Parallels in Prophecy (long)

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 146544

In the six months which have passed since the unveiling of HBP, a 
huge amount of time and bandwidth has been expended on certain 
threads which seem to dominate the thinking of group members, in 
particular Snape and the Horcruxes. This has been true in the past 
with other topics and "that" prophecy has frequently occupied the 
headline position.

My mind has been brought back to it because of the brief exchanges I 
have had recently regarding the prophecies in Shakespeare's "Macbeth" 
and I have been pondering over other prophecies which come to mind. 
Even in the real world, this is an area which lays itself open to 
varied interpretations and misinterpretations. By way of example, the 
Oracle at Delphi in ancient times was renowned for its obfuscatory 
messages.

In group discussions which involve other books, the most commonly 
occurring comparisons are with LOTR and the Narnia books and both of 
these, as well as Macbeth, have prophecies in places. Perhaps the 
easiest are those on C.S.Lewis' books. In "The Lion, the Witch and 
the Wardrobe", two are quoted.

Mr.Beaver tells the children:
"For that's another of the old rhymes: 
When Adam's flesh and Adam's bone
Sits at Cair Paravel in throne,
The evil time will be over and done"

Shortly afterwards, he continues:
"She (the White Witch) has been watching for you this many a year and 
if she knew there were four of you she'd be more dangerous still."
"What's that to do with it?" asked Peter.
"Because of another prophecy," said Mr.Beaver. "Down at Cair Paravel –
 that's the castle on the sea coast down at the mouth of this river 
which ought to be the capital if all was as it should be – down at 
Cair Paravel there are four thrones and it's a saying in Narnia time 
out of mind that when two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Adam sit 
in those four thrones, then it will be the end not only of the White 
Witch's reign but of her life..."

These are very straightforward prophecies and would seem to be too 
obvious for wrong readings to be made; in passing, the second has 
interesting echoes of Harry Potter to me.

Considering Macbeth, the meetings with the witches produce messages 
which differ in that they are a mixture of fact and foretelling. When 
they first greet Macbeth, they hail him as  Thane of Glamis, Thane of 
Cawdor and as a future king. The first he knows for fact but, within 
minutes, he is greeted with the news that the second title is now his 
because of its previous holder's treason. He is intrigued by the 
thought of kingship and when he tells Lady Macbeth, she sets about 
converting it into a self-fulfilling prophecy by arranging the murder 
of King Duncan. Scotland is thrown into turmoil by the tyrannical 
rule which follows which leads Macbeth to his second encounter with 
the Weird Sisters. Again, the advice is split into a warning and two 
prophecies. First, beware Macduff, the Thane of Fife. Then the two 
messages we have been discussing: 

"Be bloody, bold and resolute:
Laugh to scorn 
The power of man: for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth"

And


"Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be, until
Great Birnam Wood, to high Dunsinane Hill
Shall come against him."

Finally, we have an interesting parallel in "The Return of the King". 
The Lord of the Nazgûl is confronted in front of the fallen King 
Théoden:

"Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!"
A cold voice answered: "Come not between the Nazgûl and his prey!
.."
"A sword rang as it was drawn. "Do what you will; but I will hinder 
it if I may."
"Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!"
Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed 
that Dernhelm laughed and the clear voice was like the ring of 
steel. "But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, 
Éomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, 
if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you 
if you touch him."
The winged creature screamed at her but the Ringwraith made no answer 
and was silent as if in sudden doubt.

The interesting thought which comes to me is, where does prophecy 
originate? In the examples above, we have foretelling from two 
different directions. The prophecies given to Macbeth are planned to 
subvert "brave Macbeth" and to bring him down to destruction; they 
are evil in intent. Conversely, that in Lewis' story is prophecy on 
the side of good, telling of the fall of the White Witch and the 
restoration of Narnia. Likewise, the prophecy regarding the Lord of 
the Nazgûl also can be seen as a good one. Similar in its idea to 
Macbeth, it has obviously been taken at face value by the Ringwraith, 
taking "man" in a generic sense and failing, as Macbeth did, to see 
an alternative interpretation.

Now to Harry Potter. Do we consider the prophecy to be a good one or 
a bad one? Initially, I suppose good because it talks about the Dark 
Lord being vanquished. Again, rather like the Macbeth scenario, 
Voldemort makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy by taking action to 
negate it; he decides that Harry is the "one" meant and attacks him. 
Reminiscent of Macbeth and King Duncan.

Jo Rowling makes no secret of the fact that she likes Macbeth. In the 
Leaky Cauldron/Mugglenet interview on 16th July 2005, she said this:

"JKR: 
.Harry's a threat. They must meet each other.
ES: I remember thinking when I read "Order of the Phoenix," what 
would happen if Harry and Voldemort just decided to —
JKR: Shake hands, and walk away? We'll agree to disagree!

[Laughter.]

ES: What if he never heard the prophecy?
JKR: And that's it, isn't it. As I said, that's what I posted on my 
site -
ES: I'm glad you put that up.
JKR: It's the "Macbeth" idea. I absolutely adore "Macbeth." It is 
possibly my favourite Shakespeare play. And that's the question isn't 
it? If Macbeth hadn't met the witches, would he have killed Duncan? 
Would any of it have happened? Is it fated or did he make it happen? 
I believe he made it happen."

Voldermort, by foloowing a similar line of thinking, has kicked the 
ball into touch and made things happen. But the question remains, how 
do we interpret the prophecy? We have seen that, in the case of 
Shakespeare and Tolkien, the prophecies worked out in a way that 
their recipients least expected. Foretelling which seemed to favour 
them was suddenly revealed to have a sting in its tail.

It is interesting in the LOTR narrative at the Pelennor Fields that 
Éowyn is able to overcome the Witch-King because, she is not a man, 
and she is also helped by Merry, who also is not a man but a hobbit. 
In the final encounter, the chief Ringwraith is unbodied. But there 
is no stigma attached to her in the killing of this evil being. It is 
a pivotal point in the great victory which the Men of the West 
achieved against Sauron.

Can we draw any conclusions for Book 7. Possibly a dozen conflicting 
resolutions to the battle! Since Jo Rowling is fan of Macbeth and 
read Tolkien when she was about twenty and enjoyed it, we can see 
that there are echoes of what enthused her in her use of prophecy etc.
 
Voldermort has perhaps been lulled into thinking that the prophecy 
favours him; is he, like the Ringwraith and Macbeth, due for a nasty 
shock? Can Harry dispose of him by unbodying him again – perhaps with 
the help of others such as Ron and Hermione acting in concert as 
Merry did? Can he also, as Éowyn did, defeat Voldemort and still feel 
no guilt attached?

Éowyn's cry: "Begone, if thou be not deathless" still chimes with me. 
Voldemort prides himself that he had:
"gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality."
(GOF "The Death Eaters" p.566 UK edition)
but, like the Lord of the Nazgûl, he hasn't yet reached that point...

I take a measure of ease in that, both in the Macbeth and LOTR 
prophecies, good triumphed in the end; I am still a member of the 
Harry will Live group and am optimistic that we will prevail. I 
believe that, in the end, JKR will pull off something which will 
surprise Voldemort, Harry, the Wizarding World and, last but not 
least, us...