the house of Black, even by trickery or deception? Even with the collusion of Narcissa? Kreacher's treachery does not seem to fit what we have seen of house elves. << BAW: >>Kreacher betrayed Sirius to a close blood-relative; Harry is not bloodkin to the Malfoys (or only very distantly). That makes a difference. Nikkalmati: Kreacher betrayed Sirius, the last of the Blacks, not Harry. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 28 03:07:19 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 03:07:19 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/Hermione In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151578 > >>Betsy Hp: > > And actually, I think I've figured out why this particular > > bickering couple just doesn't work for me: They have so very > > little in common. Which actually goes against, I think, the > > bickering couple template. > >>houyhnhnm: > I agree somewhat. None of the teen romances really worked for me. > Maybe I'm just too old to empathize. Betsy Hp: I'm usually all over the romance stuff, eating it up with a spoon, etc. And I don't think the age of the players is the problem. I'm starting to think it's more that writing romance just isn't JKR's thing. There's something missing, IMO. (It doesn't kill the books at all, since they aren't about romance, really. It just means that the parts that should read romantically come across as a bit stiff or forced to me.) > >>houyhnhnm: > I do think the Ron/Hermione pairing makes a kind of sense, though. > Betsy Hp: Oh, I do see the logic. The two characters supporting Harry, the melding of the pureblood and the muggleborn, logic and intuition, etc. It's just... It's *too* logical, IMO. Ron and Hermione are coming together because it makes story sense. Not because they'd naturally end up with each other. I mean, Hermione honestly *should* hold Ron in a bit of contempt. And Ron should think Hermione just doesn't get it. That's what their personalities are like. But what is it that gets them past that? *Why* does Ron make Hermione weak in the knees? What do they sit around talking about? That's where the romance starts getting a little bumpy for me. > >>houyhnhnm: > Additionally, "there are some things you can't share without > ending up liking each other," and being the two best friends of > The Chosen One is one of them. Betsy Hp: But what happens when the war is over? I mean, do they sit around talking only about *Harry* all those times they're alone together? 'Cause that is not an example of a healthy or romantic relationship. At least, not in my opinion. It explains how two completely different people can become *friends*. But it's not enough, usually, to carry the friendship through to happily ever after land. > >>Pippin: > Um, they've been working hand in glove for six years straight > (with a time out in PoA) and you think they've got nothing in > common? Betsy Hp: Not personality-wise. No. > >>Pippin: > Nothing except their devotion to Project Harry, their courage and > determination, and their sense of justice. Hanging out with Harry > stopped being all fun and games quite a while ago, but they've > never faltered. Betsy Hp: Well, yes. They're very loyal to Harry. But I'm talking about the two of them *without* Harry. And yes, they're brave and determined, but in very different ways. That actually is a strength for Harry, but it's not a common link between Ron and Hermione. Not enough of one anyway. And, I would argue that Ron and Hermione have very different views on justice. Ron has a pretty good sense of fair play. Hermione seems to think that what she thinks is right is right. She thinks tricking the house-elves is justice. Ron thinks it's wrong. I'm betting she didn't tell Ron about her jinx on the DA sign up sheet. It doesn't strike me as his style. And see, that strikes me as very different from the usual bickering couple template. The bickering couple usually *do* have a very similar style. They just fail to recognize it (while usually everyone around them sees the similarities quite clearly). Ron and Hermione would *never* approach a task in the same way, even if the end goal was the same. And the problem, to my mind, is Hermione (at least in HBP) would see Ron's way as totally, completely wrong. > >>Pippin: > It's true Hermione sneers at Ron's lack of intelligence, > but as he sneers at her for being a swot, I'd say they're even. > Neither of them seems to be horribly sensitive about it. Betsy Hp: I don't recall Ron sneering at Hermione for being a swot. He actually seems at turns amused, fond and even proud of her. Of course, when they're fighting, he does mock her enthusiasm in the classroom, but that's because he knows it'll hurt her. But, yeah, Hermione really seems to think Ron is gigantic idiot. And yeah, for some reason Ron isn't horribly bothered by it. (Until he is.) But it still leaves me mystified about *what* exactly Hermione likes about Ron, and why exactly Ron puts up with her sneering. What on earth do those two have in common? Betsy Hp From elfundeb at gmail.com Fri Apr 28 03:07:43 2006 From: elfundeb at gmail.com (elfundeb) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 23:07:43 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Re:Prefect Ron In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <80f25c3a0604272007v6d9de724lf9f29e81d96e51bd@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151579 SSSusan steps out into the light, after a long period in darkest Lurkerdom, to say: Debbie, emerging from much deeper lurkdom and deserving of a Bat-Bogey Hex for barging in like this to answer a question directed to someone else, but since I agree with Betsy . . . . Hermione accuses Ron of having the emotional range of a teaspoon, I think, because she treats emotions, like anything else, as something to be analyzed and dissected. In addition to Betsy's own examples, take Cho. Hermione has put together a detailed laundry list of all of the events in Cho's life that are making her an emotional mess. (The fact that she is an emotional mess should be obvious to anyone who is paying attention.) This an analytical response to Cho, not an emotional one. And to take Betsy's examples, in PoA, Hermione unhelpfully attempted to defuse Lavender's grief over her rabbit by analyzing the circumstances of Trelawney's supposed prediction and poor Binky's death. Ron, OTOH, actually offers real comfort, as in Betsy's GoF example where he suggests a pickup game of Quidditch to ease Harry's mind. And I'll add my favorite: in PoA (erm, I think it's PoA) the Trio visit Hagrid while he's distraught over something. While Hermione (and to some extent Harry) offer practical advice, he does not calm down until Ron brings him a steaming mug of tea. Only then, after he has been comforted, can he listen to Hermione's opinions. As for Ron's emotional range, I must confess that I do not see a wide emotional range in his responses to emotional distress. He has one response: offer comfort. But he's good at it, much better than Hermione. And that's because he trusts his emotional read of a situation. Hermione does not. (In Myers-Briggs terms, this is a thinker-feeler dichotomy.) Betsy: > Actually, I think that's where JKR is going when she sees Ron and > Hermione as a couple. She provides the cold calculation, he > provides the heart, and together they're unstoppable. SSSusan: <> Debbie: Hermione's concern about the house elves is genuine. But it's also not wholly an emotional response, as the received wisdom of Hermione's muggle cultural background tells her that slavery is wrong. She simply applies that received wisdom to the house elves, without any significant real-life contact with them. Her response is very calculated -- she has a detailed plan for raising awareness of the house elves' plight. Ron, OTOH, subconsciously synthesizes his observations of the house elves at Hogwarts and reaches a different, emotionally-based, conclusion: they are happy so let's not be so quick to upset the apple-cart. Nowhere does Ron endorse the Malfoys' treatment of Dobby. As for Kreacher, Ron's response has little to do with his being a house-elf and everything to do with his fanatical devotion to the memory of Mrs. Black and her pure-blood mania. SSSusan: <> Debbie: Ron is not a calculating kind of guy -- rather, he is thoughtless, and his off-the-cuff remarks can be hurtful. But when he speaks, he says what he means. We do not get guile from him. WYSIWIG. I think this is one reason Ron is an appealing character for many readers despite his lack of judgment and tact. Hermione, OTOH, calculates everything, even to the point of being willing to go on a date with that colossal jerk Cormac MacLaggen, just to infuriate Ron. With Ron, I doubt any thinking at all went into his hooking up with Lavender; at that point, what Ron needed emotionally (after a year and a half of Hermione expressing doubt about his abilities) was to feel wanted, and Lavender provided that for him. Betsy HP: <> Debbie: They may approach problems differently, but that could be a strength if each learns to trust the validity of the other's methods and when each approach is the right one. IMO, their goals are not as different as they seem. Ron wants to succeed (IMO, as much as Hermione does), but he's afraid to try. Shaun: <> Debbie: People who have been on this list for a *very* long time may remember that I once wrote a post (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/38730) claiming that Ron was plenty smart (I didn't use gifted terminology) but that for a host of reasons including the Weasley family dynamic and his fear of becoming another Percy subjected to merciless abuse from the twins, Ron purposely does not try. In fact, this is almost the first thing he tells Harry on the Hogwarts Exress in PS/SS ("I'm the sixth in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I've got a lot to live up to. . . . Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it's no big deal, because they did it first.") That's a lot of expectations he thinks he's carrying, and as Shaun says, if he doesn't try, he can't fail. Ron is frequently derided as not in Hermione's class intellectually. I won't repeat all the evidence that Ron's smarter than your average wizard (regardless of how much Idiot!Movie!Ron may have influenced JKR; however, the fact that Ron manages to garner a significant number of O.W.L.s just by cramming in the few weeks before the exam suggests to me that he's not so dumb after all. A little mutual respect would go a long way toward fixing what seems wrong with this pairing. And that comes with maturity. Debbie who analyzes *everything* just like Hermione and probably has the emotional range of a demitasse spoon [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From tonks_op at yahoo.com Fri Apr 28 03:20:38 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 03:20:38 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore dead? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151580 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "winkadup" wrote: > > Do you believe he is really dead? Snape offered Malfoy to fake his > death to save him & his family. Could this also be that faking > Dumbledore's death is some sort of way to fake out the death eaters? > Tonks: Yes, he is dead. Very dead. Total dead. Dead indeed. It broke my heart. I was depressed for a month. I understand people not wanting it to be true. But it is true, for many reasons. There was no need to fake his death. But there was a need for him to die. I think in order to understand what will happen in book 7 we must except, hard as it is, that he is dead. Tonks_op From belviso at attglobal.net Fri Apr 28 03:41:37 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 23:41:37 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: SHIP Ron/Hermione References: Message-ID: <00cd01c66a75$a78d21c0$1b66400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 151581 > Betsy Hp: > Hermione can work things out. I seriously doubt she figured out > everything she did about Cho just by observing her. (Especially the > stuff about Quidditch.) I'd imagine Hermione paid a bit more > attention whenever Cho's name came up in her dorm room and in the > girl's room. But it takes effort on her part. That's why she was > able to come up with the Umbridge plan and then nearly destroy it by > misreading the Centaurs so badly. Magpie: Not to mention, I just have to throw in because it's ironic, it's Hermione who causes problems with Cho, not Ron. She's the one who arranges for Harry to meet her on Valentine's Day without telling him why, which leads to Cho getting angry. Later on Hermione tells Harry what he should have said to avoid trouble and Harry is clueless. Hermione gives the right without overly connecting to the people involved. Ron doesn't usually have the answer but he's more likely to subtly do the right thing just because. (I remember a scene in OotP where Hermone was being particularly thoughtful and I thought, 'what does she want?' Turned out she wanted the DA. Again, as you said, we're not talking about Ron being this great mystic of empathy or anything or Hermione being awful. He's just used to giving people what they need. And given that he's so reluctant to ever put himself out there he's not going to really tell us what he thinks about from people in words, except in mumbled asides like "They ought to know what they're picking up" about the House Elves when she's tricking them. He just knows to not put himself forward to avoid the twins' ridicule, to worry that the twins might do something that crosses the line in GoF. Iirc he's also got some line in OotP about being at fault for the twins leaving school. Having grown up in his house he's used to different weird personalities reacting in predictable ways. When Hermione sees something important she says it or takes an aggressive action. Ron's more likely to do something more subtle or go quiet. (I find his reaction to Arthur's attack more interesting than any of the other Weasleys' wanting to fight.) You can't get around the fact that Hermione doesn't get along with people as naturally as Ron does. Ron's the person she apparently likes best and he's the person she's the most insulting to, perhaps unintentionally. Ron is, sometimes, actually good at dealing with Hermione when she really needs it. Hermione, when she tries to do something nice for Ron, makes bigger mistakes because of the way she tries to show her affection. Too often it comes up as Hermione showing affection by stepping in and offering help so he doesn't screw up. I think she's probably good for him at other times by pushing him etc. I mean, we shouldn't put too much weight on Hermione's comment of Ron's emotional range. Ron doesn't understand Cho in that particular scene, but during OotP I think he's having a more emotional year than Hermione. (I admit I find Hermione a bit of a robot in OotP. She seems to spend all her time scheming or planning or doing some activity to the point where she seems to have no inner life at all to me. Harry and Ron are losing sleep over detentions and Quidditch practice respectively, and Hermione stays awake...to knit hats. I found myself thinking she was intentionally waiting until the other girls in her dorm were asleep because her relationships with them were so bad.) Ron's just as raw as Cho at times, only he's often having to deal with it on his own because Harry isn't there for him. We can dismiss his troubles as meaningless because they're about Quidditch or whatever, but I think what Ron is facing there is pretty big. The thing with Ron is he is pretty passive a lot of the time, so he sort of becomes what other people define him as. His brothers tease him and he puts up with it. The guys at school see him as non-threatening and he brushes it off. Girls recognize him as being a good man at heart and he's confused. -m From sherriola at earthlink.net Fri Apr 28 03:59:01 2006 From: sherriola at earthlink.net (Sherry Gomes) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 20:59:01 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Dumbledore dead? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151582 winkadup Do you believe he is really dead? Snape offered Malfoy to fake his death to save him & his family. Could this also be that faking Dumbledore's death is some sort of way to fake out the death eaters? winkadup Sherry now: I do believe Dumbledore is dead. JKR has consistently said, dead means dead, and I'm thinking she's going to stick with that. And it's ok. He's 150 years old after all. I wish she'd bring Sirius back, but I do not think that will happen either. Just a correction to your post. It was Dumbledore, not Snape, who offered Malfoy and his family fake death. Sherry From brahadambal at indiatimes.com Fri Apr 28 04:07:22 2006 From: brahadambal at indiatimes.com (latha279) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 04:07:22 -0000 Subject: The Sacrificial Element in Destroying a Horcrux In-Reply-To: <3cd952930604271936s4a7dab9em79ab686a8931d3c3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151583 > Who knows about the Horcruxes and what items they are likely to be? > Harry. AFAIK, no one in the Order even knows about Voldemort's use of > Horcruxes. > > Laurel C. > Snape seems to know. I feel DD would have told him. DD kept his secrets well and also, didn't indulge what one person knows to another. BTW, I am going back to my one real big speculation - that Snape heard the entire prophecy. So, why does DD say in the broomshed that the prophesy is known completely to only two ppl in the world, till that point? DD knows that Snape knows the entire prophesy, still he withholds the information from Harry. And I have a horrible feeling these days, that Snape may not be as sincere a DDM as I thought him to be. Brady (Why the hell can't JKR write faster?? This is so maddening.) From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 28 00:54:45 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 17:54:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: SHIP Ron/Hermione In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060428005445.3777.qmail@web61314.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151584 Betsy Hp: The easy answer is Harry. Ron is, generally, much more aware of how Harry is feeling and (possibly more importantly) knows what Harry needs from moment to moment. For example: Knowing that Harry would prefer to go flying than sit around talking about his feelings. And actually, I think I've figured out why this particular bickering couple just doesn't work for me: They have so very little in common. Which actually goes against, I think, the bickering couple template. I mean, look at Benedick and Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing". They're both very witty, and incredibly independent. They banter with each other *because* there's a connection. Even if they don't see it at first. Joe : I have to strongly disagree here. Both of them being witty and very independent seems like a very weak foundation and sort of shallow as well. We know both Ron and Hermione are smart (she more than him but not by leaps and bounds), brave, loyal with a strong sense of what is right and wrong. Myabe it's me but that sounds like a far better foundation than Benedick and Beatrice had. I'm not saying they should be together. What I am saying is that they have as good a foundation as any. I think the real problem is from giving far too much importance to their surface traits (reads a lot, loves sports etc) and not enough to those traits that make people who they are. BetsyHP: And then there's (ahem) *Liz* and Mr. Darcy in "Pride and Prejudice", who both have a strong sense of their own dignity and worth. Which again, causes their conflict but also guarantees their compatability once they both realize that they each value the other. Joe: Can't comment on this Jane Austin makes me ill. BetsyHP: Princess Leia and Han Solo also spark more because of their similarities (independence and drive) rather than their differences. Joe: As much as I hate star wars analogies I have to say I think Ron and Hermione are a great deal like Han and Leia. IMHO Han and Leia only work because they aren't a like. They compliment each others weaknesses. BetsyHP: But with Ron and Hermione, they fight because they really *are* different. They have completely different ways of approaching problems, and completely different goals. Their differences aren't a falsehood that needs to be destroyed so they can finally get together. The differences are real and won't go away. Joe: No their differences aren't falsehoods but they are mostly superficial. As I said before IMO if you want a carbon copy of yourself for a mate you have big problems. BetsyHP: Which also explains, I think, why readers are so split over who's the weak link. I doubt any of the above listed "bickering couples" had such polarized fans fighting over whether Mr. Darcy was potentially abusive or if Beatrice really cared. Joe: Well Han really didn't have another option and I wanted Mr. Darcy and the others to drown before that book was over. Also all of the other couple above are adults. Expecting Ron and Hermione(or any other of the students) to not have any bump along the road to understand each other is a bit much. For me the most telling thing would be to see how the two of them relate when Harry isn't around. Joe From bawilson at citynet.net Fri Apr 28 03:51:20 2006 From: bawilson at citynet.net (Bruce Alan Wilson) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 23:51:20 -0400 Subject: Slavery? Not exactly. Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151585 Bboymin: "Slaves are kidnapped and forced into service against their will. They are prisoners who either work or die; though usually it's both." BAW: Those taken from Africa directly yes. But in the second generation or beyond (those born into slavery, and perhaps those whose parents and even grandparents were slaveborn)--not so much. I have read accounts of close affection between slaveowners and slaves, and of slaves who were fiercely loyal and protective of their owners. I've even heard of white and black families in the deep south today who still consider themselves mutually bound by ties dating back before emancipation. Of course, this does not justify the 'peculiar institution'; but it does show that matters were a little more complicated. To bring this back to HP, we don't know if the need that House Elves have to serve human wizards is innate or imposed, but it is real. Most House Elves seem happy--Dobby is an exception. Winkey was appalled at the idea of being set 'free'. Granted, that some wizards exploit this need and use it to mistreat their House Elves--but I think that we may take it that most do not. In short, human-on-human slavery is not a good analogy for human-on-elf slavery in the Potterverse, any more than human-on-(say)dog 'slavery'. The relationship comes somewhere in between. From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Fri Apr 28 06:50:02 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 06:50:02 -0000 Subject: Would Draco's soul split after he kills DD? WAS: Re: something suspicious about Severus In-Reply-To: <3cd.1a21337.31829579@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151586 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, hokukaua at ... wrote: > > > KJ writes: > > >"Now, the Malfoy question. There is a different theory on whether > >Dumbledore has really died? Lets assume he has. Snape wouldn't want > >Draco to kill Dumbledore. Remember, killing another human being would > >have torn his soul. Draco would have no other option except to join > >the DEs, which means another wizard lost to Voldemort." -Ley: > I disagree with your statement about Draco killing Dumbeldore would cause > his soul to split in two. I was under the impression that some sort of dark > magic is required to create a horcrux, in which case, Snape wouldn't have been > concerned about Draco's soul splitting from killing Dumbeldore. Geoff: As other posters have pointed out, magic is required to make a Horcrux - after all, as far as we know Voldemort has only created Horcruxes from a small numbers of his victims, If Draco had killed Dumbledore and split his soul, the pieces would have remained within him unless he decided (or even knew) how to create a Horcrux. Why would that leave DEs as the only option? He could have continued living with the family and pursuing an interest in the dark arts without actually joining the "gang". From MadameSSnape at aol.com Fri Apr 28 11:07:53 2006 From: MadameSSnape at aol.com (MadameSSnape at aol.com) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 07:07:53 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Harry's assumption VS Everyone's assumption Message-ID: <388.23976b2.31835189@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151587 In a message dated 4/27/2006 11:09:18 AM Eastern Daylight Time, yaiaja at yahoo.com writes: I just finished re-read the first 5 books in order to have a better insight before reading the sixth book. One thing that's confusing me most, how come Dumbledore trusted Snape so much and seems like ignoring the statements and facts that given by Harry, that Snape is nothing more than a treacherous member of the order. What makes DD believes that Snape's is worthed every bit to be in the order and will protect the order with all his might. ------------ Sherrie here: We haven't yet been given the full reason why Dumbledore trusts Snape so - though the gods know, we've had plenty of speculation on it! As to why he doesn't take Harry's word for things, well, Dumbledore has known Sev a LITTLE longer than Harry has, knows that Harry is as biased in his view of Snape as Snape is in his view of Harry - and has a knack for seeing inside people. He's also got a VAST deal more life experience than Harry - hero or no, Harry is still a young boy. Just my 2 Knuts - as ever, YMMV Sherrie "Accept no one's definition of your life. Define yourself." - Harvey Fierstein [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From MadameSSnape at aol.com Fri Apr 28 11:20:20 2006 From: MadameSSnape at aol.com (MadameSSnape at aol.com) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 07:20:20 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) Message-ID: <3e8.d12c1f.31835474@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151588 In a message dated 4/27/2006 2:20:36 PM Eastern Daylight Time, midnightowl6 at hotmail.com writes: Sherry: > > I had never thought of it that way, but now you've got me going. You are > absolutely correct, I think. PJ: I don't honestly know if I'm right or not because I can't mesh what JKR says in her interview (she cried when she had to kill him off) and what she writes in her books. ------------ Sherrie here: Oddly, I just recently had this discussion with a friend, having just lost my aunt/godmother, and he having just found out that his father has only a couple of years to live. Perhaps JKR wasn't weeping for Sirius, but for Harry - knowing the effect that losing Sirius would have on him. After all, when we cry at funerals, we're not crying for the deceased, really - we're crying for ourselves, because we've lost them. Like an old Lakota death song I learned ages ago: "Father, I am going to die./For myself I grieve not/But for those who are left behind." Sherrie [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From MadameSSnape at aol.com Fri Apr 28 11:29:37 2006 From: MadameSSnape at aol.com (MadameSSnape at aol.com) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 07:29:37 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: The Sacrificial Element in Destroying a Horcrux Message-ID: <3e7.d0dfe9.318356a1@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151589 In a message dated 4/28/2006 12:08:29 AM Eastern Daylight Time, brahadambal at indiatimes.com writes: BTW, I am going back to my one real big speculation - that Snape heard the entire prophecy. So, why does DD say in the broomshed that the prophesy is known completely to only two ppl in the world, till that point? DD knows that Snape knows the entire prophesy, still he withholds the information from Harry. And I have a horrible feeling these days, that Snape may not be as sincere a DDM as I thought him to be. ---------------------- Sherrie here: My theory on that - Snape DID hear the whole prophecy, but KNOWS only part of it. He allowed Dumbledore to Obliviate the memory of the crucial clause from his mind, for his own protection - since I too believe that Snape was already spying at that point, which is why he was there - to report something urgent to Dumbledore. Sherrie (not sure it's even worth one Knut, but there you have it) [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From sherlocksridhar at fastmail.fm Fri Apr 28 07:01:05 2006 From: sherlocksridhar at fastmail.fm (sridharj_ap) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 07:01:05 -0000 Subject: Tangent: Mr. Ollivander In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151590 > Angie again: >It's not like LV can't get another wand with a phoenix feather made of yew wood. Sridhar: I second this, since LV can then get a feather from a different phoenix. Otherwise, the wand-locking effect will continue. But I wonder, can we mix more than 2 substances for the wand core. There is nothing in the canon to justify this, but its just a thought. > If he'd known, then WHAT? What would he have done? This time, > Ollivander WOULD know what the wand was going out into the world to > do. Which makes me wonder -- would he somehow trick LV and make the > wand "weaker" or somehow make it malfunction, but only when it meets > Harry's wand? Sridhar: But as he says, in PS/SS, it is the wand that really chooses its owner. Can he prevent a different wand from choosing LV? > I love the idea of LV's wand sprouting flowers or something like that > at the crucial moment! ... comical, but I still love the idea. Sridhar: Good one Angie! or perhaps only a few small tweeting birds would come out of AK. LV will probably die of a heart attack, although we don't really know if LV has a heart. Regards Sridhar From sherlocksridhar at fastmail.fm Fri Apr 28 07:25:53 2006 From: sherlocksridhar at fastmail.fm (sridharj_ap) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 07:25:53 -0000 Subject: Would Draco's soul split after he kills DD? / Why AD does not become invisible? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151591 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister" wrote: > If Draco had killed Dumbledore and split his soul, the pieces would have remained within him unless he decided (or even knew) how to create a Horcrux. Why would that leave DEs as the only option? He could have continued living with the family and pursuing an interest in the dark arts without actually joining the "gang". Sridhar again: If Draco had killed AD, then everybody including the MoM would have know about it. He would have to join the DEs and hide out or be put in Azkaban. I don't think the MoM would have taken AD's death lying down, alteast not after Rufeus has become the Minister (even though rufeous has other faults). I also wonder why AD did not make himself invisible after landing on the tower. We know that he does not need an invisibility Cloak (the third time Harry visits the Mirror of Erised...). Regards Sherlocksridhar P.S: Ley (hokukaua at ...) quoted me as KJ. From somedayalive at yahoo.com Fri Apr 28 08:03:17 2006 From: somedayalive at yahoo.com (Jennifer Carlson) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 08:03:17 -0000 Subject: Slavery? Not exactly. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151592 > BAW: > > In short, human-on-human slavery is not a good analogy for human-on- elf slavery > in the Potterverse, any more than human-on-(say)dog 'slavery'. The relationship > comes somewhere in between. Jen: To say this implies that Elves are somehow "less" than Humans, which we know to be untrue as they have quite strong magical powers themselves and are also capable of independent thought and emotion...they are not "pets" they are enslaved by WHATEVER you want to call it...just because the law states they are subhuman does not make it so...American law used to claim Blacks were subhuman and it didn't make it true. From cassy_ferris at yahoo.com Fri Apr 28 08:18:35 2006 From: cassy_ferris at yahoo.com (Cassy Ferris) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 12:18:35 +0400 (MSD) Subject: Voldemort as a Ghost? (Was: Voldemort's ideology?) In-Reply-To: <1789c2360604271117v196f3b58x9cc4d99d8d8c212b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20060428081835.22393.qmail@web38312.