Sending Voldie through the Veil (Was: Where will the "great battle" be)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 161999

Sarah wrote:
> Sorry, I'm sure you know what's coming.  :)  I'm kind of allergic to
> "Think of the children" as support or debunking of theories.
> <snip quotes>

Carol responds:
I promised to respond onlist, so here goes. JKR may say that she
writes for herself, and without question she's known what was coming,
at least in essentials, since before SS/Ps was written, but
nevertheless, she does care about what her child readers think and
about the characters as role models. She's always telling young girls
not to fall for the "bad boy" and that Draco isn't Tom Felton, for
example. One quote will suffice to make the point:

JKR: I make this hero—-Harry, obviously—-and there he is on the
screen, the perfect Harry, because Dan is very much as I imagine
Harry, but who does every girl under the age of 15 fall in love with?
Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy. Girls, stop going for the bad guy. Go for
a nice man in the first place. It took me 35 years to learn that, but
I am giving you that nugget free, right now, at the beginning of your
love lives."

http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/news_view.cfm?id=80

So I don't think we can debunk "Think of the children." It's clear
that JKR does care what her child readers think and what their values
are. (I can provide additional examples if necessary. she makes no
secret of her politics, for example, or her views on how girls should
behave with regard to diet, school, and boys. Since she has said on
her site, "I am sorry if there are Dudley fans out there, but I think
you need to look at your priorities if it is Dudley that you are
looking forward to," I'm pretty sure she doesn't approve of
Dudley-type behavior, either; bullying, watching too much TV,
overeating, and blowing up aliens on his computer, throwing temper
tantrums, breaking his toys, and never opening a book. She expects her
child readers to understand that they shouldn't follow Dudley's
example--or Draco's. Harry, OTOH, is supposed to be flawed but
admirable, a kid like themselves who's also a role model: the good
guy. But I also think that, artistically speaking, a video-game-style
death would be a bad choice and inconsistent with JKR's style. Yes,
there's some violence and a lot of pain, but not blood and gore
everywhere as in cartoons, horror films, and video games. She also
tones down the sexual attraction and the language. Movie!Ron comes a
bit closer than the written characters to the way real teenage boys
act and talk, but only a bit.
>
> Sarah:
> She's already killed some beloved characters, and put still more
> through some serious angst.  Allegedly, there were young readers
that sought therapy after reading about Snape killing Dumbledore.  The
> point is, she *still* did it.  I totally believe her when she says
> she's telling the story she wanted to tell, and it is sad and scary.
> The books so far bear this out.

Carol responds:
I'm not arguing that there won't be any more deaths. We know for sure
that she's added two unplanned deaths (and one reprieve) to the total,
and obviously, people have to die to make a war realistic. but I think
she'll choose those deaths carefully (most of them minor characters
off-page; a chosen few important characters on-page for maximum
effect. I very much doubt that one of them will be Harry, but that's a
topic for another post.) Nor do I doubt that Harry will face Voldemort
alone (though he'll have plenty of help along the way) and destroy him
somehow. What I'm objecting to is a video-game-style murder by Harry.
It has to be something only he can do, which leads me to believe that
he'll possess Voldemort and force him through the Veil. He'll think
that he's dying, too, so it will be self-sacrifice rather than
murder--except that, in my preferred scenario, Harry survives. (See my
previous posts on this topic, some of which can be found upthread.)

Also note that Dumbledore's death is not particularly violent; it's
played in slow motion, with DD floating like a rag doll over the
battlements and only a trickle of blood on DD's face. His eyes are
closed and he looks like he's asleep. (The scene with Harry feeding
him poison is much more disturbing, at least in terms of visual
details and indications of suffering.)

Sarah:
 For me personally, the most disturbing incident was a guy
dismembering himself to use the limb as a potion ingredient, but I
like books that evoke a response.  Folks that don't probably gave up
after Cedric, Sirius and Dumbledore died.

