Quirrell Corner (was: Sending Voldie through the Veil)

[Constance Vigilance]

No: HPFGUIDX 162121

Pleased that someone wants to talk about the Q-man, CV tosses back 
the remains of her Purple Turban and sets the smoking glass on the 
table.

Marianne:
> 
> 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.  

CV:

Yay! I have always been able to argue against every other bit of 
"evidence" that the Q-man is dead, but this remark of JKR has always 
been problematic. Now you've provided the answer to that! Here, let 
me buy you a Purple Turban. They are delicious.

Marianne:

> [T]he 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? 
> 

CV:

Actually, I only recently began to understand the abuse metaphor 
espoused in Quirrell. When I fully began to see Quirrell's symptoms 
as representing a tortured person in the grip of another, I began to 
wonder why nobody, including myself, feels sympathy for this guy. How 
can we be so cold? Maybe Quirrell's duplicitous act is so effective 
that we don't have the time to get to see the pain that lies beneath 
the surface. But then, isn't that the way with abuse victims? They 
can so perfectly mask the pain that other people are completely 
fooled.

Marianne:

> 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.
> 

CV:

Peter is another interesting character. On one level, he is a 
snivelling weakling who will sell out his friends for his own 
purposes. On another, he knows that he is the runt of the litter. He 
is the butt of jokes. He has very few personal resources. This is the 
type of person who is easily seduced, especially by a person who 
makes promises. Peter is another victim of Voldemort.

One wonders how Voldy communicates with people when he is in his 
gaseous form. Can he talk when he is smoke? Or does he possess people 
in order to talk to them?

Marianne:

> [A]ssuming 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? 
> 

CV:

You have a point. It could be that. But by this time, I'm so 
personally invested in the Q-man that I prefer to believe 
differently. :) Here, you need to drink that Purple Turban fast or it 
will disolve the glass.

Marianne:

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.
> 

CV:

Yay! (Are we anxiously awaiting a supposedly dead character to 
reappear? I know *I* am, but has there been other indications to that 
effect, or is this just speculation?)

There is a theory that has been floating around for a long time that 
basically states that each task in the dungeon represents one book in 
the series. In that case, the final book should be something like 
Harry Potter and Nobody Expects Quirrell. Right?