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151593 >Peggy W wrote: >I believe the answer to this is that Dumbledore knew he couldn't kill >Voldemort, there would be no point in trying; it would only cause a >longer delay in ending the whole affair if he were ripped from his >body again. But why would a delay in the war be unwelcome? Dumbledore could've had more time to search and destroy the remaining horcruxes and, more importantly, Harry would have a piece of normal life, an opportunity to mature, finish school and probably have some Auror training before being thrown into the battle. Besides, wouldn't it be much easier to deal with known Dearth Eaters while they are leaderless and afterwards with Voldermort without his supporters aound? Cassy From iam.kemper at gmail.com Fri Apr 28 14:11:12 2006 From: iam.kemper at gmail.com (Kemper) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 07:11:12 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] House Elf Loyalty In-Reply-To: <200604272354.28188.silmariel@telefonica.net> References: <200604272354.28188.silmariel@telefonica.net> Message-ID: <700201d40604280711j69b7bbb3na2824c207d5e3eb7@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151594 On 4/27/06, silmariel wrote: > > > > bboyminn: > > I've always objected to people comparing house-elves to human slaves. > > While there are some parallels, and on occassion it does give us a > > framework to illustrate their plight, I don't think it really holds up > > well. > > My instinct says Honor is only an excuse... but after a hunt, I've found > the > reference - I was starting to think I had imagined it. > > ... > JK Rowling: "The house elves is really for slavery, isn't it, the house > elves > are slaves, so that is an issue that I think we probably all feel strongly > > about enough in this room already." > > Pretty clear, isn't it? > Kemper now: It isn't pretty clear. Regardless of what JKR says about her intentions, they don't seem to come across that way on the page. I agree mostly with Steve. Mostly. The House Elves seem like endentured servants. They sign up with a family because they get something in return... which may only be the joy, or honor, of serving. But they seem to get something initially in the Servant/Master arrangement, otherwise why would the first HEs ever agree to serve a Witch/Wizard in the first place? -Kemper, who's hella behind on reading posts... [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From foxmoth at qnet.com Fri Apr 28 15:01:10 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:01:10 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/Hermione In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151595 > >>Pippin: > > Nothing except their devotion to Project Harry, their courage and > > determination, and their sense of justice. Hanging out with Harry > > stopped being all fun and games quite a while ago, but they've > > never faltered. > > Betsy Hp: > Well, yes. They're very loyal to Harry. But I'm talking about the > two of them *without* Harry. > And see, that strikes me as very different from the usual bickering > couple template. The bickering couple usually *do* have a very > similar style. They just fail to recognize it (while usually > everyone around them sees the similarities quite clearly). Ron and > Hermione would *never* approach a task in the same way, even if the > end goal was the same. And the problem, to my mind, is Hermione (at > least in HBP) would see Ron's way as totally, completely wrong. > > > What on earth do those two have in common? Pippin: What's similar about their style is their intensity. That can be awfully hard to put up with unless you find somebody who understands it because they're the same way. Ron doesn't put his intensity into his studies the way Hermione does, but he's not what I'd call laid back, certainly not where Quidditch or Harry is concerned. They do share a passion for justice even if they express it in different ways. They react with equal shock and outrage when Sirius says he was imprisoned without trial. Harry doesn't think much about how they relate when he's not around, but JKR sent them off to Hogsmeade together in PoA and they came back glowing. The things they tease each other about aren't really hot buttons -- you can tell because Draco and Pansy pick other things to rag them about. You won't hear Draco teasing Ron about his lack of academic prowess, and Parkinson doesn't call Hermione a know it all. Only Snape manages to draw blood with that one, but it's the unfairness of it that rankles, not the insult itself. I don't think we hear any criticism from Ron about the parchment hex. The DA members were told that they were agreeing not to tell Umbridge about the meetings by signing it. A wizard would not be shocked to find that the agreement had teeth. Pippin From andrea1270 at hotmail.com Fri Apr 28 14:15:17 2006 From: andrea1270 at hotmail.com (andrea1270) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 14:15:17 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix (It's a little late and a lot long :) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151596 Zgirnius wrote: > I do get the whole glorious, full-blown heroic picture you are trying > to paint here, Talisman. I do. I just don't think it is what Rowling > wrote/will write. My bottom line objection to your theory (and also > the Spinner's End Snape was Dumbledore theory) is that in Spinner's > End and The Flight of the Prince Rowling lavished some lovely > character moments on Snape, and likewise in the Cave and Tower she > did the same for Dumbledore, and I just really am not convinced she > would have done this for the wrong person(s), as I have already tried > to explain. > > Talisman: > > I see, zgirnius, that you are from the DDM camp, so I trust you > read > > Snape as diametrically opposed to Voldemort (he would *never* wear > a > > turban; he appears in Fake!Moody's Foe Glass, etc.); and that you > > understand the magnanimity of his actions. I first have to say that I loved this entire line of thinking where Snape and Dumbledore are concerned. It prompted a re-reading of HBP for me and I have to say I really enjoyed reading it again with this theory in mind. I have waffled back and forth a million times since that fateful day I first finished this book, about the nature of Snape's involvement and what impact it will have on the end of the series, so I don't consider myself to be overly convinced of his guilt or innocence either one. I am, for the most part, content to let events play out at JKR's leisure and mourn the loss of these characters, good or evil, once they are gone. That being said, I find more compelling clues that Dumbledore may have been impersonating Snape at Spinner's End than I find for a Dumbledore/Snape switch in the cave and beyond. It was mentioned before that Snape's cordial demeanor in greeting the sisters was, at the very least, suspicious. When I went back and re- read this scene it was, IMO, the most agreeable you ever see Snape in the series to this point. It is true that we never see Snape around Death Eaters, so the argument exists that maybe this is how Snape behaves when "in his element". But offering drinks, much less explanations to doubters, hardly seems like the surly Snape we know. It is not really a strech to hear Dumbledore in his dialogue and his hospitality and even in the lengths he goes to to protect Draco from his task ahead. While Snape would have had some motive to make the Unbreakable Vow (finally shutting up Bellatrix's harping comes to mind, although I'm not even sure I feel like there was any real benefit to silencing Bella's objections to him. It was well known that he was the favorite and LV was obviously not swayed by her distrust.) I'm not sure he would have felt like he owed the Malfoy's that measure. Narcissa mentioned that he was Draco's favorite teacher and Lucius' friend, but I don't think that even SHE was convinced of his investment. Why would he go out on of limb? He already had the favor of the Dark Lord and nothing to gain by helping Narcissa who, in his own intimation, could have been strung up for treachery in even coming there, and Bella by association. As for the cave, even though I love the theory that Dumbledore and Snape were switched (possibly when he sent Harry for his cloak or even before) I couldn't get the same comfort level with it as with Spinner's End. Little things, like Dumbledore asking about his apparation ("I'll assist you like before" referring to their adventure over the summer.) I know it's possible that Snape was aware of that detail, but it's harder to imagine Snape and Dumbledore having the conversation where that detail would have been discussed. Things like Dumbledore forgetting that Harry was wet and apologizing for forgetting to take care of that or the "I'm with you" statement. I'm not saying that Snape is incapable of having tender feelings like that at all, I'm just saying that those are the moments that pass between friends or a mentor/father figure and his charge. Andrea (sorry about the purely editorial nature of this post, but many thanks to the people who have brilliantly debated it over the last week in this forum and have given me something to obsess over for a bit.) From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 28 15:57:31 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:57:31 -0000 Subject: House Elf Loyalty In-Reply-To: <700201d40604280711j69b7bbb3na2824c207d5e3eb7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151597 Silmariel: > > ... > > JK Rowling: "The house elves is really for slavery, isn't it, the house > > elves > > are slaves, so that is an issue that I think we probably all feel strongly > > > > about enough in this room already." > > > > Pretty clear, isn't it? > > > > > Kemper now: > It isn't pretty clear. Regardless of what JKR says about her intentions, > they don't seem to come across that way on the page. > > I agree mostly with Steve. Mostly. > > The House Elves seem like endentured servants. They sign up with a family > because they get something in return... which may only be the joy, or > honor, of serving. But they seem to get something initially in the > Servant/Master arrangement, otherwise why would the first HEs ever agree to > serve a Witch/Wizard in the first place? Alla: Bud do we know that the first House Elves agreed to serve out of his own free will? Do we know that they were not being tricked into agreement or even worse - were forced to sign an agreement? I mean, of course we don't have to agree with JKR in interpreting her works, but to me at least her intentions on this issue are quite clear. I think she does portray house elves with more or less direct analogy of slavery and knowing her intentions (since I do believe her interviews) that helps me ( I think) to predict what is going to happen to House Elves at the end. I do think that whatever enchantment they are under will be lifted and they will be free. Don't get me wrong, I think it would be more interesting for Hermione to find out that House Elves DO like serving their masters and to realise that she really should not impose her views on House Elves, but I think at the end her cause will be accomplished. IMO of course, Alla. From winkadup at yahoo.com Fri Apr 28 12:05:28 2006 From: winkadup at yahoo.com (Wendy Dupuy) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 05:05:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Dumbledore dead? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060428120528.57883.qmail@web34114.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151598 Sherry now: >> I do believe Dumbledore is dead. JKR has consistently said, dead means dead, and I'm thinking she's going to stick with that. And it's ok. He's 150 years old after all. I wish she'd bring Sirius back, but I do not think that will happen either. Just a correction to your post. It was Dumbledore, not Snape, who offered Malfoy and his family fake death. << winkadup: I am hoping that in some way that Snape and Dumbledore have some secret plan to have Dumbledore to come back to help Harry. Could there be some way that Dumbledore instructed Snape to do this so he can come back in some sort of way. I have a hard time thinking Dumbledore could leave Harry so open, so vulnerable to attach. He (if I am remembering right) always said to Harry, I will always to here for the students that need me. I have seen interviews with JK saying she was upset as well with the death of Sirius. But I don't remember her saying after this book anything about Dumbledore. Have you are anyone recall any statements about it? I could be wrong. Harry lost his parents, Sirius and now Dumbledore. I would think Dumbledore knew Harry needs him the most right now. I never understood why Dumbledore trusts Snape. I hope this next book can explain. Does anyone know when the next book will come out? winkadup From ldps at kaballero.com Fri Apr 28 12:54:18 2006 From: ldps at kaballero.com (Lazy Days) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 08:54:18 -0400 Subject: Tangent: Mr. Ollivander References: <1146200465.97111.54685.m7@yahoogroups.com> Message-ID: <000601c66ac2$dda278d0$6a0da8c0@HP02272006> No: HPFGUIDX 151599 Don L.: >> I've an inkling that Ollivander's disappearance is significant, and will play some part in the last book. << LD: Ollivander was the fox that Bellatrix killed in HBP, at the beginning of Spinner's End. -LD From jedynka0 at op.pl Fri Apr 28 15:16:35 2006 From: jedynka0 at op.pl (castle_bird_blue) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:16:35 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151600 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "PJ" wrote: > PJ: > As I see it, In POA Dumbledore helps H&H to get Buckbeak > and Sirius away safely and that's the last thing Dumbledore does > to assist Sirius in any way. He doesn't want an innocent man soul > sucked but what happens after that? > > For instance, in GOF, rather than have the Order hide him, > Dumbledore allows Sirius to live on rats - and it's clear > Dumbledore knows exactly where Sirius is since they do > communicate. Why isn't Sirius just as valuable a human being to > Dumbledore as Draco is? Dumbledore offered in HBP to hide Draco's > entire family! But not Sirius.... this doesn't seem just a bit > odd to you? > > In OOtP the Order needs a safe house so Sirius gives them his > parent's house. Where does JKR show ANY member who's treating > Sirius as anything but a necessary annoyance? Molly and Snape > both treat him like pond scum in his own home and JKR seems to > think that's just fine since she never writes in anyone sticking > up for Sirius by telling those two to knock it off! > > After Sirius dies there's no memorial service, no getting together > the Order to say one or two nice things about Sirius - one of > their own fallen members. It's treated almost like he never > existed... Even Mundungus, another Order member, feels it's > perfectly ok to steal from the Black home! > > Where is JKR showing even the smallest *hint* of respect for > Sirius in any of the books? I sure don't see it. She even has > Harry get over his death within a couple of weeks! Blue: I have to say I agree with almost everything PJ said. In my last post I probably sounded very harsh while talking about Sirius. I still say that I know why Dumbledore consider him to be a threat, that he was immature and PJ's "mentality of a bull in china-shop" suits him well. But boy- he deserved better than a slow death in a house he hated with burning passion sorrounded by his old demons and people who treated him like a needless piece of furniture. This is sad that in the series that is all about "love", "forgiving" and "second chances" and that offers compassion and redemption for people who screwed so much (like Snape, Draco, Narcissa and so on) or better future for ones who lead hard life (like Lupin)- there seems to be nothing for Sirius,the man who probably suffered the most. No compassion, no understanding, no warmth, no empathy, no chances, no memories, no nothing. Sad really. Blue From dkrasnansky at hotmail.com Fri Apr 28 16:24:27 2006 From: dkrasnansky at hotmail.com (david_krasnansky) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 16:24:27 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore dead? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151601 > "winkadup" wrote: > > Do you believe he is really dead? Snape offered Malfoy to fake > > his death to save him & his family. Could this also be that > > faking Dumbledore's death is some sort of way to fake out the > > death eaters? > Tonks: > Yes, he is dead. I understand people not wanting it to be > true. But it is true, for many reasons. There was no need to fake > his death. But there was a need for him to die. I think in order > to understand what will happen in book 7 we must accept, hard as > it is, that he is dead. David here: In my entry 151295 and subsequent replies I presented a theory why Dumbledore is alive and why it is important. Harry Potter will never talk to Dumbledore again (so in that respect Dumbledore is as good as dead to Harry) as I believe Dumbledore, polyjuiced to look like Wormtail, will sacrifice his life to save Harry. Seeing Wormtail change back to the now dead Dumbledore will give the emotional twist needed for Harry and Snape to defeat Voldemort. I agree that he can no longer, directly, help Harry and that Voldemort must think him dead. But all that can be acomplished and more without him actually being dead. From winkadup at yahoo.com Fri Apr 28 16:48:33 2006 From: winkadup at yahoo.com (Wendy Dupuy) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 09:48:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Dumbledore dead? In-Reply-To: <20060428120528.57883.qmail@web34114.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060428164833.58530.qmail@web34102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151602 Sherry now: >> I do believe Dumbledore is dead. JKR has consistently said, dead means dead, and I'm thinking she's going to stick with that. And it's ok. He's 150 years old after all. I wish she'd bring Sirius back, but I do not think that will happen either. << Sherry, If dead is dead how could Harry's parents come out of LV's wand to help Harry in GOF? How is some wizard's killed come back as ghosts, like Moaning Myrtle? Just wondering. winkadup From sherriola at earthlink.net Fri Apr 28 17:10:28 2006 From: sherriola at earthlink.net (Sherry Gomes) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 10:10:28 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore dead? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151603 David here: In my entry 151295 and subsequent replies I presented a theory why Dumbledore is alive and why it is important. Harry Potter will never talk to Dumbledore again (so in that respect Dumbledore is as good as dead to Harry) as I believe Dumbledore, polyjuiced to look like Wormtail, will sacrifice his life to save Harry. Seeing Wormtail change back to the now dead Dumbledore will give the emotional twist needed for Harry and Snape to defeat Voldemort. I agree that he can no longer, directly, help Harry and that Voldemort must think him dead. But all that can be acomplished and more without him actually being dead. Sherry now: The big problem I have with this theory is the character of Wormtail. He is a liar and one who sold out his best friends to play with the bigger fish. He is too afraid for his own skin to do anything that might endanger himself. He would not have ever agreed to such a scenario, and unless you think Dumbledore forced him to do it, by the imperius curse or something, I can't see how it would happen. Peter is a spineless, gutless traitor. And if Dumbledore would have imperioed him into it, that doesn't make him much of a prince either. I do not foresee such an heroic role for old Wormtail. I think he may do something to pay back the debt he owes Harry, but only when he thinks his side cannot win and so he turns his coat again to try to save his own precious neck. Just my opinion of course, but I just don't see Peter being that noble. Sherry From sherriola at earthlink.net Fri Apr 28 17:30:34 2006 From: sherriola at earthlink.net (Sherry Gomes) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 10:30:34 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] RE: Dumbledore dead? In-Reply-To: <20060428164833.58530.qmail@web34102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151604 winkadup If dead is dead how could Harry's parents come out of LV's wand to help Harry in GOF? How is some wizard's killed come back as ghosts, like Moaning Myrtle? Just wondering. Sherry: I do think that Dumbledore will somehow still help Harry, either as a portrait or through the pensieve or something. But I don't believe that he will come back to life in some sort of resurrection scene. I think JKR is going to stick to her word on that one. The dead will not come back to life. Unless it's a fake death, or someone has been presumed dead and has been in hiding. Or perhaps, Sirius, because we never had a body, and I find that slightly suspicious. But I don't let myself go down that road. sherry From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 28 17:38:14 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 17:38:14 -0000 Subject: Harry's assumption VS Everyone's assumption In-Reply-To: <20060427043704.80862.qmail@web34511.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151605 Arief Hamid wrote: > I just finished re-read the first 5 books in order to > have a better insight before reading the sixth book. > One thing that's confusing me most, how come Dumbledore > trusted Snape so much and seems like ignoring the > statements and facts that given by Harry, that Snape > is nothing more than a treacherous member of the > order. What makes DD believes that Snape's is worthed > every bit to be in the order and will protect the > order with all his might. Carol responds: As Sherrie says elsewhere in this thread, Dumbledore hasn't told Harry his reasons and so we don't know them. However, we do know that Snape "rejoined our side at great personal risk," spying for Dumbledore before he became Potions Master, two months before Godric's Hollow; that he saved Harry's life in SS/PS (Hermione's intervention would have been too late if Snape hadn't countered Quirrell's spell); that he again risked his life on Dumbledore's orders to return to Voldemort with prepared explanations for his actions against Quirrell and his absence from the graveyard; that he sent the Order members to save Harry and his friends when he (Snape) realized that they had indeed managed to go to the MoM against all probablilty. However, three things clinch his loyalty to Dumbledore for me (you may see them differently, of course): his words to Quirrell about "where your loyalties lie," which to me can only mean with Voldie or with Dumbledore; his image in the Foe Glass along with Dumbledore and McGonagall, revealing him as an enemy of the transformed DE who was trying to kill Harry; and, especially, his pushing up his sleeve to reveal his Dark Mark to Fudge in a courageous but futile attempt to prove to Fudge that Voldemort had returned. He didn't have to do that, and IMO, only Dumbledore's loyal man would have dared it. There are other reasons, for example, his attempts to explain to Harry what Occlumency is and why it's important without revealing the existence of the Prophecy and his reactions when he sees LV- or MoM-related memories in Harry's mind (if he were LV's man, he would *want* Harry to go to the MoM). And I simply don't believe that wise, 150-plus-year-old Dumbledore knows less about Snape, or anyone, than young, impetuous Harry, who has been known to misjudge even Cedric. Snape is a complex, mysterious character, important enough to be in all of the books and to have revelations regarding his backstory. I have a feeling he'll be important in Book 7, too. IMO, Harry's recognition of who and what Snape truly is and how much he has sacrificed for Dumbledore will be crucial to Harry in the fight against LV in the final book. As you haven't read HBP, I won't say any more, but I would advise you to read the book before coming back here or we'll spoil it for you if we haven't already! Once you've read it and drawn your conclusions, come back and compare them with ours. BTW (List Elves forgive me!), Alan Rickman is using Muggle!Occlumency to conceal his feelings and opinions about Snape, but the reference to "Severus" suggests (to me) that he views Snape with affection and sees him as a good guy (not a *nice* guy, but Dumbledore's man through and through, as he is depicted in the films so far. The OoP film will give us additional hints, of course, and could prove me wrong on this!) Carol, who thinks that Rickman knows something about Snape that we don't and that JKR's remarks about Snape in Book 7 hint at redemption, not love of Lily or anyone else From hokukaua at aol.com Fri Apr 28 19:08:28 2006 From: hokukaua at aol.com (hokukaua) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 19:08:28 -0000 Subject: Ollivander's heritage Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151606 > Tonks: > > I just did the anagram finder for Ollivander and > came > up with... > 'Raven do ill'. It may be farfetched. But if that > is > Ravenclaw's > wand in his window, could he be the last of the > Ravenclaws? Ley: Well, that would make sense seeing as how DD suspected one of the horcruxes belonging to Ravenclaw and LV most likely kidnapped Ollivander. However, there is also the question of, "Why would Ollivander put a wand on display for someone to buy if it was a family airloom?" And in your anagram findings, how would the 'do ill' part fit in with the idea of Ollivander being a relative? From los_palmas7 at yahoo.co.uk Fri Apr 28 17:03:07 2006 From: los_palmas7 at yahoo.co.uk (Claire) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 17:03:07 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's Triumph -- does it mean Voldemort can be redeemed? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151607 Hi guys, Sorry if this has already been posted before! I've just re-read all the books again (for about the hundreth time), and I came across something I'd either forgotten about, or not really noticed. It's the bit in the Goblet of Fire where Harry tells Dumbledore that, after taking his blood, Voldemort is now able to touch him without pain. In it, Harry thinks he sees a look of triumph in Dumbledore's eyes. Any theories on that? I read one which suggested that it meant that Voldemort could be redeemed as he now has self-sacrifical love in his veins. Not sure I buy that one tho! Claire From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 28 19:42:03 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 19:42:03 -0000 Subject: House Elf Loyalty In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151608 Alla wrote: > > Bud do we know that the first House Elves agreed to serve out of his > own free will? Do we know that they were not being tricked into > agreement or even worse - were forced to sign an agreement? > > I mean, of course we don't have to agree with JKR in interpreting > her works, but to me at least her intentions on this issue are quite > clear. I think she does portray house elves with more or less direct > analogy of slavery and knowing her intentions (since I do believe > her interviews) that helps me (I think) to predict what is going to > happen to House Elves at the end. I do think that whatever > enchantment they are under will be lifted and they will be free. Carol responds: But what does freedom for house-elves *mean* and what would it entail? Since the house-elves appear to be derived from the elves and brownies of English folklore (as opposed to Faerie, like Tolkien's very different Elves), I doubt that they ever signed or were tricked into an agreement. It seems to be their nature to work for humans although it's nonmagical ordinary humans (Muggles, though the term isn't used) who receive their aid in folklore, cf. the story of the shoemaker and the elves cited by another poster in this thread. (Witches and wizards wouldn't need their aid as they have their own magic.) The question for me is what happens to a house-elf who is freed. For Winky, it's the ultimate disgrace. Even Dobby suffered a longish period of unemployment. I doubt that a house-elf could conjure a substantial meal any more than a wizard can; it would disappear once eaten without contributing any calories just as Leprechaun gold disappears. Otherwise, no witch or wizard would live in poverty and Kreacher wouldn't have to live on scraps of real food discarded by wizards. As for clothes, Winky has only the one little outfit that she fails, in her misery, to keep clean. Dobby, until he comes to Hogwarts, has his tea towel and a single dirty sock. After that, he has the socks and hats that Hermione knits and whatever he can buy with his wages (e.g., a child's soccer shorts). What is freedom, then? To quote a song from (I think) the 60s, "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose. Nothin' ain't worth nothin', but it's free." House-elves may be able to live on nothing, but not comfortably, any more than Sirius Black could in GoF. House-elves (unless they're Kreacher) receive food, tea towels, and shelter from their human masters, a trade-off for abuse, in Dobby's case, but a perfectly acceptable situation for the Hogwarts house-elves, who clearly don't want their freedom and resent being offered it (even assuming that picking up the clothes made by Hermione, who is not their owner or mistress, would have that effect). Suppose they were suddenly freed against their will. Would they regard themselves as "sacked" and disgraced, like Winky? Would they ignore the situation and continue working of their own free will, refusing wages from a sense of honor? Would they even have that option? My guess is that if the MoM passed an edict freeing house-elves, the vast majority of them, including the Hogwarts house-elves, would stay where they were, serving their former masters by choice and refusing wages. Kreacher would probably *choose* to serve Bellatrix or Narcissa or Draco, in that order, and if all of them were dead or imprisoned, he would go back to the portrait of his mistress to enjoy his misery. Essentially, freedom for a Muggle doesn't pay the bills. Freedom for a Wizard or a house-elf doesn't provide food or a place to live. Freedom doesn't provide employment or money. Since house-elves, unlike certain Muggles and Wizards (e.g., the Riddles and the Malfoys) are unlikely to inherit a fortune from either their human or their house-elf families, and since one house-elf is extremely unlikely to hire another house-elf, a house-elf needs a human being or human family or human institiution (e.g., Hogwarts) to work for. Freeing the house-elves would allow the escape of a few abused house-elves from a life of slavery and drudgery, but would it provide new opportunities for the emancipated house-elves? Would even the abused elves feel duty bound to serve their old masters? Would they demand humane treatment and wages, or would doing so violate their pride and house-elf tradition? Could the former abusive masters refuse to pay them or top punishing them and kick them out? It seems to me that they'd have all the freedom of an unemployed Rita Skeeter or maybe less as they'd have no idea of how to go about finding a new job. At any rate, I agree with Kemper and others that the analogy to human slavery is flawed, regardless of JKR's intentions. I can't imagine House-elves, Wizards, Goblins, and Centaurs operating as a society of equals, all as part of a single multicultural egalitarian society. Humans would insist that their culture is the norm. They might allow nonhuman students to attend Hogwarts, and an occasional nonhuman teacher like Firenze under special conditions, but I can't imagine them allowing, say, House-elves or Goblins to run it. And how could a house-elf, who uses a different brand or magic not involving a wand, teach Charms or Transfiguration? And what about Trolls and Giants? Should they be accomodated, too, despite their size, their limited intelligence, and their apparently innate tendency to violence? IMO. it wouldn't work. They're not human and they don't have human needs, and to me it seems patronizing to impose human desires and norms on them. Dumbledore says that the Fountain of Magical Bretheren tells a lie, that Wizardkind have mistreated their fellow magical beings, and it's hard to dispute that statement, at least as a generalization. But what is the solution? Treat House-Elves and others with respect and consideration, of course. Outlaw abuses such as hand-ironing and beating, of course. But free House-elves against their will? Consider them all as equals in some utopian society that includes nonhumans in the government and education of Witches and Wizards and vice versa? I don't see how that would work. Centaurs, for one, would want no part of it, even setting aside the practical considerations illustrated by the switch from Trelawney's classroom to Firenze's. I see no solution except separate but equal, live and let live, with some sort of Department of Magical Cooperation ensuring peaceable relations among the groups but letting each group live as it wants to live, with its own rules and traditions. (Half-humans could choose the tradition they wanted to follow, which I'm betting, with my human arrogance, would be human in most cases, just as most Half-Bloods and Muggleborns choose the WW over Muggle life.) Carol, noting that prejudice and arrogance aren't limited to the humans in the HP books, as demonstrated by the Centaurs, and that their needs are different from human needs From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 28 21:06:07 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 21:06:07 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/Hermione: The Bickering Couple In-Reply-To: <20060428005445.3777.qmail@web61314.