[HPforGrownups] Re: What Came First: Task or Cabinet? - The Plan v1 & v2/Bigotry or Not?

[Jordan Abel]

No: HPFGUIDX 157736

> Magpie:
> I would not be accusing anyone of rewriting CoS if they were doing
> that unless they were doing what they were doing here: claiming that
> we knew for a fact that Lucius was working with Voldemort (as in "we
> must remember that Draco went to Voldemort first...") and then
> changing scenes to have meanings that require unreasonable
> twisting.

Random832
I meant your objection seems similar to a hypothetical objection to
arguing the (now known to be true) point that Voldemort had nothing to
do with Lucius giving Ginny the diary, before that was generally
known. Many people for q"knew" that it was Voldemort's plan, etc, and
to say otherwise would be as disingenuous (and no more) as saying that
Draco went to Voldemort first is now.

> Magpie:
> I have said on numerous occasions I'm not saying that people can't
> have this as a theory.  But particularly if I'm being told something
> is going on in front of me in the book

You're _not_ being told that, though. You're merely drawing a
conclusion from the things you have been told. Others have drawn a
different conclusion. Also, I don't seriously think that Draco's
orders were anything other than to kill DD. But that doesn't mean we
know it for a fact. I think there's substantially more doubt, however
as to how the plan developed. We don't know and there is no obvious
conclusion. Our _only_ source for it being Voldemort wanting to send
Draco on an impossible mission to get revenge on the Malfoys is
Narcissa, a character whom JKR has _not_ done anything in particular
to set up as a reliable source of information - and neither Bellatrix
nor Snape even claim she's right.

> Magpie:
> there's no reason not to
> subject it to the same tests any other interpretation would get.
> Usually the "making up theories" part of the list is separate from
> the "literary analysis" part, which is why it isn't a problem.  This
> thread crashed them together.  Seems this is a bad idea, because
> there's two different things going on and all of us are irritated at
> being expected to play the other's game.

Random832:
If "making up theories" is to be separate from "literary analysis",
you can't analyze anything at all other than what's shown on the page.
You just want to analyze the text in conjunction with _your_ theory,
and to accuse anyone who wants to go off of a different theory of
"crashing them together". Your theory that Narcissa has some special
insight into Voldemort's motives is no less controversial than any
other theory.

Keep in mind that Narcissa also doesn't know about the cabinet but
does know about the order to kill DD. This is an incomplete picture
from which she (rightly) derives the belief that Draco has been given
a mission with no means of accomplishing it. In that context, it makes
sense to think it's an attempt at revenge by proxy against Lucius.
However, that context is _manifestly incorrect_ in the face of the
fact that the vanishing cabinet does exist and (by the fact that
reinforcements are sent through it we may assume) Voldemort knows
about it. It's not even clear that Narcissa would draw the same
conclusion if she knew that Draco had a decent shot of pulling it off,
and it's not clear that even if she would she'd be right. She does not
(that we have heard of) have any special insight into Voldemort's
motives, and she does not have all the information she would need even
if she did.

-- 
Random832