Carol:
We agree here, actually. JKR thought that her description of
Fetal!mort would be disturbing to her readers, maybe even censored by
her editors, but I was much more horrified by Wormtail's slicing off
his hand. Reading that scene still gives me chills. (The film played
that one down or they'd have gotten an R rating for violence,
probably.) As for deaths, I found Cedric's murder upsetting, in part
because of its suddenness and needlessness and in part because he was
a likeable, innocent boy, and his parents' reactions deeply moving,
especially his mother's profound and tearless grief; Sirius Black's
death merely left me wondering what was going on (and sorry for Harry
when I realized what was happening). Dumbledore's murder disturbed me
primarily because I couldn't believe that JKR had made Snape a traitor
to his mentor after all the hints and clues that his loyalties lay
with Dumbledore. It took me awhile (about three days of mental
anguish) to realize that I wasn't deluding myself by hoping that he
could still be DDM. (Until that point, I felt as if *she* had betrayed
*me*!) 

Again, I'm not asking her not to evoke a response, or multiple
responses, including surprise or even shock. Quite the opposite. I
wouldn't be reading and rereading the books, half eagerly
anticipating, half dreading the final book in the series, if the HP
books didn't evoke a variety of emotional responses in me, from
laughter to tears to anger (at Umbridge and Fake!Moody and Bellatrix),
even on multiple rereadings. And, of course, it's fun to see things
that we overlooked on earlier readings and reinterpret them with the
benefit of hindsight, though, IMO, we could be doing ourselves a
disservice to look at Snape that way. There's more to come on him, and
on Petunia and Lupin as well, or I'm deeply mistaken. It's too soon to
pass judgment until all the evidence is in. (IMO.)
>
Carol earlier:
> My concern about AK in particular is that it's a Dark curse, the
weapon of the enemy, specifically created as a murder weapon.
>
Sarah:
> I don't think that's going to happen either.  Harry has already
shown  a remarkable inability for performing the Unforgivable Curses.
 (Even though they are now also a tool in the Auror toolbox.)

Carol:
So we agree again. :-) I just hope Harry learns that lesson, probably
via Snape, before he faces Voldemort. (Re the Aurors, I don't think
they use them that often. Just because Barty Sr. authorized them
doesn't mean that all or even most of the Aurors use them. See my
recent post on Frank Longbottom,

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/161727

And were the Aurors still authorized to use the Unforgiveable Curses
after Crouch Sr. was shunted sideways into the Department of
International Cooperation when Harry was no more than two years old? I
wonder about Rufus Scrimgeour's methods, especially when Crouch was
head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but I can't see
Madam Bones, who took Crouch Sr.'s place, authorizing Unforgiveables.
(I wonder who'll take *her* place?)

Sarah:
> Harry already killed Quirrell, didn't he?  It could be argued that
Quirrell self-bubbled by touching Harry, or that it was accidental, or
a side effect, but the bottom line is that Harry laid hands on
Quirrell and Quirell died.  If this didn't divide Harry's soul, then
he should have plenty of options for Voldemort.

Carol:
Erm, no. As I said, offlist, it's only in the film that Harry kills
Quirrell. In SS/PS, Harry falls unconscious before Quirrell dies.
Dumbledore tells Harry that he "arrived just in time to pull Quirrell
off [him]" and that Voldemort "left Quirrell to die" (SS Am. ed. 297
and 298). And in GoF, Voldemort reiterates this version of events when
he tells the DEs that "the servant [Quirrell] died when I left his
body" (Am. ed. 654). Better still, JKR confirms the accuracy of these
statements in her answer to a question on Thestrals in the 2004
Edinburgh Book festival interview: "Someone said that Harry saw
Quirrell die, but that is not true. He was unconscious when Quirrell
died, in Philosopher's Stone. He did not know until he came around
that Quirrell had died when Voldemort left his body." Someone said
that Harry saw Quirrell die, but that is not true. He was unconscious
when Quirrell died, in Philosopher's Stone. He did not know until he
came around that Quirrell had died when Voldemort left his body."

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2004/0804-ebf.htm

So, no, Harry hasn't killed anybody, even in self-defense, and
Quirrell's death had no effect whatever on his soul. (IMO, it was the
DADA curse, in combination with his own character flaws, that killed
Quirrell. See my post, "The DADA jinx and its victims"

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/137961?threaded=1&l=1

if you're interested.)