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151609 > >>Betsy Hp: > And actually, I think I've figured out why this particular > bickering couple just doesn't work for me: They have so very > little in common. Which actually goes against, I think, the > bickering couple template. > I mean, look at Benedick and Beatrice in "Much Ado About > Nothing". They're both very witty, and incredibly independent. > They banter with each other *because* there's a connection. Even > if they don't see it at first. > >>Joe : > I have to strongly disagree here. Both of them being witty and > very independent seems like a very weak foundation and sort of > shallow as well. Betsy Hp: Oh, I was just sketching a very, very, simplified outline of those two, because I didn't want to drag the list down with a bunch of chatter on non-Harry Potter characters. Within the play it's easy for the reader (or watcher) to see that Beatrice and Benedick are very much alike at heart. > >>Joe: > We know both Ron and Hermione are smart (she more than him but not > by leaps and bounds), brave, loyal with a strong sense of what is > right and wrong. Myabe it's me but that sounds like a far better > foundation than Benedick and Beatrice had. I'm not saying they > should be together. What I am saying is that they have as good a > foundation as any. I think the real problem is from giving far too > much importance to their surface traits (reads a lot, loves sports > etc) and not enough to those traits that make people who they are. Betsy Hp: Yeah, but note I don't talk about sports or books. I *do* see a difference in how they view loyalty or bravery. And I certainly see a difference between Hermione's and Ron's views of right and wrong. If their differences were *just* surface-y, he's a pureblood, she's a muggleborn, etc., that wouldn't bother me. But what I don't see is an "at heart" similarity. In fact, I see the exact opposite. The way JKR has shown us the characters of Ron and Hermione leads me to believe that they are two people who come at the world from almost opposite directions. I believe that's why we've got such a polarization going on in fandom over which character is the weak- link in the relationship. And, for me, it's why the usual "bickering couple" romantic trope (usually my favorite kind of trope ) is not working for me on this go around. > >>Joe: > As much as I hate star wars analogies I have to say I think Ron > and Hermione are a great deal like Han and Leia. IMHO Han and Leia > only work because they aren't a like. They compliment each others > weaknesses. Betsy Hp: I'll run with this one. Han and Leia *think* they've got nothing in common. But the audience knows differently. The moment Leia rips the gun out of Luke's hands and starts taking over her own rescue, the audience is clued into the fact that she and Han both handle problems in the same, head on, take no prisoners, fashion. It's what makes the moment on Endor, when she silently shows him her gun and he instantly knows her plan, play out so seamlessly. And it's what makes Leia's "I like nice men" protest a very empty one indeed. Yes, she's a princess and he's a smuggler, but at heart, they're the same. Ron and Hermione do not have that vibe. At least, not that I've seen. I'd say that they can possibly compliment each other's weaknesses, but only if they recognize that they even have weaknesses (something Hermione was having a very hard time with in HBP, and possibly even OotP). And I do think that they each bring some very necessary things to the table in their support of Harry. But it doesn't work for the romantic bit. Not for me. Instead of rooting for them to get past their problems and get together, I keep hoping they'll catch a clue and get over each other and settle down into a nice sane relationship with someone who actually gets them. And that's not how I'm supposed to be feeling. > >>Joe: > No their differences aren't falsehoods but they are mostly > superficial. > Betsy Hp: That's something I strongly disagree with. Ron and Hermione have some major fundamental differences going on. For example, the house elves: Hermione has a goal she works very hard towards achieving, and Ron comes along behind her and sabatoges her efforts. That's huge. It means that Ron totally disagrees with what Hermione is doing, but he knows he can't talk to her about it. That ain't a good start to a relationship, IMO. And it's not the way the bickering couple generally works. > >>Joe: > > For me the most telling thing would be to see how the two of them > relate when Harry isn't around. > >>Pippin: > > Harry doesn't think much about how they relate when he's not > around, but JKR sent them off to Hogsmeade together in PoA and > they came back glowing. > Betsy Hp: Ron and Hermione do seem to enjoy hanging around each other. I think there are also a couple of times that Hermione arrives at the Burrow before Harry. So yeah, I get that JKR is setting them up as a couple. But I honestly have a hard time seeing how or why they enjoy hanging around each other. > >>Pippin: > What's similar about their style is their intensity. That can be > awfully hard to put up with unless you find somebody who > understands it because they're the same way. Ron doesn't put his > intensity into his studies the way Hermione does, but he's not > what I'd call laid back, certainly not where Quidditch or Harry is > concerned. > Betsy Hp: Mmm, I disagree with that. Hermione is definitely intense. She is from the moment she shows up on the train instensely searching for Trevor. Ron is much more passive, I'd even say laid back. Yes, he's very loyal to Harry, and yes, he did do those secret quidditch practices. But I still wouldn't call him intense. I think that's part of the reason Hermione dismisses him so easily, because Ron doesn't make a big production over what he does. > >>Magpie: > > When Hermione sees something important she says it or takes an > aggressive action. Ron's more likely to do something more subtle or > go quiet. (I find his reaction to Arthur's attack more interesting > than any of the other Weasleys' wanting to fight.) > Betsy Hp: Exactly. Both Ron and Hermione were bothered by Winky's treatment at the beginning of GoF, but Hermione sprang into immediate (and poorly thought-out) action. Ron, without spending a day in the library, recognized that the problem was more complex than Hermione made it out to be. And when Hermione took her action too far (knitting and hiding the hats in OotP) Ron quietly sabatoged her efforts. Ron and Hermione have radically different ways of approaching things. That is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it's a boon to Harry to have such differing forms of support. But it does provide a massive problem when they're suddenly shoved into a romantic mold. Especially since JKR decided to take them the bickering route. I think the romance angle would have worked better if Ron and Hermione worked more smoothly together and fought less often. Than their very real differences would come across as a benefit. Instead, their very real differences cause them to misunderstand and misjudge each other. And instead of rooting for them to get together, the audience picks a side and breaks into factions and feels certain that one of the two is highly undeserving. Which is not, I think, what JKR was going for. Betsy Hp From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Fri Apr 28 21:35:01 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 21:35:01 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore dead? In-Reply-To: <20060428164833.58530.qmail@web34102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151610 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Wendy Dupuy wrote: winkadup: > If dead is dead how could Harry's parents come out of LV's wand to help Harry in GOF? How is some wizard's killed come back as ghosts, like Moaning Myrtle? > Just wondering. Geoff: A little canon to help: '"One of the wands will force the other to regurgitate the spells it has performed - in reverse. the most recent first... and then those which preceeded it...." He looked interrogatively at Harry and Harry nodded. "Which means," said Dumbledore slowly, his eyes upon Harry's face, "that some form of Cedric must have re-appeared." Harry nodded again. "Diggory came back to life?" said Sirius sharply. "No spell can reawaken the dead," said Dumbledore heavily. "All that would have happened is a kind of reverse echo. A shadow of the living Cedric would have emerged from the wand... am I correct, Harry?" :He spoke to me," Harry said. He was suddenly shaking again. "The... the ghost Cedric, or whatever he was, spoke." "An echo," said Dumbledore, "which retained Cedric's appearance and character..."' (GOF "The Parting of the Ways" pp.605-606 UK edition) Hope that helps. From hickengruendler at yahoo.de Fri Apr 28 22:41:40 2006 From: hickengruendler at yahoo.de (hickengruendler) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 22:41:40 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore dead? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151611 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Sherry Gomes" wrote: > > winkadup > If dead is dead how could Harry's parents come out of LV's wand to help > Harry in GOF? How is some wizard's killed come back as ghosts, like Moaning > Myrtle? > Just wondering. > > > Sherry: > I do think that Dumbledore will somehow still help Harry, either as a > portrait or through the pensieve or something. But I don't believe that he > will come back to life in some sort of resurrection scene. I think JKR is > going to stick to her word on that one. The dead will not come back to > life. Unless it's a fake death, or someone has been presumed dead and has > been in hiding. Or perhaps, Sirius, because we never had a body, and I find > that slightly suspicious. But I don't let myself go down that road. > > sherry > Hickengruendler: For all of JKR's words, and I believe her that nobody will be resurrected (except Fawkes, I mean) in the closer sense of the word, she already wrote the Priori Incantatem scene, where the deads did return in some shape. Granted it was in a very special situation and only for a very short time, but still. She found a way around her rule once, and I won't be surprised if she'll do it again. In fact, I am willing to bet that we will see Dumbledore return in some shape in book 7 (and I don't mean the portrait, which is highly likely to appear or a Pensieve scene), and I wouldn't be all that surprised either, if the same is true for some of the other dead characters. Obviously JKR would have to find a way to explain this, but she managed to do this once, why shouldn't she succeed again? Those old mentors always return after their death and Dumbledore is connected with the Phoenix motive, which has to mean something. And there was this http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2005/0705- time-grossman.htm interview, where she explained that "Dumbledore is not Jesus". This was such an odd choice of wording for me, that I at once started to wonder if he will indeed do something Jesus like, but obviously that's just my interpretation. Hickengruendler From hokukaua at aol.com Fri Apr 28 19:27:06 2006 From: hokukaua at aol.com (hokukaua at aol.com) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:27:06 EDT Subject: Dumbledore dead? Message-ID: <3d2.1c05475.3183c68a@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151612 winkadup: >> Do you believe he is really dead? Snape offered Malfoy to fake his death to save him & his family. Could this also be that faking Dumbledore's death is some sort of way to fake out the death eaters? << Ley: I believe it was DD who told Malfoy that he could hide him more securely than he could imagine. My dad and I were having the argument about DD's death and so we reread that chapter. (Lightning- struck tower, I believe) He (denying every piece of evidence I put in front of him) pointed out the fact that DD said that he could make it seem like Draco was dead, as to hide him from LV. So wouldn't he be able to put the same sort of 'protection' (for lack of better terms) over himself? But I took it more to mean DD putting Draco in hiding, not some sort of charm of protection, and I doubt whether DD is in hiding (meaning someone is polyjuiced as him at the tower) because I have a lot of doubts with that theory. I truly believe (although it breaks my heart to admit it) that DD is in fact, dead. Harry is quoted to saying a few times that he 'knew' DD was gone forever. 1. Fawkes leaving the castle. 2. The portrait on the wall behind the headmaster's desk. 3. The spell keeping Harry frozen at the top of the tower. 4. The white tomb enclosing him. 5. The headmaster's office allowing Professor McGonagall to enter it as 'headmaster'. Although there are many 'ideas' for all of these occurrences, I strongly disbelieve that DD is alive. I do however think that he will come back somehow as some other form (i.e. ghost, portrait, Priori Incantatem, etc.) Although, I was hoping someone could answer this question for me... What really happened to Sirius? I mean, even Luna said that there were voices in the veil and that he hadn't really gone. Any ideas? -ley From hokukaua at aol.com Fri Apr 28 19:39:41 2006 From: hokukaua at aol.com (hokukaua at aol.com) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:39:41 EDT Subject: Tangent: Mr. Ollivander Message-ID: <3dc.106a086.3183c97d@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151613 Don L.: >> I've an inkling that Ollivander's disappearance is significant, and will play some part in the last book. << LD: > Ollivander was the fox that Bellatrix killed in HBP, at the > beginning of Spinner's End. Ley: How do you know? Ollivander wasn't on the list for registered Animagi. (but then again neither was Rita, so...) From wdcaroline at yahoo.ca Fri Apr 28 19:45:56 2006 From: wdcaroline at yahoo.ca (Wade) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 19:45:56 -0000 Subject: Sense of loss, sense of dread Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151614 I am new to HP and just finished HBP late last night. I am an older male and I cannot believe the effect this book had on me. I laughed in many places. I especially enjoyed the way JKR handled teen-aged angst: very original, very real. I had tears in my eyes and a deep sense of melancholy at the last line "he had one last golden day of peace left to enjoy with Ron and Hermione". omg! I can't remember the last time a book hit me so hard. It might be because I have raised children and been through it for real, but when I think back to the first book, and movie, I find I want to suffer instead of Harry. How could something that started with such innocent joy become what it has? Am I losing my mind? Over a book? The sense of dread? What's going to happen to poor Harry next? Will he ever find happiness? There's only one more book. They say JKR is a billionaire. She deserves every galleon! wd From rhetorician18 at hotmail.com Fri Apr 28 21:13:27 2006 From: rhetorician18 at hotmail.com (Rachel Crofut) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 17:13:27 -0400 Subject: Voldemort as a Ghost? (Was: Voldemort's ideology?) In-Reply-To: <24a.a35ff40.31826d95@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151615 Sandy: It also has the benefit of keeping Harry >from having to commit murder, or at least from actively killing. This covers it nicely as it will lead to one dying >at the hand of the other without Harry actually actively killing Voldemort. Rachel here: I just want to suggest that IIRC the prophecy says /at/ the hand of the other...not necessarily /by/ the hand of the other. One could take this to mean that Harry will be present at the death of Voldemort but not necessarily kill the Dark Lord himself. ~ Rachel From winkadup at yahoo.com Fri Apr 28 21:25:48 2006 From: winkadup at yahoo.com (Wendy Dupuy) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 14:25:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Dumbledore dead? / Harry and Voldemort's wands In-Reply-To: <20060428164833.58530.qmail@web34102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060428212548.5162.qmail@web34114.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151616 Sherry: >> I do think that Dumbledore will somehow still help Harry, either as a portrait or through the pensieve or something. But I don't believe that he will come back to life in some sort of resurrection scene. I think JKR is going to stick to her word on that one. The dead will not come back to life. Unless it's a fake death, or someone has been presumed dead and has been in hiding. Or perhaps, Sirius, because we never had a body, and I find that slightly suspicious. But I don't let myself go down that road. << winkadup: Maybe you're right, wishful thinking to hope that he would be back. I was wondering the 2 wands that LV and Harry have, each of a feather from the same bird. Was that Dumbledore's bird? Would that "mean" anything with such a link? From winkadup at yahoo.com Fri Apr 28 21:39:56 2006 From: winkadup at yahoo.com (Wendy Dupuy) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 14:39:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Dumbledore dead? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060428213957.49482.qmail@web34112.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151617 Geoff: >> A little canon to help: "No spell can reawaken the dead," said Dumbledore heavily. "All that would have happened is a kind of reverse echo. A shadow of the living Cedric would have emerged from the wand... am I correct, Harry?" (GOF "The Parting of the Ways" pp.605-606 UK edition) Hope that helps. << winkadup: Yes it does, thank you. But is the wand that both Harry & LV have from Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes? Would it mean anything the connection between the three? Or am I going in the wrong direction? From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Fri Apr 28 22:39:10 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:39:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: SHIP Ron/Hermione: The Bickering Couple In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060428223910.81844.qmail@web61316.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151618 Betsy: I think the romance angle would have worked better if Ron and Hermione worked more smoothly together and fought less often. Than their very real differences would come across as a benefit. Instead, their very real differences cause them to misunderstand and misjudge each other. And instead of rooting for them to get together, the audience picks a side and breaks into factions and feels certain that one of the two is highly undeserving. Which is not, I think, what JKR was going for. Joe: I have to say I like the way you think but I am still going to have to disagree. I think the moment JKR set up the trio she started the shipper wars. I have to say I also remember people saying Leia would end up with Luke after the first movie. If there had been an internet you can better there would have been Luke/Leia Shippers. Honestly if they had gotten together in book four I would have thought it was surprising. That said I can see the trend to it and why they would be interested in each other. Deep down inside both are strong willed (for the most part) people who value loyalty, hard work(Ron's extra Quidditch practice), a strong sense of right and wrong(that differ somewhat) and a willingness to do what it takes to help the people they care for. That's a lot in common. Could they be more accepting of each others ways of doing things? Without a doubt. But they are learning and JKR is showing it and I suspect we will see a bit more of it in book seven. Book seven though isn't about Ron and Hermione's romance or lack thereof so there will probably only be bits and pieces. For one I also think their bickering is a bit overblown both as evidence of attraction and as a deterrent. It may just happen to be the part that causes Harry inconvience so he may note it more often. Joe From hokukaua at aol.com Fri Apr 28 23:19:29 2006 From: hokukaua at aol.com (hokukaua at aol.com) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 19:19:29 EDT Subject: Dumbledore dead? / Harry and Voldemort's wands Message-ID: <38a.2509f2b.3183fd01@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151619 winkadup: >> I was wondering the 2 wands that LV and Harry have, each of a feather from the same bird. Was that Dumbledore's bird? Would that "mean" anything with such a link? << Ley: Yes, it was DD's phoenix Fawkes whose tail feather resides in HP's and LV's wands. And I also believe that that was why the two wands 'performed' the Priori Incantantem. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From kchuplis at alltel.net Fri Apr 28 23:31:56 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 18:31:56 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Sense of loss, sense of dread In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <451C1412-B8B3-408C-A484-AF28DC98B451@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151620 On Apr 28, 2006, at 2:45 PM, Wade wrote: > I am new to HP and just finished HBP late last night. I am an older > male and I cannot believe the effect this book had on me. I > laughed in > many places. I especially enjoyed the way JKR handled teen-aged angst: > very original, very real. I had tears in my eyes and a deep sense of > melancholy at the last line "he had one last golden day of peace left > to enjoy with Ron and Hermione". omg! I can't remember the last time > a book hit me so hard. It might be because I have raised children and > been through it for real, but when I think back to the first book, and > movie, I find I want to suffer instead of Harry. How could something > that started with such innocent joy become what it has? > > Am I losing my mind? Over a book? > > The sense of dread? What's going to happen to poor Harry next? Will > he ever find happiness? There's only one more book. > > They say JKR is a billionaire. She deserves every galleon! kchuplis: Welcome. Of course you are not crazy. If you were, we would all have to be crazy too. That's simply not true. Not at all...erm...... :D From winkadup at yahoo.com Fri Apr 28 22:57:54 2006 From: winkadup at yahoo.com (Wendy Dupuy) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:57:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Headmaster Portraits (was Re: Dumbledore dead?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060428225754.9001.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151621 Hickengruendler: >> I am willing to bet that we will see Dumbledore return in some shape in book 7 (and I don't mean the portrait, which is highly likely to appear or a Pensieve scene), << winkadup: Do all past headmasters portraits appear on the wall of that office? Do you interact and respond to at least the Headmaster? If Dumbledore is dead, wouldn't he appear in a portrait on the wall in the Headmasters office? Or is there some time that must pass before this occurs? From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 01:25:13 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 01:25:13 -0000 Subject: House Elf Loyalty In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151622 > Alla wrote: > > > > Bud do we know that the first House Elves agreed to serve out of his > > own free will? Do we know that they were not being tricked into > > agreement or even worse - were forced to sign an agreement? > Carol responds: > > But what does freedom for house-elves *mean* and what would it entail? > > Since the house-elves appear to be derived from the elves and brownies > of English folklore (as opposed to Faerie, like Tolkien's very > different Elves), I doubt that they ever signed or were tricked into > an agreement. It seems to be their nature to work for humans although > it's nonmagical ordinary humans (Muggles, though the term isn't used) > who receive their aid in folklore, cf. the story of the shoemaker and > the elves cited by another poster in this thread. (Witches and wizards > wouldn't need their aid as they have their own magic.) Alla: I am going to have to disagree here, I think. Or at least tentatively disagree. House Elfs SEEM to be the relatives of elfs and brownies from English folklore, true, but IMO we don't know that it leads to them having ALL qualities of those creatures. IMO it is perfectly reasonable to assume that JKR took some of the qualities of those creatures, but not all of them and accordingly made their paths diverged so to speak at some point. Therefore I do think that with JKR saying that House Elfs situation is a metaphor for slavery ( she did not say the word metaphor, but it is the easiest interpretation IMO) it is perfectly possible that House Elfs were tricked into that agreement initially. JKR takes folklore creatures, yes, but while she makes them similar in some instances in others she makes them different too, no? Like werewolfs? Like probably vampires in her world? We don't know whether her vampires are identical to the ones we read about in other books, IMO. Carol: > The question for me is what happens to a house-elf who is freed. For > Winky, it's the ultimate disgrace. Even Dobby suffered a longish > period of unemployment. Alla: The problem is we ONLY know about TWO freed elfs, that's all. Winky and Dobby indeed react to situation differently. Just as people react to same situations differently. Winky is unhappy with the freedom indeed, but Dobby is very very happy. So, I don't think that Winky's unhappiness necessarily represents how House Elfs in general would react to being freed. For all I know Winky is an exception and Dobby is a rule? I mean, I think that both possibilities are equal. Oh, and I am reacting to thread in general here, not just to your argument. Carol: > Suppose they were suddenly freed against their will. Would they regard > themselves as "sacked" and disgraced, like Winky? Would they ignore > the situation and continue working of their own free will, refusing > wages from a sense of honor? Would they even have that option? Alla: I am NOT at all saying that they should be freed against their will. I am saying that I cannot be persuaded based on Winky's reaction that all House Elfs do not want to be freed. Of course you could argue same with Dobby, but that is what I am saying - at the end we will learn that House Elfs in their majority will react either like Dobby or like Winky to being freed and we don't know what that will be, but here is where JKR's position helps me to argue that they indeed will be quite Okay with their freedom. I am not saying that it will be easy for them at all, but I am just puzzled of the certainty expressed in this thread ( again not reacting just to your argument) that House Elfs LIKE serving humans. They may be and as I argued in another thread about Kreacher, I am pretty sure that he genuinely loved Sirius' parents (IMO of course), I don't think slavery makes them robots, but I think it is an analogy for slavery. Carol: > My guess is that if the MoM passed an edict freeing house-elves, the > vast majority of them, including the Hogwarts house-elves, would stay > where they were, serving their former masters by choice and refusing > wages. Alla: Um, your guess is as good as anybody's of course. And you may as well be correct, I just don't see it as anything more than a possibility and I think that the exact opposite is also possible. Carol: Kreacher would probably *choose* to serve Bellatrix or Narcissa > or Draco, in that order, and if all of them were dead or imprisoned, > he would go back to the portrait of his mistress to enjoy his misery. Alla: I agree here, but not because of House Elfs nature, but because of who Kreacher himself is. JMO, Alla From rosered2318 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 00:52:14 2006 From: rosered2318 at yahoo.com (rosered2318) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 00:52:14 -0000 Subject: Headmaster Portraits (was Re: Dumbledore dead?) In-Reply-To: <20060428225754.9001.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151623 Wendy Dupuy wrote: > > Do all past headmasters portraits appear on the wall of that office? > Do you interact and respond to at least the Headmaster? If Dumbledore > is dead, wouldn't he appear in a portrait on the wall in the > Headmasters office? Or is there some time that must pass before this > occurs? > This is my main reason for believing Dumbledore is dead. We have seen moving photographs of living persons, but we have never seen a portrait of a living person. I think that his portrait is going to be how Harry never really loses Dumbledore (the great wizard never really goes away) but I do think that the portrait is proof he is dead. rosered. From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 02:34:25 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 02:34:25 -0000 Subject: Ollivander's heritage In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151624 > Ley wrote: > Well, that would make sense seeing as how DD > suspected one of the horcruxes belonging to > Ravenclaw and LV most likely kidnapped > Ollivander. However, there is also the > question of, "Why would Ollivander put a > wand on display for someone to buy if it > was a family airloom?" And in your anagram > findings, how would the 'do ill' part fit > in with the idea of Ollivander being a relative? > Carol responds: I think the etymology of the (probably invented) name is more important than an anagram. IMO, "vander" is a respelling of the Old Norse word "vondr" (stick), from which "wand" is derived, so his name probably means "olive (wood) wand." If an olive-wood wand has the same symbolism as the traditional olive branch, it's associated somehow with peace. Admittedly, that's rather odd symbolism to be attached to the rather spooky Mr. Ollivander, whose misty silver eyes suggest mysticism and deep secrets. I wouldn't be surprised if he had Druid ancestors with some connection to the veiled archway in the Death Chamber of what is now the MoM but may once have been a sacrificial amphitheater. (Certainly the archway on the dais was used for some ceremonial purpose as indicated by the rows of benches, and the only other one I can think of is as an execution chamber.) I realize that I'm getting rather far afield, but Ollivander is both powerful (as indicated by the prickles on Harry's spine in Ollivander's shop, surrounded by his handiwork) and intelligent (he remembers every wand he's ever made and seems to be a Legilimens). We have certainly not heard the last of him. On a sidenote related to another thread, I doubt that even Ollivander could satisfactorily replicate Voldemort's wand with any handy yew wood and any old Phoenix feather--and Voldemort's wand would have to have those components to be *his.