Names-Christianity/Hor-Crux/Spinner'sEnd/Werewolves-Prank/Basilisk

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 154013

Magpie wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/153680>:

<< Dolores means sorrows and comes from one of the titles of the
Virgin Mary. Do you think she's supposed to be the Virgin Mary?
Because I think JKR just thought Dolores was the right kind of name
for her because it's kind a girlie feel to it. >>

I think JKR was thinking, consciously or not, of the word 'dolorous'
meaning 'painful' because that Delores Jane sure is a pain.

<< Malfoy is definitely bad faith, a meaning which became more clear
when Draco Malfoy's story in HBP actually illustrated the meaning of
the term as Sartre used it. Apparently people had suggested the Sartre
meaning before, but people didn't think much of the theory because
until then it didn't show much about canon. >>

You might want to explain the Sartre meaning. Before HBP, I assumed
that the Malfoys had 'bad faith' as in, they lie a lot and betray
people who thought they were friends.

<< A particularly lily is called the Easter lily (a holiday never
celebrated in canon >>

Except by Mrs Weasley sending candy Easter Eggs to the kids ... they
also get a few days off classes.

a_svirn wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/153691>:

<< Leslie41: << Sirius was a Christian and so were his parents, or
else they would not have been allowed to have their child baptized. >>
And that exactly what makes me wonder whether Christianity is really
part of wizarding life. Mr and Mrs Black with their marked
predilection for dark magic – Christians?  >>

If Mr and Mrs Black despised Christianity as a Muggle (or wimp)
religion, Sirius might have embraced it as part of his rebellion
against them.

Nikkalmati wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/153700>:

<< Connecting words by means of sound is not an accepted etymological
technique. Hor- has nothing to do with whore. >>

But connecting words by means of sounds is part of figuring out what
the author was getting at, especially with invented words. I don't
doubt that the sound similarity of 'hor' and 'whore' helped the word
'horcrux' sound evil to her ears, and those of many readers.

<< I also find the image of the cross, as a religious symbol, and the
concept of a whore a troubling and inappropriate
juxtaposition. >>

The Horcrux, a means of achieving earthly immortality by commiting
murder and ripping one's own soul into pieces, is *supposed* to be a
troubling and inappropriate concept. It is *supposed* to feel blasphemous.

Minerva523 wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/153753>:

<< what about his inherited dwelling, at Spinner's End? >>

Please help me out. I don't know whether Snape inherited Spinner's End
or bought it with his earnings as a professor. Please tell me what
canon says.

Lanval wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/153778>:

<< By distancing themselves from LV or Greyback, by insisting on, and
arranging for, safety precautions for themselves, werewolves can
choose to remain members of Wizarding society  >>

I got the idea that, unlike Mr and Mrs Lupin, who tried everything for
poor baby Remus, most wizarding parents throw out their
werewolf-infected children, who then are raised by the werewolf
outlaws/outcasts with no education (neither literacy nor wizardry) and
no connection to normal wizarding society, so it is not so easy for
them to leave the werewolf gang and go to the wizards and *insist* on
acceptance and safety precautions. Would they even know to go to
Hogsmeade or the Leaky Cauldron to find wizards?

It would be different for wizards who were infected as adults and
already know how to get along in wizarding society, how to work the
org chart of the Ministry of Magic to find Werewolf Supportive
Services (mentioned in FB).

<< What do you suggest he eats, though -- not people, certainly? >>

I wouldn't be surprised if Fenrir Grayback eats humans, but if he
stations himself just before his transformation near the child he
plans to infect, he wouldn't have time to kill and eat a human in wolf
form before attacking the child.

<< Lupin states in PoA that werewolves are a danger _only_ to humans. >>

I take that as meaning "werewolves are *infectious* only to humans",
so that Padfoot wasn't infected by being nipped by Moony while both in
canine form.

I also take it as meaning that the scent (or presence) of humans
automatically drives the werewolf into a mindless frenzy of obsessed
hatred and compelled hunger, so that he can't restrain himself from
attacking any human he can reach. But among non-humans, he keeps some
part of his mind and can deliberately choose whether or not to attack
(e.g. for hunting for food). 

Wormtail and Prongs weren't scared that Moony might hunt them for food
because they carelessly assumed that as long as he didn't encounter a
human and go berserk, um, ulfserk, he still had his ENTIRE human mind
like they did. (Which is part of Animagery, as mentioned in a preface
to QTTA distinguishing between an Animagus who transforms into a bat
versus a regular wizard who is Transfigured into a bat and therefore
has only a bat's mind and no ability to remember whence he wanted to fly.)

Unfortunately, all that merely agrees with your original post
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/153705>. If, as I
had always thought, the scent/presence of humans automatically makes
the werewolf "lose all control and all traces of humanity, and turn
into a raging monster", that is, ALWAYS 'get carried away', then
indeed "how on earth does he stop himself from killing" when his
intention is to infect?

Peggy Richter wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/153808>:

<< And Lupin in answer says "thre were near misses, many of them. We
laughed about them afterward". Not the response one might make to "I
almost killed people" >>

Speaking as someone who spent my teen years dating boys who drove very
fast after a few beers: yes, it is.

Lanval wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/153833>:

<< Now you bring up another strange fact: where WERE the Marauders
that night? Why were they not with Lupin? How, and when did Sirius
tell James, and where was Peter >>

I have generally assumed that the boys sneaked out after curfew to
join Moony who was already transformed. If they left tooo early, their
absence might be noted. But then, I've never understood why the
entrance to the tunnel to the Shrieking Shack is outside under the
Whomping Willow rather than inside, maybe starting as a secret
staircase from Madam Pomfrey's office.

Kathryn Jones wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/153925>:

<< I'm rather curious as to why [Riddle] could look at [the basilisk]
and associate with it and not be killed. Flint? >>

Parselmouth.

<< He might have been offering it dinner. >>

Dinner = Myrtle.