[HPforGrownups] Another look at the Prophesy

[Peggy Wilkins]

No: HPFGUIDX 152137

On 5/11/06, Tonks <tonks_op at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Musing on the Prophesy.
>
> I think I might be on to something, but I don't know how it can play
> out, so we may be no further ahead.
>
> LV= death
> Lily = sacrificial love
> Harry = human life
>
> Death + sacrificial love = life
>
> "One can not live while the other survives"   death can not exist
> while life is present and life can not exist when death is present.
>
> I don't really know where to go with this. But like the riddle of
> the Sphinx it makes the prophesy understandable, I think.
>
> Comments??

Peggy W:
I'm sure there will be some symbolic interpretation in there at some
level somewhere, but I expect it to play out in a literal sense, as
well.

Also, note that your paraphrase is a little off; this part is: "either
must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the
other survives".

In thinking about this recently, it elicits an image for me that is
similar to the Priori Incantatum effect (hope I spelled that right) in
the GOF graveyard scene: I imagine it as the two of them pushing a
force (the failed curse, that is) back and forth between them, and
it's uncertain which one will "win" (like the bead of light that is
pushed between their wands in GOF).  They will most likely have to be
touching each other (the literal version of "at the hand of the
other").  The touching has been foreshadowed in PS/SS but back then
Harry's touch was physically damaging; that has now changed.

Why like Priori Incantatum?  Their (brother) wands were equals; they
are equals.  The "either must die" makes it sound like it could go
either way, which is why I see it as a pushing back and forth of a
force.

The "either" also makes it seem as if the outcome is far from certain;
it could go either way.

-- 
Peggy Wilkins
enlil65 at gmail.com