* Every wand is different, as Ollivander says himself in SS/PS, and I have a feeling that, unlike unicorn hairs and dragon heart strings, Phoenix feathers (and Phoenixes in general) are a rare commodity. And the only Phoenix we know of wouldn't donate another feather to Voldemort even if his feather would serve the purpose, which it won't because of the "brother wand" effect. Nope. IMO, Voldemort is stuck with the wand that "chose" him, and in any case, I doubt that he would give it up under any circumstances. The past has too much hold on him, and he would be attached to his wand as he is to Hogwarts. Carol, wondering if this is the least coherent post she's ever written From MadameSSnape at aol.com Sat Apr 29 02:45:36 2006 From: MadameSSnape at aol.com (MadameSSnape at aol.com) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 22:45:36 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: Ollivander's heritage Message-ID: <37d.25f63ba.31842d50@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151625 In a message dated 4/28/2006 10:36:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time, j ustcarol67 at yahoo.com writes: I think the etymology of the (probably invented) name is more important than an anagram. IMO, "vander" is a respelling of the Old Norse word "vondr" (stick), from which "wand" is derived, so his name probably means "olive (wood) wand." If an olive-wood wand has the same symbolism as the traditional olive branch, it's associated somehow with peace. ================= Sherrie here: Olive is also traditionally associated with the goddess Athene - it was her gift to the city of which she became patroness. Athene is best known as goddess of wisdom - but she was also goddess of war in a just cause. She was generally described as having grey eyes... Sherrie [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From foxmoth at qnet.com Sat Apr 29 02:51:12 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 02:51:12 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/Hermione: The Bickering Couple In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151626 > Betsy Hp: > That's something I strongly disagree with. Ron and Hermione have > some major fundamental differences going on. For example, the house > elves: Hermione has a goal she works very hard towards achieving, > and Ron comes along behind her and sabatoges her efforts. That's > huge. It means that Ron totally disagrees with what Hermione is > doing, but he knows he can't talk to her about it. That ain't a > good start to a relationship, IMO. And it's not the way the > bickering couple generally works. > Pippin: Well, no. They're not ready to be a couple yet. Unlike B and B or Han and Leia, or even Liz and Darcy, they have mucho growing up to do. Ron has to learn to speak to Hermione (not at her) and she has to learn to listen. I suspect that will happen in Book Seven, accompanied by the now familiar howls from the fandom that the characters have changed too quickly or too much. (I sometimes wonder if these fans have ever encountered any real teenagers.) > Betsy Hp: > Ron and Hermione do seem to enjoy hanging around each other. I > think there are also a couple of times that Hermione arrives at the > Burrow before Harry. So yeah, I get that JKR is setting them up as > a couple. But I honestly have a hard time seeing how or why they > enjoy hanging around each other. Pippin: Oh, I think Ron enjoys a challenge. And Hermione enjoys being appreciated for something besides her brains. Ron makes it okay to enjoy a game of gobstones instead of spending all her time in the library. > Betsy Hp: > Mmm, I disagree with that. Hermione is definitely intense. She is > from the moment she shows up on the train intensely searching for > Trevor. Ron is much more passive, I'd even say laid back. Yes, > he's very loyal to Harry, and yes, he did do those secret quidditch > practices. But I still wouldn't call him intense. I think that's > part of the reason Hermione dismisses him so easily, because Ron > doesn't make a big production over what he does. Pippin: Ah, you've missed Ron's intensity because he doesn't make a big production out of it. The Twins have always made it their business to see that he doesn't get anything he admits to really wanting, haven't they. But this is a guy who wanted to be Head Boy and Quidditch Captain, and will probably be both next year. You don't get to be either by being laid back. He is also the one who decided which courses he and Harry should take, as well as which ones should get the most effort and they turn out to be, lo and behold, just what is needed to become an Auror. I think he was planning on that long before Moody raised the subject. > > Betsy Hp: > Exactly. Both Ron and Hermione were bothered by Winky's treatment > at the beginning of GoF, but Hermione sprang into immediate (and > poorly thought-out) action. Ron, without spending a day in the > library, recognized that the problem was more complex than Hermione > made it out to be. And when Hermione took her action too far > (knitting and hiding the hats in OotP) Ron quietly sabatoged her > efforts. Pippin: She was being sneaky to the Elves, and Ron sneakily sabotaged her. Tit for tat. The more I think about it, the more I think they are both right about the Elf issue. Hermione is right that the status quo is unconscionable. But Ron is right that the Elves have grown accustomed to slavery. Their culture has adapted to it, and so it isn't only wizard culture that has to change. Betsy Hp: > I think the romance angle would have worked better if Ron and > Hermione worked more smoothly together and fought less often. > Pippin: Well, of course it would! But JKR doesn't want them getting romantic with each other too soon. From her point of view, her job is to invent obstacles to keep them apart until they can be joined decently. It wouldn't do to have *them* behaving like a pair of eels. :) Pippin From belviso at attglobal.net Sat Apr 29 03:20:24 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 23:20:24 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: House Elf Loyalty References: Message-ID: <008001c66b3b$dbeef170$7f66400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 151627 > Alla: > > The problem is we ONLY know about TWO freed elfs, that's all. Winky > and Dobby indeed react to situation differently. Just as people > react to same situations differently. Winky is unhappy with the > freedom indeed, but Dobby is very very happy. So, I don't think that > Winky's unhappiness necessarily represents how House Elfs in general > would react to being freed. For all I know Winky is an exception and > Dobby is a rule? I mean, I think that both possibilities are equal. > I am NOT at all saying that they should be freed against their will. > I am saying that I cannot be persuaded based on Winky's reaction > that all House Elfs do not want to be freed. Of course you could > argue same with Dobby, but that is what I am saying - at the end we > will learn that House Elfs in their majority will react either like > Dobby or like Winky to being freed and we don't know what that will > be, but here is where JKR's position helps me to argue that they > indeed will be quite Okay with their freedom. I am not saying that > it will be easy for them at all, but I am just puzzled of the > certainty expressed in this thread ( again not reacting just to your > argument) that House Elfs LIKE serving humans. Magpie: We have a lot more than Winky's reaction to being freed. It's canon that Dobby is the exception and Winky far closer to the rule. All the house elves at Hogwarts together are angry at Hermione trying to make them free (and they protest it, though Dobby silences the protest by cleaning the Tower himself). They've all been offered freedom by Dumbledore and refused it. They're very vocal about their feelings about freedom. Which I think means we really can't take it as a metaphor for slavery because what group of human slaves (as opposed to individuals who may not mind it as much as others) want to be slaves in the face of other people trying to free them? (I can think of a possible example, but it still doesn't fit House Elves.) You could also see them as just a way to give Hermione the teen!activist something to struggle against when the people she's chosen to save don't see things the way she does and don't want her saving them. Imo, if JKR hadn't made the House Elves and Hermione equally stubborn and loud about the way things should be, this issue might start a lot more fights in fandom as people made their own metaphors and ran with them. -m From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 03:59:21 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 03:59:21 -0000 Subject: House Elf Loyalty In-Reply-To: <008001c66b3b$dbeef170$7f66400c@Spot> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151628 > Magpie: > We have a lot more than Winky's reaction to being freed. It's canon that > Dobby is the exception and Winky far closer to the rule. All the house > elves at Hogwarts together are angry at Hermione trying to make them free > (and they protest it, though Dobby silences the protest by cleaning the > Tower himself). They've all been offered freedom by Dumbledore and refused > it. They're very vocal about their feelings about freedom. Alla: You are right about Hogwarts Elves of course, but IMO the difference is that they are NOT freed yet, they are talking about their dislike of freedom, while not truly tasted the freedom yet. The reason for that could be that they are indeed under some kind of enchantment, which makes them dislike the freedom? I actually really like what Pippin says in the post just before yours: "The more I think about it, the more I think they are both right about the Elf issue. Hermione is right that the status quo is unconscionable. But Ron is right that the Elves have grown accustomed to slavery. Their culture has adapted to it, and so it isn't only wizard culture that has to change." Again, my main thing is that I don't remember any proof in canon that House Elfs willingly entered their service to humans. That is why I am hesitant to agree that they really like such service. Magpie: > Which I think means we really can't take it as a metaphor for slavery > because what group of human slaves (as opposed to individuals who may not > mind it as much as others) want to be slaves in the face of other people > trying to free them? (I can think of a possible example, but it still > doesn't fit House Elves.) Alla: But still can we be sure that all house elfs react that way? I mean, Hogwarts elfs have really nice working conditions in comparison to probably many other house elfs, if not the best ones. Who knows, maybe they are just scared of freedom. And again, to me it really means a lot that JKR states her position so clearly here. Erm, I just had a thought. What if Dobby is meant to be sort of analogous to Harry Potter in the elfs community? What if thanks to him the enchantment will be lifted, change will start, etc,etc? Anyways, to tell you the truth I find House Elves to be annoying creatures, all of them that we had seen so far, including Dobby and would not mind at all that they would have just disappeared from the narrative, BUT it also seems clear that they are very important to JKR, since she includes them in key plot points and IMO house elves will be enjoying their freedom at the end. Some of them I have no doubt will choose to stay and serve their masters. JMO, Alla From puduhepa98 at aol.com Sat Apr 29 04:22:32 2006 From: puduhepa98 at aol.com (puduhepa98 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 00:22:32 EDT Subject: [HPforGrownups] RE: Dumbledore dead? / Harry and Voldemort's wands Message-ID: <3e3.ede941.31844408@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151629 Sherry: >> I do think that Dumbledore will somehow still help Harry, either as a portrait or through the pensieve or something. But I don't believe that he will come back to life in some sort of resurrection scene. I think JKR is going to stick to her word on that one. The dead will not come back to life. Unless it's a fake death, or someone has been presumed dead and has been in hiding. Nikkalmati: I just noticed in HBP, when DD takes Harry away from the Dursleys, Harry mumbles goodbye but DD says: until we meet again. Significant? I think so. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From tonks_op at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 04:32:53 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 04:32:53 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore dead? In-Reply-To: <3e3.ede941.31844408@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151630 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, puduhepa98 at ... wrote: > > Sherry: > >> I do think that Dumbledore will somehow still help Harry, either as a portrait or through the pensieve or something. But I don't believe that he will come back to life in some sort of resurrection scene. I think JKR is going to stick to her word on that one. The dead will not come back to life. Unless it's a fake death, or someone has been presumed dead and has been in hiding. > > Nikkalmati: > I just noticed in HBP, when DD takes Harry away from the Dursleys, Harry mumbles goodbye but DD says: until we meet again. Significant? I think so. Tonks: Did JKR say that the dead will not come back to life or just that when a person is dead they are really dead? Because there is a difference. I was under the impress that she said the latter. In order for a real resurrection we must have a real death. A fake death will not do. DD is really dead. I think we will see DD again at the very end of book 7. If not, Fawkes will come in his place, but I am going to predict DD's return. Tonks_op From gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk Sat Apr 29 06:39:22 2006 From: gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk (Geoff Bannister) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 06:39:22 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore dead? In-Reply-To: <20060428213957.49482.qmail@web34112.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151631 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Wendy Dupuy wrote: > > Geoff: > >> A little canon to help: > > > > "No spell can reawaken the dead," said Dumbledore heavily. "All that > would have happened is a kind of reverse echo. A shadow of the living > Cedric would have emerged from the wand... am I correct, Harry?" > > > > (GOF "The Parting of the Ways" pp.605-606 UK edition) > > Hope that helps. << > > > winkadup: > Yes it does, thank you. But is the wand that both Harry & LV have from > Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes? Would it mean anything the connection > between the three? Or am I going in the wrong direction? > Geoff: The answer to your first question is certainly "Yes". '"Harry's wand and Voldemort's wand share cores. each of them contains a feather from the tail of the same phoenix. This phoenix in fact," he (Dumbledore) added and he pointed at the scarlet and gold bird, perching peacefully on Harry's knee. "My wand's feather came from Fawkes?" Harry said, amazed. "Yes," said Dumbledore. "Mr.Ollivander wrote to tell me you had bought the second wand, the moment you left his shop four years ago."' (GOF "The Parting of the Ways" p.605 UK edition) Regarding your latter questions, the only observation I might make is that there has been speculation on the group in the past about the fact that Fawkes' colouring matches the house colours of Gryffindor. From iam.kemper at gmail.com Sat Apr 29 06:57:32 2006 From: iam.kemper at gmail.com (Kemper) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 23:57:32 -0700 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: House Elf Loyalty In-Reply-To: References: <008001c66b3b$dbeef170$7f66400c@Spot> Message-ID: <700201d40604282357tf0bfdf3h8e3228c2cf26ed25@mail.gmail.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151632 Kemper now: Carol poses a thoughtful question: What does freedom mean to the House Elf? My interpretation of Freedom is probably similar to Hermione's. Winky's interpretation may mean no longer serving for the family, though abusive, who she grew up with. The HEs we've seen seem almost pre-pubescent: from the way they talk, to hero worship (who of us can't see Doby with a picture of Harry on his bedroom wall or Kreacher with TeenBeat!Bellatrix taped to his school locker), to the school yard roe of those two, and to the kitchen HEs eager to please. If you are familiar with social services, it won't be a surprise how many abused youth yearn for a connection with their abusive parent(s). Winky's story reminds me of this: from Crouch (dad) abusing then abandoning her, to her butterbeer (drug/alcohol) abuse. Winky sees freedom as a loss of a perceived, yet unrequited relationship and not a gain of independence. The kitchen HEs, and I agree with Magpie, don't want to be free because they fear the freedom Winky is experiencing. I think more than slavery, the HEs show the evils of a classist society. We love the magic of the WW, but it is this society as a whole that would think us, Muggles, as less-than (the only exception seems to be from the Weasley clan sans Molly.) Was it always this way? No. It became this way as a defense against a group of people (Muggles) who feared and persecuted them. It's a cycle: the oppressed become the oppressors. Alla: my main thing is that I don't remember any proof in canon that House Elfs willingly entered their service to humans. That is why I am hesitant to agree that they really like such service. Kemper now: Hi Alla. You're right there is no canon. BUT? there is canon that a wandless HE can kick a wanded wizard's ass. So? why would an HE enter into a contract of any kind with a magical human? The only reason I can think is that their life purpose/mission is to serve, and some magical human took advantage while no other magical human questioned the ethics of it, making it ok for other magical humans to do the same. And wah-la? time passes and there's a culture of indentured servitude. Kemper, not sure if he's coherent as he's had quite a bit of IPA From talisman22457 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 10:20:36 2006 From: talisman22457 at yahoo.com (Talisman) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 10:20:36 -0000 Subject: Requiescat in Pace, My Dark Phoenix (It's a little late and a lot long :) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151633 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "andrea1270" wrote: > > Zgirnius wrote: My bottom line objection to your theory (and also > > the Spinner's End Snape was Dumbledore theory)... > > Talisman: the magnanimity of his actions. > andrea1270: >snip have been impersonating Snape at Spinner's End than I find for a > Dumbledore/Snape switch in the cave and beyond. Talisman: While I'm all for a rejuvenated look at the texts, and differing opinions, I feel compelled to clarify that my Dark Phoenix theory unequivocally posits that it was Snape--and no imposter--at Spinners End. Frankly, while I enjoy the slight progress this chapter offers in terms of character revelation, I find it in accord with what we already know, rather than contradictory. We know Snape is cordial with the Malofys, so it is not at all out of character for him to welcome Narcissa to his home. Moreover, understanding that Book 6 would mirror Book 2 (i.e. offer the same pattern, but reversed, I predicted--prior to HBP's release-- that we would find evidence of an emotional relationship between Snape and Narcissa. Here's a little exert I shared with friends, on the topic of Snape and 2/6 reversals, on the eve of the Book 6 release. (The *EFA* is the acronym for a theory that deals with Jane Austin's plotting devices): --------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Talisman" Date: Thu Jul 14, 2005 12:45 am Subject: Just A Bit More On EFA [message 23]: Snape is a great reversed image of Lockhart. You've got the honking peacock with the carefully curled blonde hair vs the brooding, taciturn powerhouse with greasy locks. That marvelous, gleaming award-winning smile vs those yellow, uneven fangs. (Sorry, couldn't help it.) Lockhart was publishing his B.S. books and always noising around about how great he was, while really being hopelessly inept at magic. I think it's an easy guess that Snape has quietly done mighty deeds and that he is powerfully, powerfully magic. Okay, so I would predict that the side of Snape that will be revealed in Book 6 involves all those characteristics antithetical to Lockhart. EFA may also shed some light on his relationship with Narcissa. I would call Narcissa a good counter to Molly. Where Molly had a ridiculous crush on Lockhart, Narcissa may have the long-suffering real thing for Snape. We know we'll get to see more of her in Book 6, so why not. As an aside, I think part of the enmity between Sirius and Snape may be that, as a youth, Snape was more welcome at Grimmauld Place than Sirius was. That surly "this is my house" business in OoP has the ring of it. If Narcissa still had to marry Lucius to please Dad and Mum, maybe it has to do with a little problem with Severus' blood. Maybe he's a halfblood. After all, Rowling ruled out Muggle-Born, but wouldn't answer the question of whether he was a pureblood. *I* certainly think he's a prince. : P --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------- Voila. In this light, a mere friendly welcome is well within expectations. If anyone has not yet read Snape as a more complex character, now is the time to do so. The he's-just-such-a-bastard train, which has always been on the wrong track, is about to go over the cliff. We have known since Book 1 that Snape is willing to look bad for the cause, and that his motivations are generally other than they seem. In addition to watching him play bodyguard to Harry, we have seen small glimpses of his softer side, even prior to HBP. E.g. He grips the chair when McGonagall reports that a student has been taken to the Chamber in Book 2; he rushes forward--with obvious relief and happiness--to greet McGonagall's return from hospital in OoP, etc. No, my reading holds that, not only is Snape who he seems to be at Spinner's End, but that the scene confirms the series-long development of the character. Even his decision to live in that Muggle slum--to which we may well find he has familial ties--bespeaks his characteristic lack of vanity. His disdain for Wormtail, contempt for Bellatrix, and emotional bond with Narcissa, are all clues worth keeping. Talisman, who also has a long response for zgrinius, which will appear as time permits. From silmariel at telefonica.net Sat Apr 29 11:07:51 2006 From: silmariel at telefonica.net (silmariel) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 13:07:51 +0200 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: House Elf Loyalty In-Reply-To: <700201d40604282357tf0bfdf3h8e3228c2cf26ed25@mail.gmail.com> References: <008001c66b3b$dbeef170$7f66400c@Spot> <700201d40604282357tf0bfdf3h8e3228c2cf26ed25@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200604291307.51122.silmariel@telefonica.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151634 Kemper: > Winky's interpretation may mean no longer serving for the family, > though abusive, who she grew up with. The HEs we've seen seem almost > pre-pubescent: from the way they talk, to hero worship (who of us > can't see Doby with a picture of Harry on his bedroom wall or Kreacher > with TeenBeat!Bellatrix taped to his school locker), to the school > yard roe of those two, and to the kitchen HEs eager to please. Silmariel: I've always seem them as children labor (one hundred million the last time I looked an ONU report), though I know it's not common to see them that way, their invisibility, unseen quality, makes the trick for me. Kemper: > If you > are familiar with social services, it won't be a surprise how many > abused youth yearn for a connection with their abusive parent(s). > Winky's story reminds me of this: from Crouch (dad) abusing then > abandoning her, to her butterbeer (drug/alcohol) abuse. Winky sees > freedom as a loss of a perceived, yet unrequited relationship and not > a gain of independence. > The kitchen HEs, and I agree with Magpie, don't want to be free > because they fear the freedom Winky is experiencing. Silmariel: But not wanting to be free is what would be expected from long term institutionalized slavery. They have been breed to know that is their place in the world, they have been deprived of education, ideas or any kind of resources that would make them independent, they have been deprived of any other kind of laboral opportunities, they have been trained to be happy being unseen and cleaning houses, and to hurt themselves for daring critic their masters. It is only natural for them to have fear. Codependence? Brainwashing? > Alla: > my main thing is that I don't remember any proof in canon > that House Elfs willingly entered their service to humans. That is > why I am hesitant to agree that they really like such service. > > Kemper now: > Hi Alla. You're right there is no canon. BUT? there is canon that a > wandless HE can kick a wanded wizard's ass. So? why would an HE enter > into a contract of any kind with a magical human? The only reason I > can think is that their life purpose/mission is to serve, and some > magical human took advantage while no other magical human questioned > the ethics of it, making it ok for other magical humans to do the > same. And wah-la? time passes and there's a culture of indentured > servitude. Silmariel: But 'nature + unethical wizard' would make for lack of respect and mistreatment or abuse, not for slavery, or they could be serving any of the other species with 'nature + unethical member of random species'. You have slavery when there is nothing in nature that justifies it, and that's why it is a strong issue we all feel so blablabla about, as stated in the interview. It wouldn't be 'really slavery, isn't it?', if nature agreed with serving. Also, we don't know what their nature is, we only know what the status quo tells about it. I believe Dumbledore when he said it was wizards who make them the way they are (or something to the effect). Having a strong magic won't give you any line of defense for Imperio and the like. When you throw a roleplaying game and give magic to all players but only a clan/group of them have the ability to mentally impose on others (easily, as with Imperio), it is sistematic that they win, by enslave/dominate everyone else. We don't have proof that what wizards say about elves is correct, but I'd take anything they can say with a grain of salt, because they are slave masters telling why their slaves are ok as slaves as it is in their nature, and I'd also take with a grain of salt opinions of those slaves repeating their master's schemes. Also, wizards are suppossed to paint a picture that puts them in a good light, one that means that the system is Good as it is, or we'd have more muggleborn reactions, not only Hermione. As I suppose it would be hard for them to accept they have become part of the slavery chain (not owners, but they are served by them, at Hws), they accept that elves are bound 'by nature', and don't question further. Silmariel From zarleycat at sbcglobal.net Sat Apr 29 11:37:53 2006 From: zarleycat at sbcglobal.net (kiricat4001) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 11:37:53 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: <076801c66a66$a2876af0$6401a8c0@user2b3ff76354> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151635 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Peggy Kern" wrote: > > Sherry said: > He even sent Sirius off while Harry was still in the hospital > wing at the > end of GOF, when Harry so obviously wanted him to stay. Wouldn't it have been nice to help comfort > the all important prophecy boy with the one person whose presence Harry > wanted? > > Peggy now: > I think, when you're talking about someone as evil as Voldemort > returning, speed makes all the difference. I'm sure Dumbledore would have loved to have left Sirius there with Harry > for as long as Harry needed him. But the most evil and feared wizard there > was had just returned to power and no one knew it yet, which put them in > grave danger. So the more important decision was to do what would protect > the most people, rather than doing something kind for just one person. Just > my thoughts. > > Peggy Marianne: While I appreciate Peggy's opinion that getting things in position for the next Voldemort fight was important, I always felt there was something a little dodgy about sending the most wanted fugitive in England wandering about door-to-door chatting up old Order members. Especially as it seems that Sirius, at that time, traveled by Hippogriff or on shaggy dog feet, not by Apparation. If time was of the essence, wouldn't it be better to send a message by someone who could Apparate to the houses of previous Order members and who wouldn't have to hide a large magical creature somewhere? Would DD, sometime before sending Sirius off, have contacted these people himself telling them that he believed Sirius to have been wrongly accused and unjustly imprisoned and that, though he had no proof, they should also accept Sirius's innocence? If not, the problem of people with wands (except Arabella) finding what they believe to be a mass-murderer on their doorsteps has not been dealt with. Marianne, who agrees with Sherry that a hour spent with Harry would not have materially changed anything. From richter at ridgenet.net Sat Apr 29 14:11:31 2006 From: richter at ridgenet.net (richter_kuymal) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 14:11:31 -0000 Subject: House Elf Loyalty In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151636 Alla: The problem is we ONLY know about TWO freed elfs, that's all. Winky and Dobby indeed react to situation differently. Just as people react to same situations differently. Winky is unhappy with the freedom indeed, but Dobby is very very happy. So, I don't think that Winky's unhappiness necessarily represents how House Elfs in general would react to being freed. For all I know Winky is an exception and Dobby is a rule? I mean, I think that both possibilities are equal. PAR: but we DO see how the house elves respond, at least in part. We see their response to Hermione in the kitchen at Hogwarts. AND we see that they are insulted about the "hats" set about in the Griffindor dorm. If House Elves WANTED freedom, they would take Dobby as an example, they would enthusiastically respond to her discussion about being paid, they would take the hats she offers. Is there any real reason to believe that if all the House Elves at Hogwarts wanted to be paid for their work that DD would not do it? DD has been in charge for enough time that this could have occurred at least as early as when the Marauders were in school. In fact, one has to wonder WHY DD did not do this as part of the LV round 1 if in fact it would be better to have House Elves free. What we see instead is that DD tells Harry (OOP) that Kreacher cannot be freed because he knows too much about the Order (and yes, I blame DD for failing to accept his part in the responsibility for that in his talk about Sirius at the end of the book. There's no doubt in my mind that Sirius would have preferred to set Kreacher free rather than deal with the house elf). And we see DD and Hagrid both disagreeing with Hermione on the issue of HE freedom. So the analogy of slavery is less apt than an analogy of the old "sweatshops" and workhouses would be. Being "free" does not mean that one is necessarily better off. Many of the labor laws in industrial countries were created specifically because of the worse treatment workers got from employers. Once the worker wasn't "property", those employers no longer had an incentive to provide a living wage or to care about their worker's health and welfare. Things like Child Labor laws and the like have had to be passed to prevent abuse. House Elves can be abused ?"treated like vermin", as Dobby says. But is treated like vermin mean that they are overworked? The worst punishment appears to BE freedom ("clothes"). PAR From foxmoth at qnet.com Sat Apr 29 14:15:31 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 14:15:31 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151637 > > Marianne: > > While I appreciate Peggy's opinion that getting things in position > for the next Voldemort fight was important, I always felt there was > something a little dodgy about sending the most wanted fugitive in > England wandering about door-to-door chatting up old Order members. Pippin: Who says he went door to door? I'm sure he used his patronus. Any Order member who saw Sirius's patronus would get in touch with Dumbledore at once, whether they believed the message or not, which is what Dumbledore would want. Harry was supposed to be in a magically induced sleep -- if he'd taken all his potion as instructed, he wouldn't have been awake at all. There wouldn't have been anything Sirius could do for him in that state. I suspect the reason Sirius had to go into hiding immediately is that Snape had been instructed to tell Voldemort that Sirius was back in England and very close to Dumbledore. That is the sort of information which Voldemort would regard as extremely useful. Pippin From belviso at attglobal.net Sat Apr 29 14:55:29 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 10:55:29 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: House Elf Loyalty References: Message-ID: <005101c66b9c$f5ced180$cc66400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 151638 > Alla: > > You are right about Hogwarts Elves of course, but IMO the difference > is that they are NOT freed yet, they are talking about their dislike > of freedom, while not truly tasted the freedom yet. > > The reason for that could be that they are indeed under some kind of > enchantment, which makes them dislike the freedom? > > I actually really like what Pippin says in the post just before > yours: > > "The more I think about it, the more I think they are both > right about the Elf issue. Hermione is right that the status quo is > unconscionable. But Ron is right that the Elves have grown accustomed > to slavery. Their culture has adapted to it, and so it isn't only > wizard > culture that has to change." > > Again, my main thing is that I don't remember any proof in canon > that House Elfs willingly entered their service to humans. That is > why I am hesitant to agree that they really like such service. > Magpie: Oh! Yes, we don't know how the thing started, and so we can't say whether they're not under some enchantment. I think where the problem comes in, though, is that it begs the question of why a House Elf's words mean less than a wizard's. That is, if the elves very vocally want things one way, and wizards decide that they don't know what's good for themselves, how is that giving them their freedom? We see House Elves acting freely a lot in canon, just around the rules of their own culture. So it's hard to know where to draw the line between where the culture ends and their true feelings begin. It's true we don't know if all elves would react to freedom as badly as Winky does--Hermione unfortunately does not seem able to even really acknowledge this as a problem. She can't really help Winky because she's projecting her own views on the situation and just can't get into Winky's mindset. What I like about Ron's reaction in OotP is that he's not sabotaging Hermione to the extent that he could. He's not taking the hats away. He's just uncovering them--*not* because the Elves have grown accustomed to slavery, their culture has adapted to it and must change, but because "they ought to know what they're picking up." He's not really acting out of a political idea but a personal one--he doesn't like House Elves pushed around by Lucius Malfoy or by Hermione. It just seems right to him that people shouldn't be tricked into something when they've said they don't want to do it. (Not that Ron is against trickery all the time in other cases, of course.) This is also what makes Dobby so problematic to me, because he's such a charicature of Wizard Worship. Even to the point of the problem I keep coming back to, which is that when the House Elves essentially go on strike by not cleaning Gryffindor Tower to protest Hermione's insult, he does it himself and takes away all the hats, flattering Hermione and silencing the House Elves. He's just such a weird character for me because he seems frankly more subservient to Wizards than the other House Elves, while at the same time less because he's not a slave.If all House Elves were like Dobby I can easily imagine a new found freedom lasting only a couple of generations before it started to become slavery again--which could be the point, for all I know. Maybe that's the way they became enslaved! richter_kuymal: Is there any real reason to believe that if all the House Elves at Hogwarts wanted to be paid for their work that DD would not do it? Magpie: I'm somehow sure it's canon that Dumbledore has offered to pay all of them. -m From spirittalks at gmail.com Sat Apr 29 15:27:49 2006 From: spirittalks at gmail.com (Kim) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 11:27:49 -0400 Subject: Who's Side Are They On? References: Message-ID: <006e01c66ba1$79f3b800$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> No: HPFGUIDX 151639 Geoff: '"Harry's wand and Voldemort's wand share cores. each of them