Lord V: A Fate worse than death?

[kkersey_austin]

No: HPFGUIDX 167041

Snipping from Firefly's post:
> If I put all that together in my tiny little mind I get a showdown
> where Harry can ensure that LordV can never return to power by
> destroying the body of LordV but leaving one horcrux so that Lord V
> remains a powerless bodiless vapor. Harry would then pass through the
> veil of his own free will to ensure that LordV cannot be reanimated,
 
Elisabet considers:

Hmmmm.... But wouldn't that just put LV right back to where he was at
the beginning of the series? Vapormort was indeed mostly helpless for
a decade or so, but he certainly was not powerless - the power of
possession is what got him control of Quirrel and from that point on
he had several avenues open to him - serial possession, gaining
control of the PS, and of course the reconstitution of his body in the
cauldron. Those are just the ones we know he tried, and given enough
time he would possibly think of more. As long as there is one Horcrux
remaining, he has in fact all the time in the world (if not all the
patience for it!) Come to think of it, maybe he would have been better
off just laying low in Albania leading a snakey half-life for a few
decades until Harry had lived his life and died a natural death.

> as a vital ingredient "blood of THE enemy" will be gone forever.
 
I'm not convinced that Harry Potter was the only candidate for "enemy"
of Voldemort - DD springs to mind here. In fact, a guy like Voldemort
is going to have no shortage of enemies. Now, there may be some reason
Voldemort can't go down that particular road again, and it may indeed
be the reason you cite, but he has as much time as he wants to come
up with a plan B, or C, or D, as long as that last Horcrux is safe.

I do agree that choice - an act of free will - will likely be the key
in destroying Voldemort; I think that Prophesy-Puppet!Harry following
the "First, destroy all the horcruxes, then duel to the death with LV
(preferably on a Rickety Catwalk Over a River of Molten Lava)" recipe
would be a bit disappointing, for this reader at least. Not that I'm
against catwalks, or duels, or lava - it's just that that is exactly
what Harry (and the reader, or Faith anyway) are expecting. 

Elisabet, wondering if the Big Bang Destroyer is still patrolling
Theory Bay...

P.S. Just thinking some further explanation may be needed here. For
those who weren't here "back in the day", as it were, Theory Bay was
an imaginary landscape created by members of HPfGU, in which their
favorite theories, or outlandish proposals, or critical modes, etc.
were represented by various objects (usually some sort of watercraft)
or character, or location. "Faith" is the personification of
straightforward, what-you-see-is-what-you-get reading of the text. A
more nuanced description of Faith can be found here:
http://www.hpfgu.org.uk/faq/hypotheticalley.html#faith

The Big Bang Destroyer, under the command of a particularly ruthless
and bloodthirsty captain, attacked any theory which did not Bang -
that is, in the immortal words of Elkins way back in message number
38898, any theory that failed to provide "opportunities for a Great
Character-changing Catalyst, or for a Shocking Revelation, or for a
Mind-Blowing Plot Twist, or for an Oscar-worthy Cinematic Moment." 

OK, so the Oscar-Worthy Cinematic Moment could happen even if Harry
simply follows the straightforward "destroy Horcruxes then kill
Voldemort" plan that the prophesy seems to require, but my money is on
a big suprise for us readers, or at the very least for Harry. And I
think that the suprise will be, at least in part, that he really does
have a choice. So Firefly, I agree strongly with your point number 1,
with the caveat that Harry will be tempted by vengence, or the
perceived necessity of murder, and think he is capable of murder, or
for that matter, possibly actually be capable of murder - but he will
in the end make the choice not to do it. (And Voldemort will not win.)

Elisabet, signing off on this message for real this time...