Carol earlier:
> Soldiers defending their country  suffer what used to be
euphemistically referred to as combat fatigue, including nightmares
decades later and other permanent psychological damage.
>
Sarah:
> Exactly.  In my opinion, the only authorial irresponsibility will be
if Harry lives and this *isn't* shown.  He has to banish Voldemort
from this plane of existence.  It won't be easy.  Whether Harry shoots
Voldemort with an M-16 or gently shoves him through the veil, he's
killing him.  If he skips off into the sunset to marry Ginny without a
care in the world afterward, that is what I will have a problem with.

Carol:
Gently shoving him through the Veil would be like Gretel shoving the
wicked witch into the oven. Sure, the witch is wicked, but that action
always struck me as murder. However, if Harry possesses Voldemort and
Voldemort runs through the Veiled arch to free himself of the agony
inflicted by the power of Harry's self-sacrificial Love invading his
mind, then Harry won't need to kill him. He'll do the job himself.
With the side benefit that a person can't have two souls, or even one
and one seventh souls, and Harry's soul will be superfluous. In my
scenario, the shade of Sirius Black will invite Harry to possess his
body, which is stuck behind the Veil because Sirius, being dead, can't
go back through the Veil. Sirius's soul will remain behind, but Harry
will be able to take Sirius's body outside the Veil, where it will be
available for burial, and he'll be able to reenter his own body and
live. Sorry to reiterate the theory yet again, but I need to make
clear that I'm not talking about Harry committing murder here even
though Voldemort, like Sirius Black before him, will be permanently
and irrevocably dead, reunited, maybe, with the fragments of his soul
from the Horcruxes (IMO, the soul bits have already gone beyond the
Veil and are waiting for the main soul piece), but unable ever to
return. So Harry can "kill" Voldemort without committing an act of
violence of using an Unforgiveable Curse.

I doubt that Harry will suffer remorse for sending Voldemort through
the Veil (if that's what happens) because he will have willingly
chosen to sacrifice himself and by doing so has rid the world of
Voldemort and lived to tell about it. Nevertheless, in my view, he
won't "skip off into the sunset to marry Ginny without a care in the
world." Ugh. They'll still be sixteen and seventeen at the end of the
book, and they'll both have some resting and grieving and healing to
do, especially if any Weasleys or other "favorite characters" die, as
seems likely. Harry will never be the same as he was when he entered
the WW at age eleven--he's already greatly changed--or even as he was
before he fought Voldemort. You can't fight a battle like that and not
end up with battle scars even though they'll probably be invisible. 

By the end of the book, he will have grown up--not by attaining the
magical age of seventeen (as if the Weasley Twins suddenly matured on
their seventeenth birthday) but by figuring things out for himself
without his adult mentors and living up to the expectations placed
upon him by Godric's Hollow and the Prophecy. After the defeat of
Voldemort, he'll be well on his way to acquiring wisdom (even though
he has many years of life to experience before he arrives at a level
of understanding matiching Dumbledore's) and to appreciating
Dumbledore's judgments much more than he does at the end of HBP. There
will be shadows in his past, but heroism, too. And there will be hope
for the future, when he's ready to take up the burdens of ordinary
life again. (I think his celebrity status will fade as the danger of a
Voldemort takeover passes. Gratitude is much more short-lived than
resentment in the WW as in RL.)

Applying Bilbo's chosen ending, "and he lived happily ever after to
the end of his days," to the HP books doesn't mean that Harry's life
will be perfect. Of course it won't be. Life never is, in Harry's
world or Bilbo's or ours. It only means that happiness will finally be
within Harry's reach. He can finally *live* now that Voldemort no
longer *survives*. I hope that "living" means going back to Hogwarts,
along with Harry, Ron, and Ginny for their seventh year. (I predict
Ginny will have completed her sixth year during Book 7, so they'll all
be in the same class. Maybe a chastened Draco will return, too.)
They'll have at least a year of what passes for normal teenage life in
the WW before they need to think about getting jobs or getting
married, but we won't have to read any of that happy stuff in detail.
It will all be conveniently summarized in the Epilogue. I could, of
course, be wrong on all counts, but that's the ending I'm hoping for.
(I also want Snape to use his talents as a researcher for St. Mungo's,
but my hopes for him are unfortunately not so high, but I vastly
prefer community service to Azkaban or death as a punishment/reward
for DDM!Snape.)

Carol, who knows quite well that Harry will suffer intensely in Book 7
but expects JKR to reward him and his (supposedly young) fans by
letting him become "Just Harry" at last