contains a feather from the tail of the same phoenix. This phoenix in fact," he (Dumbledore) added and he pointed at the scarlet and gold bird, perching peacefully on Harry's knee. "My wand's feather came from Fawkes?" Harry said, amazed. "Yes," said Dumbledore. "Mr.Ollivander wrote to tell me you had bought the second wand, the moment you left his shop four years ago."' (GOF "The Parting of the Ways" p.605 UK edition) Kim: If I may be so bold as to snip a bit here and there, and remove this quote of Geoff's email from the "Dumbledore Dead?" thread to add it to another, doesn't this seem to offer another clue that Ollivander might loyal to Dumbledore? The lines are clearly drawn... you're either loyal to Dumbledore or to Voldemort (the main characters, that is). Since I've been on this group I've seen the loyalties of many questioned; including Snape, Percy (and other Weasleys), Ollivander, and Lupin. I think Ollivander is on DD's side though I can't think of where he might be now that he's missing. I loved the idea that the fox in Spinner's End is significant. It has to have been a clue to more than the temperment of the ladies walking past it. Still, I hope it isn't Ollivander who's now laying dead in a gutter from a careless spell cast. Kim From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 16:08:27 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 16:08:27 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151640 Pippin wrote: > Who says he [Sirius Black] went door to door? I'm sure he used his patronus. Any Order member who saw Sirius's patronus would get in touch with Dumbledore at once, whether they believed the message or not, which is what Dumbledore would want. > > Harry was supposed to be in a magically induced sleep -- if he'd taken all his potion as instructed, he wouldn't have been awake at all. There wouldn't have been anything Sirius could do for him in that state. > > I suspect the reason Sirius had to go into hiding immediately is that Snape had been instructed to tell Voldemort that Sirius was back in England and very close to Dumbledore. That is the sort of information which Voldemort would regard as extremely useful. Carol responds: I agree, more or less, on the second and third points. Harry was supposed to take his potion and sleep, and the last thing Sirius Black would want to do is to sit by his bedside doing nothing while Harry slept, especially with Snape out risking his life. Let Molly do the bedside watching! I also agree that Snape would tell Voldemort that Black was in England, knowing that DD would hide him, as a seemingly useful bit of information to "prove" that he was on LV's side. That would account for his statement to Bellatrix that he had provided Voldemort with information on her dear cousin other than the location of Order HQ, which he couldn't provide, and information we know to have been contributed by Kreacher or Wormtail. I'm not sure that he arranged with DD in advance to give this information as he appears not only surprised but shocked when the black dog transforms in front of him (he clearly didn't believe the Animagus story until that moment, and I don't think he knew that SB was in England, either). However, he knew the kinds of information that he could safely provide to LV, and this was one such bit. (No doubt he told DD afterwards, which is one reason that DD wanted Black to remain at home. And he also informed Black that Lucius Malfoy had seen him in dog form on Platform 9 3/4, clearly making sure that Black knew his danger.) But, yes, I think that's why Black had to go into hiding immediately, and DD couldn't tell Black without triggering a dangerous reaction. The point I don't agree with at all is that Black used his Patronus. He's a man of action, and he would want to appear in person/dog form if possible rather than simply sending messages via a magical messenger. (BTW, just because he likes flying motorcycles and hippogriffs doesn't mean that he can't Apparate, as others on this list have suggested. He probably prefers the excitement of flying to the dizzy, sickening sensation of Apparating. And if you're hiding out in some tropical country, as he was in GoF before his return, it's best to have a mode of transportation other than Apparition, which appears to be limited to fairly short distances of, say, a few hundred miles.) So IMO he could trot off to Lupin's, or Apparate there, and explain the situation to him, knowing that Lupin, at least, would listen to him. Lupin, in turn, could inform the others by Patronus that he was coming and had something important to tell them--starting with those who were least likely to harm Black when they found out who he was, nonmagical Figgy and drunken, amoral Mundungus--and once he got there he could explain why he had a big black dog with him. Or he could summon "the old crowd" via Patronus and ask them all (other than Figgy) to come to his house, where he could explain to everyone at once the truth about Black, let Black transform in front of them, and have Black finish the story about Voldemort returning and whatever else he had heard from Harry. (Mad-Eye Moody might require special handling, but Lupin could manage.) At any rate, Black loved risk-taking and IMO would have wanted as large and active a part in the process of "alerting the old crowd" as possible, but Lupin IMO would have arranged it so that the risks were reduced to a reasonable level. But for Black to use his Patronus would not require him to leave the building or transfer to dog form, as he does in that scene, and would not have been sufficiently "fun" to suit his reckless nature. Carol, who still doesn't understand how Black/Padfoot got into Hogwarts (twice) in GoF unless he opened the heavy front doors with his paws right under the figurative noses of the Dementors From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 16:38:36 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 16:38:36 -0000 Subject: Who's Side Are They On? In-Reply-To: <006e01c66ba1$79f3b800$6401a8c0@your27e1513d96> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151641 Kim wrote: > If I may be so bold as to snip a bit here and there, and remove this quote of Geoff's email from the "Dumbledore Dead?" thread to add it to another, doesn't this seem to offer another clue that Ollivander might loyal to Dumbledore? The lines are clearly drawn... you're either loyal to Dumbledore or to Voldemort (the main characters, that is). > > I think Ollivander is on DD's side though I can't think of where he might be now that he's missing. I loved the idea that the fox in Spinner's End is significant. It has to have been a clue to more than the temperment of the ladies walking past it. Still, I hope it isn't Ollivander who's now laying dead in a gutter from a careless spell cast. Carol responds: I agree that Ollivander is on DD's side, primarily because he informed DD of the sale of both wands with a Fawkes feather core and because he seems to be keeping a close eye on Harry in the only two scenes where they appear together. As I've said before, I'm certain that he's a Legilimens and IMO he's one of DD's extensive network of spies (though perhaps not a member of the OoP). I doubt very much that he's the fox. There would be no reason for him to be in Spinner's End watching out for Snape, and he seems to have already gone missing, along with Florian Fortescue, before the events of that chapter. Moreover, we have no evidence that he's an Animagus, and surely JKR would have dropped a hint somewhere if that were the case. I think the incident with the fox (which reminds me of a luckier fox in "Fellowship of the Rings"!) simply illustrates that Bellatrix (no "lady," IMO!) is trigger happy and that an Animagus killed in animal form would revert to human form in death. ("Just a fox," Bellatrix mutters when it remains a fox. "I thought perhaps an Auror--" HBP Am. ed. 20.) I think that if Ollivander were dead, his body would have been found in HBP. Most likely he's in hiding, if only because he's an integral part of the WW and JKR needs him to stay alive to keep her world functioning. Also I expect that he'll aid Harry in some way in Book 7. (Too bad he seems to be childless. Another pureblood family heading for extinction? Maybe Luna Lovegood, who has similar eyes, is his grandchild and future successor.) Carol, feeling sorry for the new "ickle firsties" who won't have Ollivander-made wands From noon_at_night at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 16:34:43 2006 From: noon_at_night at yahoo.com (Najwa) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 16:34:43 -0000 Subject: Headmaster Portraits (was Re: Dumbledore dead?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151643 rosered wrote: > This is my main reason for believing Dumbledore is dead. We have > seen moving photographs of living persons, but we have never seen a > portrait of a living person. I think that his portrait is going to be > how Harry never really loses Dumbledore (the great wizard never really > goes away) but I do think that the portrait is proof he is dead. > najwa now: I also believe that the portrait means that Dumbledore is dead, but still linked to the living, however I wonder if the portraits mean that he cannot speak to anyone but the current headmaster. We've seen portraits speak to people that aren't headmasters, such as the messenger portrait in the Prime Minister's office, but I don't recall a time where Headmasters have actually spoken to anyone other than a Headmaster/Headmistress, though they can eavesdrop as we've well seen. If that is the case, then I don't see how Harry can actually interact with Dumbledore's portrait, considering he probably will not be going to Hogwarts for his last year of schooling. I was thinking that there was perhaps a more travel convenient way that Harry could keep with him at all times to talk to Dumbledore, but I think that would be too easy. Harry might need Dumbledore's help, but he also needs to be able to rely more on himself and on his friends as others have pointed out. So I think that he might eventually have to visit Hogwarts or get messages from Dumbledore's portrait, but it won't be something regular, basically because JKR needs him to now rely on himself and his friends. Najwa, who thinks that the closer we get to the end of this series, the more unsure she is about the outcome. From noon_at_night at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 16:46:37 2006 From: noon_at_night at yahoo.com (Najwa) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 16:46:37 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore dead? In-Reply-To: <3d2.1c05475.3183c68a@aol.com> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151644 > Ley: > > I truly believe (although it breaks my heart to admit it) that DD is > in fact, dead. Harry is quoted to saying a few times that he 'knew' > DD was gone forever. > 1. Fawkes leaving the castle. > 2. The portrait on the wall behind the headmaster's desk. > 3. The spell keeping Harry frozen at the top of the tower. > 4. The white tomb enclosing him. > 5. The headmaster's office allowing Professor McGonagall to enter it > as 'headmaster'. > Najwa: There is also the scene in Chamber of Secrets where Dumbledore says "As long as there are those who remain loyal to me I will never truly leave Hogwarts." Or something to that nature, but then again we have the Hogwarts issue, because it looks like Harry will not return to Hogwarts. I do not think he's alive, because not only do all the signs point to Dumbledore truly being dead, but also because he has his own link to the living through his portrait and probably other methods, and also it would be almost be cheap of him to hide out and leave the Wizarding World in such a dire state to a group of teenagers, Chosen One or not. -Najwa From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 16:44:52 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 16:44:52 -0000 Subject: House Elf Loyalty In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151645 > Magpie: > Oh! Yes, we don't know how the thing started, and so we can't say whether > they're not under some enchantment. I think where the problem comes in, > though, is that it begs the question of why a House Elf's words mean less > than a wizard's. That is, if the elves very vocally want things one way, > and wizards decide that they don't know what's good for themselves, how is > that giving them their freedom? We see House Elves acting freely a lot in > canon, just around the rules of their own culture. So it's hard to know > where to draw the line between where the culture ends and their true > feelings begin. Alla: I think though those whether House Elves are enslaved or not and whether what Hermione does is right or not are two connected but separate issues. IMO there is no question that while JKR approves Hermione's goals wholeheartedly, her means to achieve her goal are very questionable. What I am trying to say that IMO Hermione will get it in book 7 that freeing House Elves against their will is very wrong and she will find some other ways to show them that freedom is a good thing, not an easy thing by all means, but good thing. Magpie: > It's true we don't know if all elves would react to freedom as badly as > Winky does--Hermione unfortunately does not seem able to even really > acknowledge this as a problem. She can't really help Winky because she's > projecting her own views on the situation and just can't get into Winky's > mindset. Alla: I completely agree with you as I said above. Hermione's ways of dealing with the situation are wrong. What I do disagree with (again not with you, just in general) is that we will learn that Hermione was no supposed to react to situation at all. IMO it is classical "her heart is the right place"; she is just doing it incorrectly. Magpie: > This is also what makes Dobby so problematic to me, because he's such a > caricature of Wizard Worship. Even to the point of the problem I keep > coming back to, which is that when the House Elves essentially go on strike > by not cleaning Gryffindor Tower to protest Hermione's insult, he does it > himself and takes away all the hats, flattering Hermione and silencing the > House Elves. He's just such a weird character for me because he seems > frankly more subservient to Wizards than the other House Elves, while at the > same time less because he's not a slave. Alla: I cannot grasp fully why Dobby does not work for me. Maybe that is because I found his ways to save Harry in CoS to be so very idiotic and harmful to Harry. As to the worship, well, he does not worship all wizards, no? He worships Harry just as the whole WW does, so I suppose Dobby can be read as caricature of that. Although I guess Dobby is quite ecstatic to work for DD so one can argue that he worships Dumbledore too. Magpie: If all House Elves were like Dobby I > can easily imagine a new found freedom lasting only a couple of generations > before it started to become slavery again--which could be the point, for all > I know. Maybe that's the way they became enslaved! Alla: Hehe. You could be right of course. As I said I find three elves, who have more or less developed characters so far to be annoying, all for different reasons, although since I buy the metaphor of slavery, I feel for them as a group, but if we meet some other elves and they would be just as annoying, I may stop feeling for them as a group too. You know, I think centaurs are incredibly cool and can totally understand their prejudice to humans. I feel for them on the emotional level and want them and humans to be at least friendly at the end. That may have something to do with me loving Greek mythology all my life (I am quite well versed in it), so when I saw centaurs in Potterverse, I was liking them already. I like Goblins a lot and want to know more about their culture too ( Hmmm, can JKR write some more books about these two races, I wonder? :-)) But as I said, for some reason I don't "feel" for House Elves much, except because I am supposed to feel that slavery as bad ( funny - exactly what JKR said - that we are supposed to feel that, but of course many people don't like to feel what they are supposed to and on some issues me neither). It is probably because I don't feel much for the individual House Elves we met. I guess Winky is the only one for whom I feel pity, but again that is just pity, nothing more. Dobby is... As I said I am not sure who he is and Kreacher is a traitor, who betrayed one of my very favorite characters. Nope, don't sympathize much with either of them. > Alla: > my main thing is that I don't remember any proof in canon > that House Elfs willingly entered their service to humans. That is > why I am hesitant to agree that they really like such service. > > Kemper now: > Hi Alla. You're right there is no canon. BUT there is canon that a > wandless HE can kick a wanded wizard's ass. So why would an HE enter > into a contract of any kind with a magical human? The only reason I > can think is that their life purpose/mission is to serve, and some > magical human took advantage while no other magical human questioned > the ethics of it, making it ok for other magical humans to do the > same. And wah-la time passes and there's a culture of indentured > servitude. > Alla: Hey, Kemper :). Yep, House Elf can kick wizard's butt and isn't it very telling that the moment Dobby is free he DOES kick wizard's butt , but not prior to him being free? So, isn't it possible that this is what may happen with many house elves after they become free, namely that they will kick the butts of their former masters when they are fully able to? I can come up with some other reasons of why first HE would enter into agreement with humans. Like for example they were blackmailed into such agreement? Wizards took something from them and would not return unless elves would agree to serve them? I mean this is of course a wild speculation, but I am just saying that this is not a given that House Elves would enter into such agreement because they like it. They may or they may not, we just don't know it yet IMO and here is where I choose to go with JKR's words. JMO, Alla From hickengruendler at yahoo.de Sat Apr 29 18:30:06 2006 From: hickengruendler at yahoo.de (hickengruendler) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 18:30:06 -0000 Subject: Who's Side Are They On? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151646 > Carol responds: > > I doubt very much that he's the fox. There would be no reason for him > to be in Spinner's End watching out for Snape, and he seems to have > already gone missing, along with Florian Fortescue, before the events > of that chapter. Hickengruendler: I do not think he is the fox either. (IMO, he is very much alive and hidden by Dumbledore). But I think he vanished later. Harry got the news about his disappereance the vening on his birthday, meaning about two weeks later than the Spinner's End chapter. Neville also said, that he bought his wand one day before Ollivander vanished, which fits with the date mentioned above, if Augusta bought him the wand for his birthday (which is one day before Harry's). From wdcaroline at yahoo.ca Sat Apr 29 17:01:25 2006 From: wdcaroline at yahoo.ca (Wade Caroline) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 13:01:25 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Dumbledore is dead Message-ID: <20060429170125.4233.qmail@web61220.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151647 As mentioned yesterday in my first post, I am a newbie to HP and profess none of the scholarship of this membership, so forgive my cheek for jumping in. In spite of the spirited discussions of some well thought-out theories it seems to me that DD must be dead because JKR would betray her readers if she resorted to a gimic ala "it was all a dream" in Dallas many years back. It was cheesy then, it would be unforgivable now. Especially in this case. At the risk of going over the top, HP is for the ages. Dallas was, erm, not. Having said that, if ANYONE could pull it off it might by JKR, but I think she has too much respect for her readership to do it. And frankly, to use another tv example, that would mean she "jumped the shark", instead of ending on a high note. cheers, wc From beatrice23 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 19:13:20 2006 From: beatrice23 at yahoo.com (Beatrice23) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 19:13:20 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore dead? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151648 > > winkadup: > > Yes it does, thank you. But is the wand that both Harry & LV have from > > Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes? Would it mean anything the connection > > between the three? Or am I going in the wrong direction? > > > > Geoff: > The answer to your first question is certainly "Yes". snip > Regarding your latter questions, the only observation I might make is that there has been > speculation on the group in the past about the fact that Fawkes' colouring matches the > house colours of Gryffindor. Beatrice: If I could just add two cents... Although it is a great idea that there is a connection between these three through Fawkes, wouldn't Snape use his own wand to kill DD? If he used LV's wand, then 1. LV would be without a wand (which I can't imagine), and 2. he (LV) would have to know about Snape's promise to Narcissa (which I doubt). I am on the fence regarding Dumbledore surviving, but if he did I would suspect that Snape would have used a fake wand (like the one's Fred and George made). There are a couple of things that bother me about DD's death that leave a small opening for his return in my opinion. Forgive me if this has been discussed, but here are a few of my thoughts. 1. It seems odd to remove DD now when there is still another book. (but what do I know?) 2. There was an odd thing that happened with the curse that killed DD. I don't have my books so I can't quote, but if you look at Cedric's murder in GOF, when he is hit by the AK he simply crumples to the ground. Rather anti-climatic. But DD is thrown into the air, sails over the parapet wall and falls to the ground hundreds of feet below. There is a huge difference between crumpling to the floor like Cedric, Frank Bryce, the spider, etc. and being blown off your feet several meters in the air and blown backward. It may just be for dramatic effect, but still a bit odd. 3. Gandalf returns... it is always worth looking a patterns of other novels particularly one that has many things in common. 4. I don't belive that Snape is really on LV's side. He is a git for sure, but well, I'm just not ready to buy that one. Well, that is all I can think of at the moment...Anyone? Anyone? From foxmoth at qnet.com Sat Apr 29 20:14:07 2006 From: foxmoth at qnet.com (pippin_999) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 20:14:07 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151649 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" wrote: > > Pippin wrote: > > Who says he [Sirius Black] went door to door? I'm sure he used his > patronus. Any Order member who saw Sirius's patronus would get in > touch with Dumbledore at once, whether they believed the message or > not, which is what Dumbledore would want. > > > > Harry was supposed to be in a magically induced sleep -- if he'd > taken all his potion as instructed, he wouldn't have been awake at > all. There wouldn't have been anything Sirius could do for him in that > state. > > > > I suspect the reason Sirius had to go into hiding immediately is > that Snape had been instructed to tell Voldemort that Sirius was back > in England and very close to Dumbledore. That is the sort of > information which Voldemort would regard as extremely useful. > > Carol responds: > I agree, more or less, on the second and third points. Harry was > supposed to take his potion and sleep, and the last thing Sirius Black > would want to do is to sit by his bedside doing nothing while Harry > slept, especially with Snape out risking his life. Let Molly do the > bedside watching! > > I also agree that Snape would tell Voldemort that Black was in > England, knowing that DD would hide him, as a seemingly useful bit of > information to "prove" that he was on LV's side. That would account > for his statement to Bellatrix that he had provided Voldemort with > information on her dear cousin other than the location of Order HQ, > which he couldn't provide, and information we know to have been > contributed by Kreacher or Wormtail. I'm not sure that he arranged > with DD in advance to give this information as he appears not only > surprised but shocked when the black dog transforms in front of him > (he clearly didn't believe the Animagus story until that moment, and I > don't think he knew that SB was in England, either). Pippin: I don't think Snape knew what animagus form Sirius took. IRRC, all he overhears in PoA is that it's an animal large enough to control a werewolf. I don't think that would automatically bring to mind a bear-sized dog. Sirius popping up right under his nose, completely unsuspected, would be a shock even if he'd known for certain Sirius was back. But it would be just like Dumbledore to have said "You may tell Voldemort that Sirius is in Britain and is in close contact with me" leaving Snape in the dark as to whether it was true or not until Sirius actually appeared. Carol: > The point I don't agree with at all is that Black used his Patronus. > He's a man of action, and he would want to appear in person/dog form > if possible rather than simply sending messages via a magical > messenger. So IMO he could trot off to Lupin's, or Apparate there, and > explain the situation to him, knowing that Lupin, at least, would > listen to him. Lupin, in turn, could inform the others by Patronus > that he was coming and had something important to tell them--starting > with those who were least likely to harm Black when they found out who > he was, nonmagical Figgy and drunken, amoral Mundungus--and once he > got there he could explain why he had a big black dog with him. Or he > could summon "the old crowd" via Patronus and ask them all (other than > Figgy) to come to his house, where he could explain to everyone at > once the truth about Black, let Black transform in front of them, and > have Black finish the story about Voldemort returning and whatever > else he had heard from Harry. (Mad-Eye Moody might require special > handling, but Lupin could manage.) Pippin: As you've probably remembered by now, Mad-eye was unconscious in the hospital wing at the time. There was at least one dementor at Hogwarts that night so getting Sirius off the premises ASAP would have been a good idea, especially if there was magic he needed to do in human form. I guess he actually went to the Hogs Head first, then notified Lupin, Arabella and Fletcher from there. It would make sense if Aberforth knew about him already. I think Dumbledore mentioned those three specifically because increased surveillance on the werewolves, Privet Drive and the WW's criminal element were Dumbledore's top priorities. Those three probably already had orders contingent on Voldemort's return. > Carol, who still doesn't understand how Black/Padfoot got into > Hogwarts (twice) in GoF unless he opened the heavy front doors with > his paws right under the figurative noses of the Dementors > Pippin: The dementors were stationed at the gates, far away from the doors, which had been trained to recognize Sirius, not Padfoot. He could also have followed the twins through the one-eyed witch from Hogsmeade, perhaps with the aid of a 'borrowed' wand. Presumably the Twins were already experimenting with their fakes, which would have come in handy if you needed a wand for a while and didn't want the owner to notice it was missing. Pippin From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 20:15:54 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 20:15:54 -0000 Subject: Snape's supposed AK (again) (Was: Dumbledore dead?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151650 Beatrice wrote: > 2. There was an odd thing that happened with the curse that killed > DD. I don't have my books so I can't quote, but if you look at > Cedric's murder in GOF, when he is hit by the AK he simply crumples > to the ground. Rather anti-climatic. But DD is thrown into the air, > sails over the parapet wall and falls to the ground hundreds of feet > below. There is a huge difference between crumpling to the floor > like Cedric, Frank Bryce, the spider, etc. and being blown off your > feet several meters in the air and blown backward. It may just be > for dramatic effect, but still a bit odd. Carol responds: You're not the only one who's noticed these differences and thought them significant. In fact, the uncharacteristic behavior of Snape's supposed AK has spawned at least two theories (other than DD is not dead), one that it was an unsuccessful AK because Snape didn't have the will to kill Dumbledore, the other that it was a nonverbal spell, perhaps Impedimenta, disguised as an AK. Given Snape's skill with nonverbal spells and with inventing spells, I like the second one better. Here's a link to one of my posts from some time back, theorizing that the "AK" was a disguised Impediment: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/134812 You'll probably want to explore the thread in both directions for the ideas of other posters on the same subject. And although our search engine, generally referred to as Yahoo!mort, is not always reliable, a search for "Snape tower AK" (no quotes) will probably yield some results if you have the patience to keep trying. After all, we have more than 150,000 posts on this site. Another thought, if you go back to post number 132907 and work forward through, say, the first few weeks of post-HBP messages, you can see the initial reactions to HBP, many of which relate, not surprisingly, to the events on the tower (and to the loyalties of Severus Snape). Beatrice: > 4. I don't belive that Snape is really on LV's side. Carol: Needless to say, neither do I. I will be both surprised and disappointed if he doesn't turn out to be Dumbledore's Man through and through. (I do, however, believe that Dumbledore is dead, but quite possibly it was the poisoned memory, or whatever the green potion was, that killed him. I keep thinking of antifreeze, though obviously it's too Mugglish.) Carol, who thinks that we were meant to notice the differences between Wormtail's real AK and Snape's questionable one and to realize that appearances are often deceptive in JKR's books From agdisney at msn.com Sat Apr 29 20:17:07 2006 From: agdisney at msn.com (Andrea Grevera) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 16:17:07 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Sense of loss, sense of dread References: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151651 > I am new to HP and just finished HBP late last night. I am an older > male and I cannot believe the effect this book had on me. I laughed in > many places. I especially enjoyed the way JKR handled teen-aged angst: > very original, very real. I had tears in my eyes and a deep sense of > melancholy at the last line "he had one last golden day of peace left > to enjoy with Ron and Hermione". omg! I can't remember the last time > a book hit me so hard. It might be because I have raised children and > been through it for real, but when I think back to the first book, and > movie, I find I want to suffer instead of Harry. How could something > that started with such innocent joy become what it has? > > Am I losing my mind? Over a book? > > The sense of dread? What's going to happen to poor Harry next? Will > he ever find happiness? There's only one more book. > > They say JKR is a billionaire. She deserves every galleon! > > wd > Andie: Hi Wade & welcome. You are not alone in your response to HP. I tried explaining to my children that when reading any book they should put themselves into it. Like they are there. That's what I do & I feel every last emotion that the characters do. Hopefully, we won't wait 2 years for book 7. I don't want it to end but I also can't wait to see what happens. From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 20:28:56 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 20:28:56 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151652 > > Sherry said: > > He even sent Sirius off while Harry was still in the hospital > > wing at the > > end of GOF, when Harry so obviously wanted him to stay. Wouldn't > it have been nice to help comfort > > the all important prophecy boy with the one person whose presence > Harry > > wanted? > > zgirnius: I didn't get the impression, reading that scene, that Sirius was forcibly dragged off by Dumbledore. Dumbledore gives him his nmission, then: "But-" said Harry. He wanted Sirius to stay. He did not want to have to say goodbye again so quickly. "You'll see me very soon, Harry," said Sirius, turning to him. "I promise you. But I must do what I can, you understand, don't you?" >From which I gather that Sirius was happy to have an assignment and play some role in the Order's re-forming. He had been there for the worst of it, Harry retelling his experience in the graveyard. From willsonkmom at msn.com Sat Apr 29 20:35:40 2006 From: willsonkmom at msn.com (potioncat) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 20:35:40 -0000 Subject: Headmaster Portraits (was Re: Dumbledore dead?