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

[kiricat4001]

No: HPFGUIDX 162075

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Constance Vigilance" 
<ConstanceVigilance at ...> wrote:

> OK. As old-timers here know, Quirrell is my favorite character. He 
> represents the rape and abuse victim class in the series. He was a 
> wide-eyed innocent when he left Hogwarts to improve his skills. He 
> was seduced by a charismatic character who enters Quirrell's body 
> against his will. This is a classic rape metaphor. Quirrell's 
> personality then changes - he dressed differently - he stammers - 
he 
> has body tics - he is frightened by everything. We hear him 
weeping 
> in private. <snip>
 In every way, he behaves as an abused spouse. 
> 
> At the time JKR was writing the first book of the series, she was 
> also a recovering victim of spousal abuse. Intentional or not, 
> Quirrell is her mirror at the time. 
> 
> We readers are accomplices in this. We are given a character who 
is 
> quite obviously in a state of distress and we are not empathetic. 
We 
> even allow her to kill him off in cold blood without looking back. 
> 
> For this reason, I have real difficulty believing that we have 
heard 
> the end of the stuttering professor.
> 
> There are a couple of problems with his supposed death. First, 
> Dumbledore never says that Quirrell actually died. As Carol points 
> out above, he only says that Voldemort left him to die. Why would 
> Quirrell be in a terminal condition? He has a double-dose of 
unicorn 
> blood in him which "will keep you alive if you are a breath from 
> death". <snip>
 Finally, the one key to physical 
> recovery, even after the unicorn blood is the Stone, which is 
right 
> there in the room with them. He was certainly damaged by having 
Harry 
> touch him, but is that a fatal blow?
> 
> There is no proof in the book at all that Quirrell didn't survive 
the 
> dungeon. We have only the JKR quote above (http://www.accio-
quote.org/
> articles/2004/0804-ebf.htm) to indicate that Quirrell is dead. 
> 
> "He did not know until he came around that Quirrell had died when 
> Voldemort left his body." 
> 
> I don't know. I just have a problem with that. First of all, it 
isn't 
> true. Harry did not know in the hospital wing that Quirrell died 
when 
> Voldy left his body. At best, he knows that Quirrell died AND 
Voldy 
> left his body. There is no way for Harry to put the two issues 
> together at this point in his education. Plus, we have an example 
of 
> Voldy leaving a body and the body not dying - I refer to Harry's 
> possession in the Ministry.
> 
> And then there is Dumbledore's statement that he NEVER was able to 
> keep a DADA teacher after the curse. But that is also demonstrably 
> wrong related to Quirrell. Was Dumbledore mistaken? Is it a flint? 
Or 
> is Dumbledore and JKR covering up something important for the 
> climactic battle?
> 
> Finally, could JKR, in one bold stroke, kill off the most pitiful 
> character in the series - the one who represents herself at her 
> lowest?

Marianne:

I probably should have done more snipping, but since this is CV's 
first post in a while, and a golden opportunity for her to restate 
her Quirrell support, I didn't have the heart to take electronic 
shears to it.

I'm wary of using JKR quotes as support as sometimes she is not 
precise in her language, whether she may be doing it deliberately to 
throw readers off the scent or because she is answering quickly and 
doesn't take the time to be absolutely, completely, correct.  For 
instance, in two different interviews she commented on the Potters 
situation at the time of Harry's baptism. In one interview she said 
they were thinking of going into hiding.  In the other she said they 
were already in hiding. Well, either they were in hiding or they 
weren't. It may not matter in the whole arc of the story, but this 
does indicate that JKR is not always precise. 

Her words quoted above may not make sense in terms of what Harry's 
knowledge at the time would lead him to understand, but it may be 
that this explanation, in JKR's mind, is close enough to the truth 
that she's not worried about any possible discrepancies.

CV's comment on the readership's lack of empathy is intriguing. Is 
it because, with all his ticks and mannerisms, he ranges from 
looking ridiculous to looking pathetic, neither of which is geared 
towards making him sympathetic? Is it because we don't see him 
attempt to fight back against his possession or expose it to DD or 
the Ministry or anyone who might think that proof of Voldemort's 
existence is something that should be known? Does this make him weak 
or bad or at least far enough fallen from grace that he somehow 
doesn't deserve our pity? 

We could probably draw parallels with Wormtail, who also seems to be 
an unwilling servant of Voldemort. Although in Peter's case, it 
seems to have been a matter of wanting to save his own skin that 
caused him to turn.

In answer to the last question, assuming Quirrell does represent 
JKR "at her lowest," could not killing him off be JKR's symbolic way 
of getting rid of that part of her life, saying it effect, it's over 
and done, and it's time close the book on that period? 

Then again, DD did make that offer to Draco in HBP to hide him after 
convincing the world he's dead. As we all anxiously await for a 
supposedly dead character to reappear in Book 7, perhaps it won't be 
Emmeline Vance or Caradoc Dearborn or Amelia Bones or Regulus Black. 
Perhpas it will be Quirrell.

Marianne