Harry Vanquishing LV without killing him/Prophecies are tricky!

[Lia]

No: HPFGUIDX 146554


 Geoff wrote:
 Yes, but with respect, Shakespeare also gives us the other side 
 of the coin:
 
 THIRD APPARITION: 
 ....
 Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be, until
 Great Birnam Wood, to high Dunsinane Hill
 Shall come against him. 
 (The Tragedy of Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I)
 
 The way in which Shakespeare worked this prophecy out - as a bit 
 of a con - absolutely incensed J.R.R.Tolkien and was a factor in
 his creation of the Ents.
 
 An interesting point which crossed my mind when typing this quote 
 was the use of "vanquish'd"....
 
 Familiar?
 
 
 Lia says:
   
 Ack!  You've quoted "that Scottish play"!  Oh, the foul luck of it all! ;-)  (...speaking as a former thespian...)
   
 Your mention of Shakespeare and Tolkien in one fell swoop puts me in mind of how often characters in a text will take a prophecy one way, only to discover later on that there's a trickiness or catch inherent in the wording.
   
 Think also, in "the Scottish play", of MacDuff being instrumental.  No one imagined a man being "of no woman born"...yet, here's MacDuff, from his mother's womb "untimely ripped".  
   
 Also, there's Eowyn bringing about the demise of the Lord of the Nazgul in LOTR.  The prophecy stated that he would not perish by the hand of man...but ah, as we readers all see, Eowyn did not fall into that category:
   
 "No living man may hinder me!"
 "No living man am I!  You look upon a woman!"
   
 Maybe, as others in this thread have suggested, the "Dark Lord vanquished" prophecy is also subject to more than one interpretation...and only once events have come to pass will we see how things fall into place in keeping with the prophecy.
   
 Lia, remembering how Cassandra became a prophetess, yet no nobody ever believed a word she said