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151653 > najwa now: > I also believe that the portrait means that Dumbledore is dead, but > still linked to the living, however I wonder if the portraits mean > that he cannot speak to anyone but the current headmaster. We've seen > portraits speak to people that aren't headmasters, such as the > messenger portrait in the Prime Minister's office, but I don't recall > a time where Headmasters have actually spoken to anyone other than a > Headmaster/Headmistress, though they can eavesdrop as we've well seen. Potioncat: Phineas Nigellus spoke to Harry. In OoP, one of the students who joined Dumbledore's Army said that a portrait in DD's office had told him about some of Harry's adventures. I'm wondering if it's significant that the portrait of Dippet never seemed to speak. From bboyminn at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 20:56:34 2006 From: bboyminn at yahoo.com (Steve) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 20:56:34 -0000 Subject: Sirius...Door_to_Door (was: Dumbledore on ...Dursleys...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151654 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kiricat4001" wrote: > > Marianne: > > ... I always felt there was something a little dodgy about > sending the most wanted fugitive in England wandering about > door-to-door chatting up old Order members. bboyminn: Oooh...just one small problem, Dumbledore didn't send Sirius 'door-to-door' to alert the Order memeber, he sent him to Lupin. - - GoF; Am Ed, HB, pg 713 - - Dumbledore: "...Sirius, I need you to set off at once. You are to alert Remus Lupin, Arbella Figg, Mundungus Fletcher -- the old crowd. Lie low at Lupin's for a while: I will contact you there." - - - end quote - - - Notice, he is to first contact Remus Lupin who knows he is innocent. Then they are to contact other order members. Also, since the previous book (POA, that is) Dumbledore and Lupin have probably been spreading the word that Peter Petigrew is alive and back which in turn means that Sirius Black was innocent of the crimes he was charged with. The knowledge at the time may not have carried any urgency, so people may have not given in much wieght. But now that the situation is critical, now that Voldemort is back, it would mean more. Further, if certain individuals in the Order were now contacted by both Remus and Sirius with information supposidly straight from Dumbledore indicating that Voldemort was back, I'm certain they would have higher priorities than questioning Sirius's personal story. Also, note the Order members mentioned - Arbella Figg and Mundungus Fletcher. Mrs. Figg would certainly be kept up to date on what was happening since it is her job to watch Harry during the summer holiday. She would have certainly known by that late date that Dumbledore considered Sirius innocent, so no problem contacting her. Mundungus Fletcher, being a thief and generally shady character, probably wouldn't care whether Sirius was innocent or not. He associates with criminals all the time. Now, once Remus, Mrs. Figg, and Mundungus were on board, the word of both Sirius's absolute innocence and full trustworthiness, and of Voldemort's return would spread quickly among the relevant people. So, the idea that Sirius Black was running door-to-door alerting Order members is not correct. First Dumbledore sent Sirius to the one person that Sirius, Dumbledore, and the Order all trusted, then they together moved on from there speading the word. > Marianne: > > Especially as it seems that Sirius, at that time, traveled by > Hippogriff or on shaggy dog feet, not by Apparation. If time was of > the essence, wouldn't it be better to send a message by someone who > could Apparate ...? > bboyminn: Sirius was a brilliant student one of the top students to ever come through Hogwarts, it's completely unreasonable to think that he can't Apparate. Now, he has been out of Azkaban for a while, but not that long. Logically there would be a period of time during which he would need to recover his strength and his health. Certainly being weak and 'defeated' by the Dementors would have affected his ability to Apparate, but it has been over a year now, and I'm sure he is sufficiently recover to Apparate if he had to. Still, I'm sure it is a strain. Also, he has the hippogriff, he has to do something with it, it was entrusted to his care. It is also a convenient way to travel that doesn't require a detectable burst of magical energy. Plus, after all those dark and desperate years in Azkaban, it is probably nice to have a companion around. Further, that particular 'companion' was given to him by Harry, so there is a certain amount of sentimentality there. > Marianne: > > Would DD, sometime before sending Sirius off, have contacted these > people himself telling them that he believed Sirius to have been > wrongly accused and unjustly imprisoned and that, though he had no > proof, they should also accept Sirius's innocence? If not, the > problem of people with wands (except Arabella) finding what they > believe to be a mass-murderer on their doorsteps has not been dealt > with. > > Marianne, ... bboyminn: I think by now you see the basic flaw in your logic. The particular people specifically mentioned either knew Sirius was innocent by virtue of first hand experience, trust in Dumbledore, or generally not caring whether he was innocent. Once Sirus has accomplish his basic state mission, he now has three other diverse people who can begin to spread the word. Although, I think Mrs. Figg was told, just to keep her informed; I think her ability to help was limited. I think Mundungus was told simply to alert him that the Order was reforming. I suspect it was mostly Remus along with Sirius who did the bulk of the work spreading the word to critical 'old' Order members. As they spread the word, the rumor of Sirius being innocent was merely confirmed. Just a few thoughts. Steve/bboyminn From a_svirn at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 21:39:19 2006 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 21:39:19 -0000 Subject: House Elf Loyalty In-Reply-To: <005101c66b9c$f5ced180$cc66400c@Spot> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151655 Carol: Since the house-elves appear to be derived from the elves and brownies of English folklore (as opposed to Faerie, like Tolkien's very different Elves), I doubt that they ever signed or were tricked into an agreement. It seems to be their nature to work for humans although it's nonmagical ordinary humans (Muggles, though the term isn't used) who receive their aid in folklore, cf. the story of the shoemaker and the elves cited by another poster in this thread. (Witches and wizards wouldn't need their aid as they have their own magic.) a_svirn: I don't think so. For one, just because Rowling borrowed house-elves from folklore it doesn't follow that in her own universe they function in a similar way. She borrows many things from many sources, but in Potterverse these things acquire life of their own. Moreover, folklore unlike literature has no such thing as canon. Put simply it varies. And not just regionally and historically, although that too. Folklore exists mostly in the form of narratives, and each narrator adds a different touch to a story. You say that it is in their nature to serve ordinary non-magical humans. Fine, but I seem to recall lots of stories where they serve witches. Also, they do not necessarily serve because it is "in their nature". There is quite a few stories depicting their service as a reciprocal exchange ? they render certain services in return for food, miniscule footwear (not quite socks, but close) and/or certain favors. Because the situation of exchange is fraught with a possibility of cheating it is not infrequent feature of those stories when they are tricked or entrapped into permanent and rewardless service (or as Dobby would put it *enslaved*). Alternatively, sometimes they turn tables on their mistresses ? witches were widely believed to become in the end instruments of their own familiars and/or magical servants. In other words, if we are going to look for explanation in folklore we'll be able to find an appropriate story for just about any hypothesis that has been or still is being discussed on-list. Carol: What is freedom, then? To quote a song from (I think) the 60s, "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose. Nothin' ain't worth nothin', but it's free." a_svirn: But I don't believe that Rowling would think such POV relevant. Not for nothing Imperius is among the Unforgivables. Carol: My guess is that if the MoM passed an edict freeing house-elves, the vast majority of them, including the Hogwarts house-elves, would stay where they were, serving their former masters by choice and refusing wages. Kreacher would probably *choose* to serve Bellatrix or Narcissa or Draco, in that order, and if all of them were dead or imprisoned, he would go back to the portrait of his mistress to enjoy his misery. a_svirn: Perhaps. But the choice would be theirs. That's the difference. Carol: Freeing the house-elves would allow the escape of a few abused house-elves from a life of slavery and drudgery, but would it provide new opportunities for the emancipated house-elves? Would even the abused elves feel duty bound to serve their old masters? Would they demand humane treatment and wages, or would doing so violate their pride and house-elf tradition? Could the former abusive masters refuse to pay them or top punishing them and kick them out? It seems to me that they'd have all the freedom of an unemployed Rita Skeeter or maybe less as they'd have no idea of how to go about finding a new job. a_svirn: This is certainly true. But the same could be (and has been with justice) said about humans. Neither emancipations of slaves in the States or in British colonies, nor, say emancipation of serfs, say, in Russia have been accomplished without facing and solving (with various degrees of success) the very problems you outline. And I'd like to point out, that neither of those problems arose because they were "slaves by nature". Although there has been no shortage of scholarly individuals since Aristotle onwards who propagated this very idea. Magpie: Which I think means we really can't take it as a metaphor for slavery because what group of human slaves (as opposed to individuals who may not mind it as much as others) want to be slaves in the face of other people trying to free them? a_svirn: Lots of Russian serfs were not keen to become emancipated. And it is not entirely unheard of for slaves to cling to their masters' households rather than embrace freedom. From muhahawa at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 21:06:38 2006 From: muhahawa at yahoo.com (Leonard Kim) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 21:06:38 -0000 Subject: Headmaster Portraits (was Re: Dumbledore dead?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151656 > najwa now: > I also believe that the portrait means that Dumbledore is dead Leonard: This has been cited by several people as the most convincing evidence in favor of Dumbledore being dead. Is this really fair? Clearly portraits in that office are of former Headmasters. I don't think we can necessarily infer anything more. Is Headmaster a life position? Did all former Headmasters keep their position until death? If not, does a portrait appear when a Headmaster steps down (and is now a "former Headmaster" or not until they actually die? I think in general, one can certainly have magical portraits of oneself without being dead. Someone will have to check this, but Gilderoy Lockhart would be my guess as a canonical mention of a living, portraited person if there is one. I personally think the portrait is evidence only for Dumbledore no longer being Headmaster of Hogwarts. He's not necessarily dead. The Headmaster position is obviously more than a title. Recall the office locking out "Headmistress" Umbridge. So I don't think a counterargument is that no Dumbledore portrait appeared during her short reign. Quick point about Snape and AK. I agree that the forceful blasting of Dumbledore off the tower is not consistent with other descriptions of AK (where people simply drop dead without a mark.) But Rowling does explicitly mention the green light in Snape's AK. Is there evidence that green light is exclusively linked to AK (its signature) or is there a canonical mention of another spell that has green light (and thus might support a ruse.) Finally, people have mentioned it, but I think it's a much stronger point than is let on. Dumbledore has been strongly associated with phoenixes through the entire series. This can't be coincidence and there's no effective literary reason for this in my view other than his eventual "return from the dead." It may be even foreshadowed in the fight at the ministry when Fawkes was briefly killed with AK. An in an interview, Rowling took pains to clarify that Fawkes is specific to Dumbledore, and not some kind of perk for being Hogwarts Headmaster. Leonard From belviso at attglobal.net Sat Apr 29 22:27:28 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 18:27:28 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Re: House Elf Loyalty References: Message-ID: <014501c66bdc$27f03a70$cc66400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 151657 Magpie: Which I think means we really can't take it as a metaphor for slavery because what group of human slaves (as opposed to individuals who may not mind it as much as others) want to be slaves in the face of other people trying to free them? a_svirn: Lots of Russian serfs were not keen to become emancipated. And it is not entirely unheard of for slaves to cling to their masters' households rather than embrace freedom. Magpie: That's very true--I started thinking of plenty of examples once I'd hit "send," unfortunately.:-) I don't think it's outside of human nature at all to embrace slavery in many forms. The thing that I think we can probably all agree on is that it's wrong from the wizard's pov--they shouldn't feel that they have the right to own another sentient being. The house elves aren't human, so we can't assume they're like any particular creature in folklore any more than we can decide they're like serfs. The difficulties arise when the House Elves don't follow the straight path of logic that Hermione and Dumbledore follow. Perhaps one problem is that it's never been approached as a dialogue about how wizards don't feel comfortable owning house elves as slaves. Perhaps if it were put to them that way it would pose the same kind of problem we face from the other direction: you want to free them as slaves, but they want to be slaves, so you can't free them without imposing your will on them. Similarly, if the house elves want to serve and do what people want, and the people don't want to own them as slaves, they can't do what people want without accepting freedom. If everybody got down to that basic problem, maybe they could compromise in a way that worked for everyone. -m From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 23:12:33 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:12:33 -0000 Subject: Headmaster Portraits (was Re: Dumbledore dead?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151658 > Leonard: zgirnius: Exactly. > Leonard: > Quick point about Snape and AK. I agree that the forceful blasting > of Dumbledore off the tower is not consistent with other > descriptions of AK (where people simply drop dead without a mark.) > But Rowling does explicitly mention the green light in Snape's AK. > Is there evidence that green light is exclusively linked to AK (its > signature) or is there a canonical mention of another spell that has > green light (and thus might support a ruse.) > > Finally, people have mentioned it, but I think it's a much stronger > point than is let on. Dumbledore has been strongly associated with > phoenixes through the entire series. This can't be coincidence and > there's no effective literary reason for this in my view other than > his eventual "return from the dead." It may be even foreshadowed in > the fight at the ministry when Fawkes was briefly killed with AK. > An in an interview, Rowling took pains to clarify that Fawkes is > specific to Dumbledore, and not some kind of perk for being Hogwarts > Headmaster. zgirnius: Two canon references to green light with a spell that was not an AK: 1) in CoS, Ron tries to hex Malfoy. His broken wand backfires and green light comes out the wrong end at him. The effect of the spell is to make Ron vomit up slugs. So it certainly does not have the *effect* of an AK. And I really doubt an AK was what Ron was trying here. It seems both out of character and out of all proportion with the situation. 2) In GoF, after the Quidditch World Cup, the spell the Death Eaters used to levitate the Muggle family appears to be associated with green light. From a_svirn at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 23:17:05 2006 From: a_svirn at yahoo.com (a_svirn) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:17:05 -0000 Subject: House Elf Loyalty In-Reply-To: <014501c66bdc$27f03a70$cc66400c@Spot> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151659 > Magpie: > The difficulties arise when the House Elves don't follow the straight path > of logic that Hermione and Dumbledore follow. Perhaps one problem is that > it's never been approached as a dialogue about how wizards don't feel > comfortable owning house elves as slaves. a_svirn: Yesss! I was really struck by the way Harry accept ownership of Kreacher and even had the gall to call it *responsibility*! Probably the only instant in the whole series where he's acting hypocritically. > Magpie: >Perhaps if it were put to them > that way it would pose the same kind of problem we face from the other > direction: you want to free them as slaves, but they want to be slaves, so > you can't free them without imposing your will on them. Similarly, if the > house elves want to serve and do what people want, and the people don't want > to own them as slaves, they can't do what people want without accepting > freedom. If everybody got down to that basic problem, maybe they could > compromise in a way that worked for everyone. a_svirn: Well, if they want to be slaves against your whishes then *they* impose their will on *you*. Can't have that, can we? But in truth, it's not quite like that. We are explicitly told that they have been bound to wizards by certain enchantments. And I don't think that "cloths" really bring them *freedom*, because they are probably still not free from those enchantments. They only become *free* from their masters. This is where Hermione's strategy is flawed ? she never bothered to find out what magic is involved and how it can be neutralized. Moreover, however you would describe their nature, one thing is certain ? they are *not* happy about the status quo. Dobby did not speak only for himself when he said about their lot having got heavier during Voldemort's first rise. Nor did he use the word *enslavement* by accident. Out of three elves we've seen so far only Winky was happy about her situation. But then, her position in Crouch's household wasn't that of an ordinary slave employed in some menial capacity. She was a trusted servant, deep in her master confidence. She was even permitted to exercise her magical powers over a wizard! Granted, her power over Crouch Junior was delegated to her by Crouch Senior, but that only emphasizes her importance and indispensability. The other two were anything but happy about their bondage. Dobby used every ounce of cunning to frustrate and obstruct his master's schemes, finding loopholes in his orders and even coming up with a few plots of his own. Kreacher was more or less in an open rebellion, although he didn't disdain cunning either. Whatever their nature, they both were (and Kreacher still is) clearly forced against it. From winkadup at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 20:10:25 2006 From: winkadup at yahoo.com (Wendy Dupuy) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 13:10:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Dumbledore dead? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060429201026.50686.qmail@web34106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151660 Beatrice: I am on the fence regarding Dumbledore surviving, but if he did I would suspect that Snape would have used a fake wand (like the one's Fred and George made). There are a couple of things that bother me about DD's death that leave a small opening for his return in my opinion. Forgive me if this has been discussed, but here are a few of my thoughts. 1. It seems odd to remove DD now when there is still another book. (but what do I know?) 2. There was an odd thing that happened with the curse that killed DD. I don't have my books so I can't quote, but if you look at Cedric's murder in GOF, when he is hit by the AK he simply crumples to the ground. Rather anti-climatic. But DD is thrown into the air, sails over the parapet wall and falls to the ground hundreds of feet below. There is a huge difference between crumpling to the floor like Cedric, Frank Bryce, the spider, etc. and being blown off your feet several meters in the air and blown backward. It may just be for dramatic effect, but still a bit odd. 3. Gandalf returns... it is always worth looking a patterns of other novels particularly one that has many things in common. 4. I don't believe that Snape is really on LV's side. He is a git for sure, but well, I'm just not ready to buy that one. Winkadup: Thank you! I know I am new to this but his death above all others has too many secrets. Too many questions, plots unknown to us yet. I think, I may be wrong book 7 will be explaining as LV destroyed and how Harry and his world goes on. Dumbledore came across to me as the strongest wizard that existed. The only one LV was scared of. For LV to destroy would be his top prize, Would LV be scared of Dumbledore so he would allow Snape or Draco(really?) to take such a person down? If he is Dead, it bothers me it really does. Unless he was really tricked, I don't see how it could happen. Snape must have told Dumbledore of his promise. He was making Snape promise and Snape did not want to do what he asked. I can't imagine Dumbledore would leave Harry. Dumbledore to me seemed to always know what was going on, even if Harry did not tell him. I don't see how he could be so blind to Snape. We never really knew what made Dumbledore believe Snape in the first place. I think all this will be explained. It is some plot of some nature to inflate LV's ego to get to him. I always try to find people to ask their opinion, glad to do this here. Sorry to beat a dead horse, but it seems Dumbledore is a major character, more so than house elf's. Winkadup. From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 30 00:52:05 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 00:52:05 -0000 Subject: SHIP Ron/Hermione: The Bickering Couple In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151661 > >>Betsy Hp: > > I think the romance angle would have worked better if Ron and > > Hermione worked more smoothly together and fought less often. > >>Pippin: > Well, of course it would! But JKR doesn't want them getting > romantic with each other too soon. From her point of view, her job > is to invent obstacles to keep them apart until they can be joined > decently. It wouldn't do to have *them* behaving like a pair of > eels. :) Betsy Hp: Oh, I agree. And I've probably made the mistake of giving JKR's interviews too much weight (they *alway* lead me astray ). But I was under the impression that she meant for the fighting in HBP to read as a romantic build up. That we were supposed to be cheering for Ron and Hermione to get together, in a "don't they realize they're made for each other?" sort of way. Actually, I do think JKR will end up going with the different but complimentary thing that makes them so annoying at the moment. My point was just that the bickering, in the past two books especially, doesn't fit under romance. > >>Joe: > > For one I also think their bickering is a bit overblown both as > evidence of attraction and as a deterrent. It may just happen to > be the part that causes Harry inconvience so he may note it more > often. Betsy Hp: Now that's something I can get behind. Because while I question JKR's ability to write romance, she's killer on human foibles. And she captures beautifully, IMO, the discomfort and worry Ron and Hermione's interactions are giving Harry. So, yeah. Ron and Hermione -- not yet a romance. They're both far too immature for that sort of thing. And that will change, of course, through the course of book 7. (We've already seen signs of change in Ron's willingness to confront the evil twins, and in Hermione's acknowledging a mistake.) But it doesn't leave much time for JKR to write them a romance. Which may not have been her point in the first place. Betsy Hp From kellymolinari at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 23:46:57 2006 From: kellymolinari at yahoo.com (Kelly Molinari) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 23:46:57 -0000 Subject: Harry's assumption VS Everyone's assumption In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151662 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, > > Arief Hamid wrote: > > One thing that's confusing me most, how come Dumbledore > > trusted Snape so much and seems like ignoring the > > statements and facts that given by Harry, that Snape > > is nothing more than a treacherous member of the > > order. What makes DD believes that Snape's is worthed > > every bit to be in the order and will protect the > > order with all his might. >Kelly, the meanmommyfish, responds: I am probably going out on a limb, but here goes... IMHO there is only one thing that could have convinced DD to trust Snape as he does and that is Snape's complicity in "the plan". At the time of Trelawney's prophecy the Wizarding World was in great turmoil. Voldemort was wreaking havoc everywhere. Wizards were afraid to leave their homes, to trust their own family members. Dumbledore had to get rid of him, too much bad *stuff* was going down. I believe Dumbledore concocted a plan to set a trap for Voldemort, and he not only used Snape to pull it off, but he convinced Snape to be the executioner. Dumbledore could not let this chance go by. He needed to protect "the chosen one", whoever it would be, until he/she was ready and able to fight the Dark Lord, whenever that may be. At this point I believe that Dumbledore had some idea of what Voldemort had done to ensure his immortality; he figured that Voldemort had some horcruxes and that those horcruxes would not allow for the total destruction of the Dark Lord. Therefore, he knew that whatever he did would be temporary, just enough to buy some time until the Dark Lord found a way to return. In order to maximize his options Dumbledore needed to protect "the chosen one" as long as possible. Dumbledore admits that even his own complex protective spells would not be able to withstand Voldemort's knowledge of magic if/when he ever returned to power (OoP US pg. 835). So he dug deep and found this ancient magic, a magic he knew Voldemort would underestimate, that would allow a mother's sacrifice to protect the life of her child until he/she became of age. But whom to provide this magic? Whom to cast the spell? Why, none other than our hero, that greasy-haired, magic-geek himself, Severus Snape. At the time he overheard the prophecy, be it part or whole, Snape was a card carrying member of the Death Eaters, looking to move up in the Dark Magic world. However, once reality set in, he knew he'd never be able to surpass Voldemort; he'd never have "the power". He was pursuing a fruitless cause. He was a prime candidate to jump ship. Dumbledore knew Snape was at a dead end, so he made him an offer he couldn't refuse. He knew of Snape's abilities, knew he was the perfect man for the job. Dumbledore was able to enlist Snape into the Order. I believe Dumbledore did it that very night when Snape was caught by the barman. Dumbledore knew that Voldemort would jump at the chance to circumvent the prophecy by immediately destroying the threat. They set him up. We know Dumbledore believed that lives would have to be sacrificed to save the Wizarding World. When he realized that Harry Potter was the marked man (sorry, no pun intended), they approached Lily. I believe the three of them were in this together, they made "a choice between what is right and what is easy" (GoF US pg 724). I also believe that Snape was very remorseful when he realized which wizarding child Voldemort would attack; I don't think Snape was prepared for it to hit so close to home, feelings for James Potter not withstanding. I don't believe Dumbledore lied to Harry when he said that. I think that Dumbledore tells Harry selective tidbits of information, a true manipulator. Now that Voldemort had started this fight Dumbledore needs Harry to finish it. How could he reveal the whole truth, divulge Snape's true loyalties to a boy who can't protect his own thoughts, implicate himself in that boy's mother's death, however complicit she was, and risk loosing Harry's trust? IMO the mere fact that Snape came through for him is the reason Dumbledore trusts him. Snape could never be loyal to the Dark Lord after having betrayed him in the way that he did. Snape made a choice, and after all, Dumbledore believes that "it is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities" (CoS US pg. 333). justcarol67 wrote: > Snape is a complex, mysterious character, important enough to be in > all of the books and to have revelations regarding his backstory. I > have a feeling he'll be important in Book 7, too. IMO, Harry's > recognition of who and what Snape truly is and how much he has > sacrificed for Dumbledore will be crucial to Harry in the fight > against LV in the final book. the meanmommyfish responds: IMO Snape will be more important to the climax of this story than we can imagine. I sometimes wonder how this story would have played out if it had been titled, "The Half Blood Prince and ... " Harry will have to come to grips with some major maturity issues, especially with regards to Snape, if he is going to succeed against Voldemort. Hopefully he will, only time will tell. Thanks for wading through all of that. It was my first post, so go easy on me, please. From lurgyblitz20 at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 21:42:51 2006 From: lurgyblitz20 at yahoo.com (lurgyblitz20) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 21:42:51 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore dead? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151663 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Najwa" wrote: > > > > Ley: > > > > I truly believe (although it breaks my heart to admit it) that DD is > > in fact, dead. Harry is quoted to saying a few times that he 'knew' > > DD was gone forever. > > 1. Fawkes leaving the castle. > > 2. The portrait on the wall behind the headmaster's desk. > > 3. The spell keeping Harry frozen at the top of the tower. > > 4. The white tomb enclosing him. > > 5. The headmaster's office allowing Professor McGonagall to enter it > > as 'headmaster'. > > > Najwa: > There is also the scene in Chamber of Secrets where Dumbledore says > "As long as there are those who remain loyal to me I will never truly > leave Hogwarts." Or something to that nature, but then again we have > the Hogwarts issue, because it looks like Harry will not return to > Hogwarts. I do not think he's alive, because not only do all the signs > point to Dumbledore truly being dead, but also because he has his own > link to the living through his portrait and probably other methods, > and also it would be almost be cheap of him to hide out and leave the > Wizarding World in such a dire state to a group of teenagers, Chosen > One or not. > > -Najwa > Lurbyblitz: I agree with you. It would be quite dumb for DD to just up and leave teens to deal with everything themselves. But, what if he had his reasons to pretend to be dead? Why shouldn't he pretend to be dead so that Draco doesn't have to kill him, and so that he'll have time to look for the Horcruxes freely without fear of being attacked by death eaters or whatever? I'm rambling, but what do you guys think? From tonks_op at yahoo.com Sun Apr 30 02:31:47 2006 From: tonks_op at yahoo.com (Tonks) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 02:31:47 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore dead? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151664 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Beatrice23" wrote: There are a couple of things that bother me > about DD's death that leave a small opening for his return in my > opinion. (snip)> > 1. It seems odd to remove DD now when there is still another book. (but what do I know?) > 2. There was an odd thing that happened with the curse that killed DD. .. but if you look at > Cedric's murder in GOF, when he is hit by the AK he simply crumples to the ground. Rather anti-climatic. But DD is thrown into the air, sails over the parapet wall and falls to the ground hundreds of feet below. There is a huge difference between crumpling to the floor like Cedric, Frank Bryce, the spider, etc. and being blown off your feet several meters in the air and blown backward. It may just be for dramatic effect, but still a bit odd. > 3. Gandalf returns... it is always worth looking a patterns of other novels particularly one that has many things in common. Tonks: First most think that DD had to go so that Harry, our hero, can mature and go on alone. It is a coming of age, epic story sort of thing, according to those here who understand classic story lines. As to the AK: I think the reason that AK cast by Snape sent DD over the tower was to prevent Greyback from eating the body. Snape may have used a non-verbal plus the AK to send DD gently over the tower and to the ground. Now there is one other thing. Apparently the AK kills instantly. If that is so, wouldn't the spell holding Harry have gone in the same instant? There was enough time for Snape to grab Draco and get the other DE off of the tower before Harry was released. Of course, we could assume that Harry was in such a state of emotional shock that it took him a few minutes to realize that DD's spell had been lifted. I am sure that DD is dead, and dead at the hand of Snape. It has to be this way for the rest to play out and to fit with the underlying framework of the story. IMO. But the question is: when exactly did DD die? Was it instantly? And if so why didn't Harry notice the spell lifting? Does it take a few minutes for a spell to lift once the caster is dead? Tonks_op Who expects the reserrection of DD in book 7. From hpfgu.elves at gmail.com Sun Apr 30 02:43:31 2006 From: hpfgu.elves at gmail.com (hpfgu_elves) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 02:43:31 -0000 Subject: HPfGU Weekly Chat Changes Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151665 Hello Fellow HPfGU Members! Those of you who participate in our weekly chat will need to note that Yahoo has changed the way you access chat; the web chat is no longer in service. In order to chat, you'll need to use either Yahoo!Messenger or YahElite at http://www.yahelite.org (free software) to attend this weekly gathering. After logging in, you'll need to type the following to get to the chat: /join *g.HPforGrownups Regards, The HPfGU List Elves From dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 30 04:00:06 2006 From: dumbledore11214 at yahoo.com (dumbledore11214) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 04:00:06 -0000 Subject: Lilly's protection for Harry - planned in advance or not WASHarry's assumption In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151666 > > >Kelly, the meanmommyfish, responds: > >> We know Dumbledore believed that lives would have to be sacrificed > to save the Wizarding World. When he realized that Harry Potter was > the marked man (sorry, no pun intended), they approached Lily. I > believe the three of them were in this together, they made "a choice > between what is right and what is easy" (GoF US pg 724). Alla: Welcome to the list! I am not replying to your main point, just to this side issue, since I disagree that Lily was involved in some sort of plan to create the protection for Harry by sacrificing herself in advance. I just think that this is a plan which looks more like something that Voldemort would do than Dumbledore, but I am not a believer of Dumbledore as true manipulator either. :) Besides, JKR stated that Lily did not know what would happen when she stood in front of Voldemort in her July 2005 Interview. "MA: Did she know anything about the possible effect of standing in front of Harry? JKR: No - because as I've tried to make clear in the series, it never happened before. No one ever survived before. And no one, therefore, knew that could happen." I don't think that Dumbledore and Lily engaged in any kind of complicated schemes. I think it is as simple as we learned so far - mother's love protects Harry. Not protection of Harry as weapon for the cause, but protection of Harry as Lily and James' beloved son, first and foremost and IMO only such kind of protection could help Harry survive. JMO, Alla From catlady at wicca.net Sun Apr 30 04:05:42 2006 From: catlady at wicca.net (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 04:05:42 -0000 Subject: Kreachur and other House Elves // Ollivander // Dursley Boat // Fake Mermaid Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151667 Pippin once suggested, I think it was right after GoF, that House Elves represented House Wives. Alla wrote in : << As I said, I think Kreacher truly loved Sirius' parents and that is what determined his actions towards Sirius. >> Kreachur is the same as Dobby -- he rebelled against his slavery by helping the people he wanted to help, the people he approved of, to the detriment of the people who owned him. (Just as Snape is the same as Pettigrew -- each was a spy who betrayed his school friends to their deaths because he had joined the other side in the war.) Kreachur *could* count as more noble, because Dobby sided with the self-interest of himself and his people, not to be treated like vermin, while Kreachur sided exactly against that self-interest. However, what is with Kreachur's name? JKR had long ago given fans the impression that all House Elves have two syllable names ending 'y' (like our List Elves!). If Kreachur's name had followed that pattern, it would be Kreachy. But HBP introduced another House Elf, a fourth specimen for our limited sample of HE names; her name, Hokey, fits in the old pattern. I don't know whether that was JKR telling us that she thinks our pattern is 'hokey' ('1. Mawkishly sentimental; corny. 2. Noticeably contrived; artificial.' according to American Heritage dictionary at ) or whether it is JKR further calling our attention to Kreachur's divergent name as a clue. Carol wrote in : << First, there's his name. Kreacher = Creature. Surely no house-elf mother would give her child that name, especially given the family resemblance among the heads on the wall: he probably looked just like her. And there's no reason why a house-elf wouldn't love her child like any other mother. I'm guessing that Walpurga Black or at least *a* Black who lived in 12 GP named him. >> Surely JKR intended his name to mean 'creature' (with a stupid phonetic spelling to look like 'treachery'), but 'creature' means 'something that was created' and could be taken to correlate with her/DD's statement that Kreachur is what wizards have made him. But if a member of the Black family had named him 'creature', wouldn't they have spelled it Creature? (Which I have read was a common name for babies baptized before birth in the fear that they might die with their mothers in childbirth and be damned for dying unbaptised). Who names House Elves anyway? Their parents and their owners are two possibilities. It could also be some bureaucrat at the Ministry of Magic or a magic quill like the one that selects students for Hogwarts. Nick wrote in : << He notices that they haven't got any clothes, so he makes them some clothing. When he wakes up the next morning the clothes are gone, but the elves didn't make any more shoes. He never sees them again... >> One version of that story has someone overhear the elves saying: "Look at my beautiful new clothes! I can't make shoes anymore, in case I got my beautiful new clothes dirty and they weren't so beautiful anymore." Another related story (IIRC not a shoemaker) has someone overhear the elves rejoicing that they were cursed to live with humans until someone gave them clothes without being asked, and now they're freed from the curse and can go back to live in fairyland. Then there's the story Magpie mentioned, of brownies who are offended by being given clothes, altho' gratified by being given a bowl of milk. I can understand the concept of someone who does a favor and then get offended (and permanently hostile) at being offered pay for it, only because I have met humans who do that. I can't understand the concept of milk not being pay but clothes are pay. (I did think of the brownies' bowls of milk when I read in FB about the difference between Knarls and Hedgehogs.) PAR wrote in : << House Elves can be abused ???"treated like vermin", as Dobby says. But is treated like vermin mean that they are overworked? The worst punishment appears to BE freedom ("clothes"). >> Alla wrote in : << I cannot grasp fully why Dobby does not work for me. >> I wish he worked for me! I'd put up with his silly conversation (and pay quite a few Galleons) if he would clean my house and wash and iron my clothes! --------------------------------- Don L wrote in : << Ollivander and the sorting hat are important rights of passage for 1st years. I guess they will have had to borrow wands, or bought from alternative European sources. I expect there wizarding pawn or second-hand shops exist, perhaps even mail ordering wizarding businesses ??? wEbay maybe... ??? not likely. >> Mail order, yes. Hermione bought the Broom Care Kit for Harry's birthday by Owl Order and Weasley's Wizard Wheezes sold stuff to the Hogwarts students by Owl Order. Second hand shops, yes. In CoS, when Harry goes to Diagon Alley with the Weasleys, "in a tiny junk shop full of broken *wands*, lopsided brass scales, and old cloaks covered in potion stains they found Percy, deeply immersed in a small and deeply boring book called Prefects Who Gained Power." (emphasis added) Lazy Days wrote in : << Ollivander was the fox that Bellatrix killed in HBP, at the beginning of Spinner's End. >> What would Ollivander, fox or otherwise, have been doing in a bad neighborhood of a northern England mill-town? Carol wrote in : << I think the etymology of the (probably invented) name is more important than an anagram. IMO, "vander" is a respelling of the Old Norse word "vondr" (stick), from which "wand" is derived, >> I didn't know the word vondr until you mentioned it, but have always seem the '-vander' as both a portmanteau word of 'wand' plus 'vendor' and a reference to the Greek-derived names ending '-ander' (for 'andros' meaning 'man') so that he sounds Classical. << Mr. Ollivander, whose misty silver eyes suggest mysticism and deep secrets. I wouldn't be surprised if he had Druid ancestors with some connection to the veiled archway in the Death Chamber of what is now the MoM >> And the "Olliv-" reminds not only of 'olive' (another Classical Greek reference) but of 'ollave', a word which I have occasionally seen used to refer to Druids. ------------------------ Sandy wrote in : << Whereas the bricks could be magical the boat is not. It is the same boat that Vernon used to get them all to the island. And that brings up the question of how Vernon, Petunia and Dudley got off the island. >> Once the storm had passed, in daylight, if the old guy (or his son who should be looking after him) didn't come (in another boat) out to check on the Dursleys, the Dursleys could have stood on the shore screaming until someone on the mainland heard them and came to get them. It's not as if their rock was so very far out to sea. ----------------------- Talisman wrote in : << a *bogus* portrait: the mermaid in the prefect's bathroom. I don't think that creature was ever alive. In the course of time we discover she looks nothing like a real merperson. >> Could the painting have been painted from a live model, a witch wearing a fake fishtail? If so, would the painting reflect the personality of the model or of the imaginary mermaid? On a related note, I often wonder whether Sir Cadogan was really a [mad] knight, or merely a Don Quixote-ish madman who delusionally thought he was a knight and therefore wore the costume? From catlady at wicca.net Sun Apr 30 04:09:31 2006 From: catlady at wicca.net (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 04:09:31 -0000 Subject: How to Kill without AK // Snape!DD // Real Snape // Disrespecting the Dead Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151668 Karen kchuplis wrote in : << How was Harry planning on killing Sirius in PoA? He didn't know the AK at the time, nor the SS. >> A lot of spells not intended for murder can kill people anyway. Levitation (Wingardium Leviosa) with which Ron hit a troll on the head with its own club in PS/SS -- a blow that knocks out a troll will kill a human. The Reductor charm with which Harry blasted the hedge out of the way in GoF -- it should blast a person to just as small bits. I've always been fond of the idea of Transfiguring the enemy's aorta to tissue paper, which would promptly dampen and tear so the enemy would die of massive internal hemorrhage. Annemehr wrote in : << Clearly, if Switched!DD has been/will be passing as Snape to LV and the DEs, he needs a fuctional Dark Mark. >> Last year, my DH asked me if HBP!Dumbledore was Snape in disguise for the whole book, because he thought DD's black withered hand might be the result of trying to remove a Dark Mark from that forearm. << [That Snape wrote those notes in the Potions book]'s the first lesson in who Snape really is. >> Who Snape really is: the inventor of Sectumsempra? Alla wrote in : << because disrespect to the dead is a horrible offense in my book. >> I hope you mean disrespect to the recently bereaved, rather than disrespect to the dead. I said 'Good riddance. It should have happened sooner' when I heard of Slobodan Milosevic's death. (Actually, from everything I've heard of his wife, son, and daughter, I feel no need to respect their grief either, but I do realise it would be bad manners. From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Sun Apr 30 11:14:23 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 11:14:23 -0000 Subject: Kreachur and other House Elves // Ollivander // Dursley Boat // Fake Mermaid In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151669 Catlady: > Then there's the story Magpie mentioned, of brownies who are offended > by being given clothes, altho' gratified by being given a bowl of > milk. I can understand the concept of someone who does a favor and > then get offended (and permanently hostile) at being offered pay for > it, only because I have met humans who do that. I can't understand the > concept of milk not being pay but clothes are pay. Ceridwen: I'm thinking that, while everyone needs nourishment, not every culture uses clothes. When they do, not every culture has the same sort of clothes. If the elves show up naked, when they obviously have skills to make clothes, shown by their ability to make shoes, then their culture is different from the shoemaker's; the brownies would also have different ideas about clothes when milk is acceptable but clothes are not. Maybe they're offended at the idea of someone trying, in their opinion, to force a different version of culture down their throats? Catlady: > Second hand shops, yes. In CoS, when Harry goes to Diagon Alley with > the Weasleys, "in a tiny junk shop full of broken *wands*, lopsided > brass scales, and old cloaks covered in potion stains they found > Percy, deeply immersed in a small and deeply boring book called > Prefects Who Gained Power." (emphasis added) Ceridwen: Thanks for this reference. I'm not sure why just yet, but I think it might mean something. Sandy wrote in > : > > << Whereas the bricks could be magical the boat is not. It is the same > boat that Vernon used to get them all to the island. And that brings > up the question of how Vernon, Petunia and Dudley got off the island. >> Catlady: > Once the storm had passed, in daylight, if the old guy (or his son who > should be looking after him) didn't come (in another boat) out to > check on the Dursleys, the Dursleys could have stood on the shore > screaming until someone on the mainland heard them and came to get > them. It's not as if their rock was so very far out to sea. Ceridwen: And after a bad storm, the owner would want to check up on his tenants. It wouldn't be beyond imagination that, in a storm, the boat might have gotten away by itself, especially if Vernon didn't tie it down properly. Ceridwen. From ceridwennight at hotmail.com Sun Apr 30 11:52:39 2006 From: ceridwennight at hotmail.com (Ceridwen) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 11:52:39 -0000 Subject: Harry's assumption VS Everyone's assumption In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151670 meanmommyfish: > Thanks for wading through all of that. It was my first post, so go easy on me, please. Ceridwen: Hi, and welcome to the group! I'm not a fish, but my kids have called me mean on occasion. meanmommyfish: > We know Dumbledore believed that lives would have to be sacrificed to save the Wizarding World. When he realized that Harry Potter was the marked man (sorry, no pun intended), they approached Lily. I believe the three of them were in this together, they made "a choice between what is right and what is easy" (GoF US pg 724). Alla: > I don't think that Dumbledore and Lily engaged in any kind of complicated schemes. I think it is as simple as we learned so far - mother's love protects Harry. Ceridwen: I agree with Alla. I don't think Dumbledore enlisted Lily's help in the plan at all. Lily's act was spontaneous, which in my opinion is a large part of the magic. meanmommyfish: > I also believe that Snape was very remorseful when he realized which wizarding child Voldemort would attack; I don't think Snape was prepared for it to hit so close to home, feelings for James Potter not withstanding. I don't believe Dumbledore lied to Harry when he said that. I think that Dumbledore tells Harry selective tidbits of information, a true manipulator. Now that Voldemort had started this fight Dumbledore needs Harry to finish it. How could he reveal the whole truth, divulge Snape's true loyalties to a boy who can't protect his own thoughts, implicate himself in that boy's mother's death, however complicit she was, and risk loosing Harry's trust? Ceridwen: I do believe Snape reacted very differently once it became a matter of life and death in a real sense, the same way Draco blanched at killing Dumbledore face to face. It's one thing to talk belligerently; it's another thing to actually have a hand, however remote, in death. Alla: > I just think that this is a plan which looks more like something that Voldemort would do than Dumbledore, but I am not a believer of Dumbledore as true manipulator either. :) Ceridwen: Again, I agree with Alla here. But maybe not as much, in the sense that I do think Dumbledore will 'do what is right' rather than what is easy, even if it does involve the deaths of some people. That's the way it is in war, and it cannot be avoided. Acknowledging that some people will have to die is a far cry from deliberately laying a trap using tools which are unproven (the ancient magic) in order to vaporize but not eliminate the threat. I do think that Snape was in on the limited plan, such as it was, and this is one reason Dumbledore trusts him. One thing which goes against Lily's involvement was the independent course she and James took in selecting Pettigrew as their Secret Keeper. If there was a master plan between her and Dumbledore, she would have wanted Dumbledore as SK. He would need to know her whereabouts, if his involvement was so great, so it would be logical to have him as SK. That didn't happen. And, as I mentioned above, the ancient protection of Lily's blood sacrifice was unknown in the WW, according to the books. Dumbledore could have researched until his fingers grew callouses on their callouses and he wouldn't have found it. It was the spontaneous nature of the sacrifice, willingness to die *for Harry*, not for a plan, that provided the protection. The protection went to the person Lily was protecting. This would fall more into the category of the prophecy taking on life since LV believed in it enough to try to circumvent it. What always happens to people who try to get around a prophecy in literature? They make it come true. I also don't think Dumbledore is 'a true manipulator'. Sometimes parental figures look like manipulators, but they know the child better than someone distant. DD tells Harry what he needs to know, nothing more. Harry is still a child during most of these books. It isn't his business to know Snape's business. Also, Dumbledore tells Harry what Harry *needs* to know. He compartmentalizes the information that he has, telling each person only what is necessary. The fewer people who know the Grand Scheme, the fewer who can betray it under torture. Compartmentalizing also serves the purpose to focus each person on their own task instead of focusing on someone else's. The end of GoF is a good example: Snape is sent off to who knows where at the time, Sirius is given his own mission independent of Snape's. This is not manipulating, it is good practice not to let the left hand know what the right hand is doing in any sort of intelligence operation. And this is what the Order seems to be doing, at least while the war is at its lull. Ceridwen. From zarleycat at sbcglobal.net Sun Apr 30 12:40:19 2006 From: zarleycat at sbcglobal.net (kiricat4001) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 12:40:19 -0000 Subject: Sirius...Door_to_Door (was: Dumbledore on ...Dursleys...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151671 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" wrote: > > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kiricat4001" wrote: > > > > > Marianne: > > > > ... I always felt there was something a little dodgy about > > sending the most wanted fugitive in England wandering about > > door-to-door chatting up old Order members. > > bboyminn: > > Oooh...just one small problem, Dumbledore didn't send Sirius > 'door-to-door' to alert the Order memeber, he sent him to Lupin. > Notice, he is to first contact Remus Lupin who knows he is innocent. > Then they are to contact other order members. Also, since the previous > book (POA, that is) Dumbledore and Lupin have probably been spreading > the word that Peter Petigrew is alive and back which in turn means > that Sirius Black was innocent of the crimes he was charged with. The > knowledge at the time may not have carried any urgency, so people may > have not given in much wieght. But now that the situation is critical, > now that Voldemort is back, it would mean more. Marianne: <> I'm not arguing any of Steve's points as I have no argument with them. My "door-to-door" comment was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. My real issue was with Peggy's argument that Sirius had to leave immediately to be the messenger. Peggy herself had been responding to Sherry's comment that perhaps it would have been nice for Prophecy Boy to have been granted a small amount of time with Sirius. > > Marianne: > > > > Especially as it seems that Sirius, at that time, traveled by > > Hippogriff or on shaggy dog feet, not by Apparation. If time was of > > the essence, wouldn't it be better to send a message by someone who > > could Apparate ...? > > bboyminn: > > Sirius was a brilliant student one of the top students to ever come > through Hogwarts, it's completely unreasonable to think that he can't > Apparate. Now, he has been out of Azkaban for a while, but not that > long. Logically there would be a period of time during which he would > need to recover his strength and his health. Certainly being weak and > 'defeated' by the Dementors would have affected his ability to > Apparate, but it has been over a year now, and I'm sure he is > sufficiently recover to Apparate if he had to. Still, I'm sure it is a > strain. > > Also, he has the hippogriff, he has to do something with it, it was > entrusted to his care. It is also a convenient way to travel that > doesn't require a detectable burst of magical energy. Plus, after all > those dark and desperate years in Azkaban, it is probably nice to have > a companion around. Further, that particular 'companion' was given to > him by Harry, so there is a certain amount of sentimentality there. Marianne: DD tells Sirius "I need you to set off at once." This, to me, implies a level of urgency that cuts off any discussion of Sirius spending even a few moments with Harry, like sitting with him until he falls asleep. So SIrius must leave immediately carrying this urgent news. I didn't mean to imply that I don't think Sirius can Apparate - I'm sure he was quite capable of it. My point isn't that he can't Apparate, but that, if it is so urgent to get the word out about Vmort that Sirius must leave Hogwarts immediately, then it makes no sense to have that message not travel as quickly as possible. Thus, traveling as Padfoot or via Buckbeak does not meet the urgency test. If, however, it is acceptable to Dumbledore that Sirius is going to travel by slower modes of transport and thus, the Order members get the information about Vmort's return over the course of several days, then Sherry's original comment still stands, that it would have been nice for both Harry and Sirius to have spent even a little time together. Marianne From deepthi_b1 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 30 11:10:03 2006 From: deepthi_b1 at yahoo.com (deepthi_b1) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 11:10:03 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore on the Dursleys in OotP (LONG) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151672 > Pippin wrote: > > Who says he [Sirius Black] went door to door? I'm sure he used his > patronus. Any Order member who saw Sirius's patronus would get in > touch with Dumbledore at once, whether they believed the message or > not, which is what Dumbledore would want. > > > > Harry was supposed to be in a magically induced sleep -- if he'd > taken all his potion as instructed, he wouldn't have been awake at > all. There wouldn't have been anything Sirius could do for him in that > state. > > Carol responds: > At any rate, Black loved risk-taking and IMO would have wanted as > large and active a part in the process of "alerting the old crowd" as possible, but Lupin IMO would have arranged it so that the risks were reduced to a reasonable level. But for Black to use his Patronus would > not require him to leave the building or transfer to dog form, as he > does in that scene, and would not have been sufficiently "fun" to suit > his reckless nature. > > Carol, who still doesn't understand how Black/Padfoot got into > Hogwarts (twice) in GoF unless he opened the heavy front doors with > his paws right under the figurative noses of the Dementors > deepthi: Carol, isn't it possible that Crookshanks may have carried out the work for Sirius like he had in many other occasions? And then Sirius could just walk in and do the stuff he wanted to. Though I'd like to know where were the dementors in the GoF. Surely, it was in PoA (Prisioners of Askaban)as Dementors came into the 4th book only once and that was with Fudge to see Barty Crouch Jr.'s body. Then however he was accompanied by McGonagall even if he had encountered Dementors. From deepthi_b1 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 30 11:00:56 2006 From: deepthi_b1 at yahoo.com (deepthi_b1) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 11:00:56 -0000 Subject: Snape-Our Side Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151673 I have heard many rumours concering that Snape may just as well be on our side (ie.he did not kill Dumbledore as far as I feel)Here are some of the theories I've heard and hopefully a few people wouldn't mind of taking a few points from their theories as well. Now one of the most common theories is that the curse Snape used on Dumbledore in the Tower may as well be a curse similar to Avada but not having the main objective: to kill.We see that Dumbledore does not fall to the ground like the previous victims of the curse that we have seen but instead falls almost gracefully from the tower which could have been performed by a simple non-verbal curse (Wingardium Leviosa). J.K has been renown for using the few lessons that have been emphasized in the books to spring up again in the critical portions of the books. In support to my theory, you can further examine that beazor mentioned in the first book comes to light again in the 6th. We can take this granted for the performance of a non-verbal spell and again for the Draught of Living Death (a potion which makes the consumer appear to be dead )which Dumbledore may have taken during the fall to make it seem as if he was dead and which Snape himself may have prepared for him. Coming to the other theories....has anyone shed light on the following passage from the 6th book, The Cave, Page 534? "Hating himself,repulsed by what he was doing"were the words used by J.K to describe Harry's actions while forcingly giving Dumbledore the cup filled with the potion on his orders. In fact J.K again uses "revulsion and hatred etched..." to describe Snape's expression while he was "killing" Dumbledore. Perhaps he was being forced by Dumbledore to "kill" him. Another fact to show that Snape may be on our side....in the 4th book right after Voldemort returned and the imposter Moody,Barty Crouch Jr. was caught and killed Pg 619 Harry hears Dumbledore telling Snape "Severus,'said Dumbledore....as Snape swept wordlessly after Sirius." tells us that Snape was infact following Dumbledore's orders while going to Voldemort. Similiar events are described again in the 6th book in Spinners End by Snape to Bellatrix and Narissca. We also know that Snape was giving information to Dumbledore as we see his face in Dumbledore's Pensive saying that the Dark Mark was getting stronger as was Karkaraof's.I also distinctly remember that Hagrid was quoted saying somewhere in the 6th book that Snape was saying that he couldn't do it anymore...perhaps he was referring to the pressure he was facing and all that he'd have to face if word got around that he'd killed Dumbledore. Dumbledore also pleads Snape by saying "Servus..." perhaps prompting him to carry on the act as he does to Harry while taking the potion. There are many more theories to this, but I just want to know how many more people find this theory fitting as I sure do. deepthi From richter at ridgenet.net Sun Apr 30 13:30:49 2006 From: richter at ridgenet.net (richter_kuymal) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 13:30:49 -0000 Subject: Harry's assumption VS Everyone's assumption In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151674 Ceridwen: I do believe Snape reacted very differently once it became a matter of life and death in a real sense, the same way Draco blanched at killing Dumbledore face to face. It's one thing to talk belligerently; it's another thing to actually have a hand, however remote, in death. PAR: He spent years as either a true DE or as a spy for the OOP. Either way he had a hand in the deaths of individuals. And not necessarily remotely, either. I find his story that he regretted the death of the Potters unbelievable, just as Harry found it so. JKR says DD makes mistakes. Trusting Snape was one -- sometimes believing in remorse and giving second chances is NOT the right thing to do, even if it is "easier" because it's what you WANT to do. > Ceridwen: in the sense that I do think Dumbledore will 'do what is right' rather than what is easy, even if it does involve the deaths of some people. That's the way it is in war, and it cannot be avoided. Acknowledging that some people will have to die is a far cry from deliberately laying a trap using tools which are unproven (the ancient magic) in order to vaporize but not eliminate the threat. DD tells Harry what he needs to know, nothing more. Harry is still a child during most of these books. It isn't his business to know Snape's business. PAR: I disagree. Dumbledore HAS done what is "easy" for him. An individual, even a child, is entitled to make INFORMED consent. Not partially informed consent. It is reasonable to put things in a way that a child UNDERSTANDS by simple explanations. It is NOT reasonable to withhold things. Snapes' busines IS Harrys' business to the degree it affects HARRY. And Snape being the informant did. DD took the "easy" way out -- rather than risk LV finding out from HP he didn't tell HP things. And that lack of information has time and again caused problems. If the series of tests in the getting of the stone is a trap in SS/PS, then TELLING HP that would have been useful. Not just the adults can take care of it. (and if it was a test for HP, that's equally bad). And yes, when Harry asked that first time, that was when it would have been right to tell Harry. And DD at least admits that one. If he had done as much for Sirius as he did for Morfin, Sirius wouldn't have spent 12 years in Azkaban. If he had informed Harry fully, I doubt the whole MOM episode of OOP would have occured. it was "easier" not to tell because an informed Harry was a risk -- but that is the only way Harry could have made informed consent. In taking the position that secrecy is more important "for the greater good", DD has asked his followers to risk their lives -- without always knowing the risks or the reasons. That may be acceptable to a soldier who as an adult, signs up KNOWING that this is what is going to be the case, it's another thing to do it to those who are asked or just put in that position without the knowledge. I have my doubts that DD ever told either the Longbottoms or the Potters about that prophesy. And I suspect that the lack of trust on DD's part made for the lack of trust on the Potter's part in their choice of SK. Harry is the most affected by the prophesy. He has a right to know the entire truth about it. DD's lack of being forthright is one of the things I really dislike about DD. PAR. From sassymomofthree at yahoo.com Sun Apr 30 15:38:59 2006 From: sassymomofthree at yahoo.com (Lisa) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 15:38:59 -0000 Subject: Snape-Our Side In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151675 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "deepthi_b1" wrote: > > Coming to the other theories....has anyone shed light on the following passage from the 6th book, The Cave, Page 534? "Hating himself,repulsed by what he was doing"were the words used by J.K to describe Harry's actions while forcingly giving Dumbledore the cup filled with the potion on his orders. In fact J.K again uses "revulsion and hatred etched..." to describe Snape's expression while he was "killing" Dumbledore. Perhaps he was being forced by Dumbledore to "kill" him. SassyMomOfThree responds: I've been a proponent of this theory since Day One! I caught the "hatred and revulsion" comparison right away, and definitely think that it was purposely there to hint to us that Snape was doing Dumbledore's bidding, much as Harry was. > "deepthi_b1" wrote: > There are many more theories to this, but I just want to know how many more people find this theory fitting as I sure do. > > SassyMomOfThree responds: Count me in! ~~Lisa From alfrick at btopenworld.com Sun Apr 30 16:46:41 2006 From: alfrick at btopenworld.com (ensemble773807) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 16:46:41 -0000 Subject: Dumbledore's Protection of Hogwart's Halls Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151676 > the4bodingdawn: > Has anyone noticed how many near misses have happened in the > halls of Hogwarts? All of the petrifying attacks in the Chamber of > Secrets were not sucessful. > In the Half Blood Prince all of the fighting that takes place > in the halls yet no one on our side dies(or has to kill). Even the > worst injury of Greyback attacking Bill is not completed and the > damage is somewhat minimized. Even Flitwick doesn't go down until > he leaves the hall. > We are led to believe by Ginny that it was all Felix Felices, > but that doesn't explain the Order's luck. Dumbledore's strong > statment to Harry "do you think that I have once left the school > unprotected during my absences this year?" I have not. Tonight, > when I leave, there will be additional protection in place." > Perhaps one of the reason DD had the Order in the Halls was to > keep them safe as well? > Can anyone cite any other near misses in the Halls? > Ben here: Hello all. I'm a first-time poster here so forgive me if I'm doing it all wrong. Although there have been a lot of near misses, (another would be Barty Crouch Jr - he was given the dementor's kiss but that does not kill. This may lend support to the Dumbledore-not-being-dead argument. However there have been some cases of death inside Hogwarts: - Quirrel - The spider killed by Moody in GoF - Ginny: "And a death Eater's dead, he got hit by a killing curse the huge blond one was firing off everywhere..." HBP pg 571 UK version - Barty Crouch Sr. was killed in the grounds - Moaning Myrtle - Dumbledore (I happen to believe he was killed) Ben From justcarol67 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 30 19:09:45 2006 From: justcarol67 at yahoo.com (justcarol67) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 19:09:45 -0000 Subject: How did Black get into Hogwarts in PoA? (Was: Dumbledore on the Dursleys . . . ) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151677 Carol earlier: > > Carol, who still doesn't understand how Black/Padfoot got into Hogwarts (twice) in GoF unless he opened the heavy front doors with his paws right under the figurative noses of the Dementors > > > deepthi responded: > Surely, it was in PoA (Prisioners of Askaban)as Dementors came into the 4th book only once and that was with Fudge to see Barty Crouch Jr.'s body. Then however he was accompanied by McGonagall even if he had encountered Dementors. > Carol again: Sorry. Of course I meant PoA. So, I repeat, how did Sirius/Padfoot get past the Dementors to enter Hogwarts and attempt to kill Wormtail (in PoA, not GoF)? Lupin seems to think that all he (Lupin) needed to tell DD was that Black was an Animagus, as if that in itself would explain how Black could get into Hogwarts. (He never mentions that he was also hiding the Marauder's Map from DD as he certainly should not have done if he were really trying to protect Harry from Black). But neither the Animagus form nor Black's knowledge of the secret passages fully explains (to my satisfaction) how Black got into Hogwarts in PoA, especially the second time. Pippin says that the Dementors were only guarding the gates, but surely they were watching the front doors as well? (Does anyone have canon evidence that they weren't? In PoA, I mean, not GoF.) Even if the Dementors weren't watching the front doors, surely someone or something was guarding them. If not, Black could have just walked into the school any old time, especially at night, and Dumbledore would have been putting Harry's safety, and that of the other students a desperate murderer might injure or kill, at needless risk. (I'm not talking about what Black would really have done, only about the measures that would have been taken to prevent the presumed murderer of thirteen people from adding Harry to the list.) At any rate, simply being an Animagus should not have been sufficient in itself to enable him to get him into Hogwarts. I don't see how he could have opened heavy oak doors in dog form, nor could Crookshanks have opened them for him. I doubt that they were left standing open in the daytime, especially as DD didn't want either Black or the Dementors inside the school, and surely at night they would have been locked. Also, Snape thought that Black would require inside help (from Lupin) to get inside Hogwarts, which again suggests that the front doors were guarded in some way and that Black could not just walk in. Granted, neither Snape nor DD knew that Black was an Animagus, but as noted, Padfoot could not open those doors, and surely any student or staff member entering the doors would have noticed if a big dog resembling a Grim followed them inside (as would Mrs. Norris if she were standing watch). I remember that Black first chose the Halloween feast, when everyone would be in the Great Hall, to sneak inside and try to enter the Gryffindor common room, and the second occasion was at night (I don't recall the date). True, those particular times would have helped him to escape detection once he got inside, but how did he get in? Even if the doors were unguarded, which seems to me like unconscionable neglect on DD's part, no one could have opened the doors for him on either occasion if he was in dog form. (Lupin didn't; Crookshanks couldn't; he had no other allies.) And if he were in human form, surely the Dementors would have sensed him and swooped down on him even if they weren't standing right outside the doors. Also, canonically, Flitwick taught the front doors to recognize Black in human form after the first incident, so even if he opened the doors himself the first time, he could not have done so the second time. If he didn't use the doors, how did he get in? But he couldn't have gotten inside via the Shrieking Shack tunnel, which ends at the Whomping Willow, not inside Hogwarts itself like the other passageways; he wouldn't/couldn't have used any of the four passages that Filch knows about as they were certainly watched; and I don't see how he could have gotten into Honeydukes in dog form to use the humpbacked witch passage without being seen and thrown out. (It's not as if he were the size of Scabbers. A dog in a candy store would cause a commotion.) Maybe the seventh passage was not yet blocked? We don't know where it begins/ends in Hogsmeade. That's the only means of entry I can figure out, but it would present similar problems to the humpbacked witch passage if it leads to a shop in Hogsmeade. He could not have assumed human form in Hogsmeade or the Dementors would have attacked him, and I don't see how a big black dog could have entered any shop undetected. Maybe it's just one of those questions that JKR will leave unanswered, wrongly thinking that they've been adequately explained. Carol, who really does know one book from another but was thinking about Snape and GoF when she wrote that sign-off and consequently mistyped the abbreviated title From zgirnius at yahoo.com Sun Apr 30 20:02:18 2006 From: zgirnius at yahoo.com (zgirnius) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 20:02:18 -0000 Subject: How did Black get into Hogwarts in PoA? (Was: Dumbledore on the Dursleys . . . ) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151678 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" wrote: > > Carol earlier: > > > > Carol, who still doesn't understand how Black/Padfoot got into > Hogwarts (twice) in GoF unless he opened the heavy front doors with > his paws right under the figurative noses of the Dementors zgirnius: How about this... He hangs about the garbage bins outside Honeydukes at night in dog form, and waits for a moment when there are no Dementors in sight. There isn't one posted permanently on every block, surely? The populace would never tolerate it. When the coast is clear, he quickly transforms and breaks into the cellar. (Does he have his knife that he gives Harry at this point?) From phil at pcsgames.net Sun Apr 30 20:09:30 2006 From: phil at pcsgames.net (Phil Vlasak) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 16:09:30 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] How did Black get into Hogwarts in PoA? (Was: Dumbledore on the Dursleys . . . ) References: Message-ID: <00fd01c66c92$01f81b60$6600a8c0@phil> No: HPFGUIDX 151679 Carol again: > Sorry. Of course I meant PoA. So, I repeat, how did Sirius/Padfoot get > past the Dementors to enter Hogwarts and attempt to kill Wormtail (in > PoA, not GoF)? > > Lupin seems to think that all he (Lupin) needed to tell DD was that > Black was an Animagus, as if that in itself would explain how Black > could get into Hogwarts. (He never mentions that he was also hiding > the Marauder's Map from DD as he certainly should not have done if he > were really trying to protect Harry from Black). But neither the > Animagus form nor Black's knowledge of the secret passages fully > explains (to my satisfaction) how Black got into Hogwarts in PoA, > especially the second time. Now Phil: Black could have used Crookshanks to buy him another broom and deliver it to the shack. Then in human form he could have flown to the top of a tower and entered. Phil who thinks the towers should have been more defended like the front door. From kchuplis at alltel.net Sun Apr 30 20:30:37 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 15:30:37 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] How did Black get into Hogwarts in PoA? (Was: Dumbledore on the Dursleys . . . ) In-Reply-To: <00fd01c66c92$01f81b60$6600a8c0@phil> References: <00fd01c66c92$01f81b60$6600a8c0@phil> Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151680 On Apr 30, 2006, at 3:09 PM, Phil Vlasak wrote: > Carol again: > > Sorry. Of course I meant PoA. So, I repeat, how did Sirius/ > Padfoot get > > past the Dementors to enter Hogwarts and attempt to kill Wormtail > (in > > PoA, not GoF)? > > > > Lupin seems to think that all he (Lupin) needed to tell DD was that > > Black was an Animagus, as if that in itself would explain how Black > > could get into Hogwarts. (He never mentions that he was also hiding > > the Marauder's Map from DD as he certainly should not have done > if he > > were really trying to protect Harry from Black). But neither the > > Animagus form nor Black's knowledge of the secret passages fully > > explains (to my satisfaction) how Black got into Hogwarts in PoA, > > especially the second time. > > Now Phil: > Black could have used Crookshanks to buy him another broom and > deliver it to > the shack. > Then in human form he could have flown to the top of a tower and > entered. > Phil who thinks the towers should have been more defended like the > front > door. > kchuplis: OK, didn't they explain in the book that the dementors do not pay attention to him in dog form because they do not sense animal emotions the same way? All he has to do is go through the forest basically. Getting in and out of the castle itself never appears to be a big problem for three teenagers, let alone an animagus. I don't see what the big mystery is. From gelite67 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 30 21:06:56 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 21:06:56 -0000 Subject: Wand Wonderings (was: Re: Tangent: Mr. Ollivander) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151681 Angie wrote: > >It's not like LV can't get another wand with a phoenix feather made > of yew wood. > > Sridhar: > I second this, since LV can then get a feather from a different > phoenix. Otherwise, the wand-locking effect will continue. But I > wonder, can we mix more than 2 substances for the wand core. There is > nothing in the canon to justify this, but its just a thought. Angie again: > Hmm. Interesting. I have no idea how the laws of physics work in the WW. You have to wonder if two magical substances(or why not three) would make the wand super-powerful or if they would cancel each other out? > Sridhar : > But as he says, in PS/SS, it is the wand that really chooses its > owner. Can he prevent a different wand from choosing LV? > Angie replies: The only way I can see Ollivander preventing a wand from choosing a wizard is to not give it to him in the first place, but I don't see how that would happen, given that his normal routine is to continue to offer a different wand until the right "chooses" the wizard. But that wouldn'd be what we are talking about here, would it? Sounds to me like this would be WW first -- the wizard choosing the wand instead of the other way around. And I sure don't know how that works, but I'd like to believe that Ollivander could "tweak" the wand just a bit so that it wouldn't work properly when it met Harry's wand. I think the more fundamental question is whether a wand can choose a wizard who already has an operable wand? In other words, can a wizard have more than one operable wand that has been chosen by him? If not, then LV would be forced to destroy his own wand to get another one and I can't see that happening. Further, can't there be more than one "right" wand for a person? Couldn't there be one in Ollivander's shop as well as Gregoravitch or whatever his name is that made Krum's wand? And what happens to the wands that are never chosen???? If the Irder has Ollivander, is it possible he has made another wand for Harry? Or perhaps Harry will wind up using his mother's wand or his father's wand? I've always wondered what happened to his mother's wand and his father's wand.... I guess we are supposed to assume they were destroyed that night at GH? From gelite67 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 30 21:15:04 2006 From: gelite67 at yahoo.com (gelite67) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 21:15:04 -0000 Subject: Breaking the Priori Incantatum? Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151682 Any theories on how Harry/LV are going to overcome the Priori Incantatum effect? Some possibilities: 1) LV forces Ollivander or another wandmaker to make him a different wand. 2) The Order has Ollivander, who has made Harry a different wand. 3) Either Harry or LV or both, use another wizard's wand, whether deliberately or out of desperation. (I like the idea of Harry using his mother's wand, in particular.) 4) There is, yet revealed to us, a way for LV and Harry to each use his own present wand and still overcome the PI effect Perhaps the trio's wands working in conjunction???? I love this idea -- the love of his friends helping Harry to overcome and yes, I do think it is consistent with the Prophesy). Another idea: The PI effect does not need to be overcome, and in fact, is essential to Harry defeating LV. Any other ideas? From bex753 at yahoo.co.uk Sun Apr 30 21:28:31 2006 From: bex753 at yahoo.co.uk (Brian W) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 22:28:31 +0100 Subject: Breaking the Priori Incantatum? References: Message-ID: <002201c66c9d$08565a20$6501a8c0@bex570c24c4864> No: HPFGUIDX 151683 Angie: > > Any other ideas? > I am going with this one. I don't think JKR will go over old ground. My thoughts on the end are both Harry and Voldermort entering the locked room an the ministry and Harry being able to survive due to his Unique pure nature and Voldermort being totally destroyed by all that love. Bex From annemehr at yahoo.com Sun Apr 30 22:37:03 2006 From: annemehr at yahoo.com (annemehr) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 22:37:03 -0000 Subject: How did Black get into Hogwarts in PoA? (Was: Dumbledore on the Dursleys . . In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151684 --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" wrote: > Carol again: > Sorry. Of course I meant PoA. So, I repeat, how did Sirius/Padfoot get > past the Dementors to enter Hogwarts and attempt to kill Wormtail (in > PoA, not GoF)? Annemehr: *Canon* evidence, eh? *gets the actual book* ;) Quotes are from US hardcover: Ch. 4, when Harry hears Arthur and Molly arguing about whether to tell Harry about Sirius Black being "after him." (66): -------------------------------------------------------------- "Of course [Dumbledore] knows. We had to ask him if he minds the Azkaban guards stationing themselves around the entrances to the school grounds. He wasn't happy about it, but he agreed." --------------------------------------------------------------- Ch. 9, in the Hospital Wing after Harry fell off his broom during the Quiddtich match (181): ---------------------------------------------------------------- "Dumbledore was really angry," Hermione said in a quaking voice. [...]...He was furious they'd come onto the grounds. We heard him --" ----------------------------------------------------------------- This would seem to leave the Shrieking Shack/Whomping Willow route wide open. There is also some evidence that Padfoot either hung out in or travelled through the Forbidden Forest. From Ch. 15, when Harry woke up and looked out his window in the middle of the night (303-304): ----------------------------------------------------------------- He peered out at the grounds again and, after a minute's frantic searching, spotted it. It was akirting the edge of the gorest now.... It wasn't the grim at all...it was a cat....[...]It was only Crookshanks.... Or *was* it only Crookshanks? [...] And just then it emerged -- a gigantic, shaggy black dog, moving stealthily across the lawn, Crookshanks at its side. ------------------------------------------------------------------ I checked several, at least, of the scenes where Harry et al walked through the front doors, and there was never any mention of a guard on them (Ch. 11, p. 216; Ch. 13, p. 257; Ch. 16, p. 327; Ch. 21; p. 397). Incidentally, in Ch. 15 (293) is when Hermione slaps Draco, right at the castle steps -- and no mention of a guard or anyone here, either. Perhaps the most telling lack of evidence of guards at the gates is in Ch. 5, during their arrival at Hogwarts for the year (87): a pair of dementors at the front gates is mentioned, setting the scene, but there is no mention of anyone guarding the front doors. On the other hand, in the beginning of Ch. 14 (269), after Sirius Black had gotten into Gryffindor Tower with Neville's stolen passwords, Professor Flitwick taught the front doors to recognize "a large picture of Sirius Black." After this, though, there is no mention of Sirius even trying to enter. So, no, I don't see any problem with Sirius getting into the castle, no matter which form he took. Huge dogs can learn how to open doors, and Scottish castle doors are not likely to open with door*knobs* like the ones on many of our houses. Annemehr From OctobersChild48 at aol.com Sun Apr 30 22:08:49 2006 From: OctobersChild48 at aol.com (OctobersChild48 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 18:08:49 EDT Subject: Dumbledore dead? / Harry and Voldemort's wands Message-ID: <2c2.71cc215.31868f71@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151685 In a message dated 4/28/06 7:14:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time, winkadup at yahoo.com writes: >I was wondering the 2 wands that LV and Harry have, each of a feather > from the same bird. Was that Dumbledore's bird? Would that "mean" anything with > such a link? > Yes, both of the tail feathers came from DD's phoenix, Fawkes, and I have always felt that there has to be some significance to that. Any theories anyone? Sandy From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 30 22:58:45 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 22:58:45 -0000 Subject: How did Black get into Hogwarts in PoA? (Was: Dumbledore on the Dursleys . . In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151686 > >>Annemehr: > > On the other hand, in the beginning of Ch. 14 (269), after Sirius > Black had gotten into Gryffindor Tower with Neville's stolen > passwords, Professor Flitwick taught the front doors to > recognize "a large picture of Sirius Black." After this, though, > there is no mention of Sirius even trying to enter. > So, no, I don't see any problem with Sirius getting into the > castle, no matter which form he took. Huge dogs can learn how to > open doors, and Scottish castle doors are not likely to open with > door*knobs* like the ones on many of our houses. Betsy Hp: Just to add to that, there are any number of beasties within the castle that like to get out for a bit of romp on their own. Crookshanks is one familiar we know of, but other cat familiars probably like to get out for a night-time hunt as well. Ron never kept Scabbers in a cage, so there's another roaming creature. (Not to mention McGonagall in cat form.) If the front doors are magical enough to be trained to keep a certain person out, I don't think it's a stretch to think that they may well open for domesticated animals that might not be able to handle the doors on their own. Betsy Hp From horridporrid03 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 30 23:27:47 2006 From: horridporrid03 at yahoo.com (horridporrid03) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 23:27:47 -0000 Subject: Sportsmanship in Harry Potter Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151687 So I was poking about the online fandom and ran across this article by Mariana Hyde: http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1762184,00.html And it was amusing and missed the point a bit (the columnist is not a quidditch fan to say the least ) but then I read a section on the bad sportsmanship displayed in the Triwizard Tournament, and it pulled me up a bit short. (It's longish, and clipping quotes always seems to send Yahoo into a melt down when I do it, so I'm not going to quote it here.) Basically, Harry should not have received the extra points he did in the underwater event. Harry chose to not do the race as per the rules (he chose to stay and make sure everyone got out safe) but was still shoved into a second place he'd failed to earn. Harry didn't come in second, he came in third. (Or maybe tied for fourth with Fluer?) And only by breaking the stated rules of the game was it possible for the judges to give him the second place (first if not for Karkaroff). In the article Hyde points out, "[t]he whole point about being sportsmanlike is that you don't get any prizes for it. It is a reward in itself, and usually involves forfeiting something you'd have held on to if you hadn't bothered." Does Harry getting a big point bonus for being noble actually taint his nobility a bit? Do these books ever give us an example of good sportsmanship? Betsy Hp From kchuplis at alltel.net Sun Apr 30 23:52:13 2006 From: kchuplis at alltel.net (Karen) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 18:52:13 -0500 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Sportsmanship in Harry Potter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <58053206-1089-4181-A90D-7E59B83A8F24@alltel.net> No: HPFGUIDX 151688 On Apr 30, 2006, at 6:27 PM, horridporrid03 wrote: > So I was poking about the online fandom and ran across this article by > Mariana Hyde: > http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1762184,00.html > > And it was amusing and missed the point a bit (the columnist is not a > quidditch fan to say the least ) but then I read a section on the > bad sportsmanship displayed in the Triwizard Tournament, and it pulled > me up a bit short. (It's longish, and clipping quotes always seems to > send Yahoo into a melt down when I do it, so I'm not going to quote it > here.) > > Basically, Harry should not have received the extra points he did in > the underwater event. Harry chose to not do the race as per the rules > (he chose to stay and make sure everyone got out safe) but was still > shoved into a second place he'd failed to earn. Harry didn't come in > second, he came in third. (Or maybe tied for fourth with Fluer?) And > only by breaking the stated rules of the game was it possible for the > judges to give him the second place (first if not for Karkaroff). > > In the article Hyde points out, "[t]he whole point about being > sportsmanlike is that you don't get any prizes for it. It is a reward > in itself, and usually involves forfeiting something you'd have held > on to if you hadn't bothered." > > Does Harry getting a big point bonus for being noble actually taint > his nobility a bit? Do these books ever give us an example of good > sportsmanship? > kchuplis: Maybe my definition of sportsmanship is faulty. I think of it just as much in terms of gracious winning as gracious losing. I also think of it as being in the behaviour of the the participant and not the judges. *Harry* didn't ask to be put equal. The judges (read DD) chose that. I don't recall him gloating about it. He just accepted it. To me, at any rate, "good sportsmanship" doesn't mean Harry would have to put a big fuss up and insist on being placed lower. That's just silly. From joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 30 23:52:35 2006 From: joegoodwin1067 at yahoo.com (Joe Goodwin) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 16:52:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Sportsmanship in Harry Potter In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060430235235.9937.qmail@web61317.mail.yahoo.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151689 horridporrid03 wrote: So I was poking about the online fandom and ran across this article by Mariana Hyde: http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1762184,00.html In the article Hyde points out, "[t]he whole point about being sportsmanlike is that you don't get any prizes for it. It is a reward in itself, and usually involves forfeiting something you'd have held on to if you hadn't bothered." Does Harry getting a big point bonus for being noble actually taint his nobility a bit? Do these books ever give us an example of good sportsmanship? Joe: First let me say that I can not think of a worst example of a sports article ever. Now do we know the judges broke the rules in awarding Harry extra points? Remember that they are judges as in figure skating and other "sports" that have elements of interpretation in them. They are not referees who are there to only see that the rules are obeyed. Even if Harry shouldn't have gotten the bonus points though it doesn't diminish the nobility of it. He did not expect to get the extra points and he thought he had done poorly. It could have only affected his nobility if he had known he would recieve thsoe points and he clearly didn't. The Triwizard Tournament wasn't even a true sporting event(IMO) but just another form of Competition. Joe From celizwh at intergate.com Sun Apr 30 23:59:22 2006 From: celizwh at intergate.com (houyhnhnm102) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 23:59:22 -0000 Subject: Headmaster Portraits (was Re: Dumbledore dead?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No: HPFGUIDX 151690 Leonard: > I think in general, one can certainly have magical > portraits of oneself without being dead. Someone will > have to check this, but Gilderoy Lockhart would be my > guess as a canonical mention of a living, portraited > person if there is one. houyhnhnm: ****************** He reached forward, picked up Neville Longbottom's copy of _Travels with Trolls_, and held it up to show his own, winking portrait on the cover. (CoS6) ... Shining brightly on the walls by the light of many candles were countless framed photographs of Lockhart.(CoS7) ****************** I sounds to me like the portraits on the books might have been photos rather than paintings and we know that living persons can be photographed. But why should there be any reason a living person could not be the subject of a painting as well? In fact, wouldn't the subject have to be living at the time the painting was created, whether by magic or by someone wielding a brush? At any rate, there is another example. Sirius thought the reason his mother's portrait would not come down was because she put a permanent sticking charm on it. So she must have been alive not only when the portrait was created, but also when it was hung. Leonard: > I personally think the portrait is evidence only for > Dumbledore no longer being Headmaster of Hogwarts. > He's not necessarily dead. houyhnhnm: I agree. While I, too, am on the fence with regard to whether or not Dumbledore is still alive I don't think any of the evidence presented really *proves* him to be dead. A wizard as powerfully magical as Dumbledore, who wished to fake his own death, would surely be able to make all the necessary details fall into place. It is more a matter of whether or not it offends against *feeling* than fact, for Dumbledore still to be alive. At the time I finished HBP, I was convinced that Dumbledore was really dead. I thought it was another example of harsh truth, of which Rowling fed us so much in OotP. We are forced to accept the finality of Dumbledore's death in the same way we were forced to accept that heroes have darker sides, and be all the better for it. Now I am starting to wonder. Perhaps it is necessary for the readers to be as convinced as Harry that DD is gone, to feel as alone as Harry does, so that we will be able to empathize with him as he completes the next stage of his journey. Harry will defeat Voldemort without Dumbledore, but DD may be revealed to be alive. What purpose would it serve to have DD still be alive? It would exonerate Snape in a way that could be accepted by all readers, and while I'm not certain about whether or not Dumbledore is alive, I am absolutely certain that he was not treacherously murdered by Snape. Beatrice: > 3. Gandalf returns... it is always worth looking a > patterns of other novels particularly one that has many > things in common. houyhnhnm: Patterns in other novels do show how a particular plot turn can be convincing. That doesn't mean that Rowling has to follow the pattern. I took some time off from my Potter obsession after HBP and during that time I reread Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy. I kept noticing similarities between Merlin/Arthur and Dumbledore/Harry. For example, the way Merlin is torn between his personal affection for Arthur and his need to use him to further "The Plan", the way he conceals truth and tells Arthur half-truths, Arthur's anger toward him and the way he deals with it, all reminded me of Harry and DD. So, I began to wonder if it would not make sense for Dumbledore, too, to have a first, apparent death which turns out to be false. From belviso at attglobal.net Sun Apr 30 23:58:40 2006 From: belviso at attglobal.net (Magpie) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 19:58:40 -0400 Subject: [HPforGrownups] Sportsmanship in Harry Potter References: Message-ID: <011d01c66cb2$02021ff0$2992400c@Spot> No: HPFGUIDX 151692 Betsy: > Does Harry getting a big point bonus for being noble actually taint > his nobility a bit? Do these books ever give us an example of good > sportsmanship? Magpie: Basically, the other players get screwed for understanding the rules. I can understand not penalizing Harry overmuch when you understand he thought the other people were in danger and that's why his time was worse than it should have been, but it's kind of ridiculous to reward him for it imo. Any of the champions would have happily gone for extra credit by saving everyone. Harry isn't showing good sportsmanship there, he's showing what he thinks is common sense--if you thought lives were at stake would you leave people behind once you got your person? I hope I wouldn't! Throughout the tournament everybody's cheating like it's going out of style (that is, mostly the adults are bringing the cheat to the players; none of them are overtly trying to cheat that we can see). None of them experience the tournament how the public is told they're experiencing it. Harry and Cedric's noble-off for the cup at the end could count. They're basically sharing the glory for their school, but the one first at the cup is sharing something where he could have personal glory. Other examples of good sportsmanship? Err, there's a couple of places where JKR seems to be highlighting Harry being a good sport. Notably when he doesn't hit Malfoy when he's down in the CoS duel, though I don't think hexing him when he's down really wouldn't be bad sportsmanship. It seems to be perfectly in keeping with what you're supposed to do in a duel (heh--it's got to be the only time in canon somebody refrains from hexing Malfoy when he's overpowered, huh?). Malfoy's hexing early is a good example of not good sportsmanship, though he doesn't get penalized for it that I remember. Usually "good sportsmanship" seems to just get thrown around to describe how other people are fighting terribly dirty. Generally whenever our guys are playing a game where they're just having fun it seems likeit's supposed to be good sportsmanship, even when they're being tricky or trash talk later. -m From OctobersChild48 at aol.com Sun Apr 30 20:13:25 2006 From: OctobersChild48 at aol.com (OctobersChild48 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 16:13:25 EDT Subject: The Sacrificial Element in Destroying a Horcrux -- JKR Message-ID: <3d4.1ed08a7.31867465@aol.com> No: HPFGUIDX 151695 In a message dated 4/28/06 12:08:26 AM Eastern Daylight Time, brahadambal at indiatimes.com writes: > Brady (Why the hell can't JKR write faster?? This is so maddening.) I'm not sure I would want her to write any faster as it might just harm the quality of the book, but I sure wish she had written sooner, as in not taking a year off. Waiting like this is torture. Sandy